Home Alone (1990)

The Scene: Angels With Filthy Souls

Why We Love This Scene: Without thinking too much, I would have to say that Home Alone was probably the last “kids movie” that I saw in the theaters before I got too old for that sort of thing. The first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film also came out earlier in 1990. After that it was all PG-13 flicks for me. But I remember loving Home Alone and the off-kilter confidence and exceptional cockiness of Macaulay Culkin in his first starring role as Kevin McCallister. Even when he wasn’t playing Roadrunner to Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern’s Coyote he was witty, charming and had a precocious demeanor that could rival Groucho Marx. There was a reason this kid was going places in the 90s. It’s very unfortunate that Hollywood totally overexposed him because who knows of what greatness Culkin could’ve accomplished by now. 

One scene in particular that always makes me chuckle still till this day is when Kevin fools the pizza delivery kid with a very schlocky gangster movie supposedly modeled after typically made gangster flicks in the 30s. At the time, I think I knew it was a fake movie made specifically for Home Alone, mostly due to the nature of how Kevin uses the lines to effectively fool the delivery boy but it’s made so well that even now watching it again, it could still fool most people. But I think I’ve quoted this fake gangster fella so much that it still brings a smile to my face hearing them all again. “Leave it on the doorstep and get the hell outta here.” in that stereotypical Chicago accent still floors me. Just yesterday I saw a girl wearing an “ugly Christmas sweater” that read: Merry Christmas Ya Filthy Animal. They struck gold again when they repeated the joke the 1992 sequel, which again, had great quotable lines, like: “I believe ya…but my Tommy gun don’t!”  

I’m glad that Home Alone (both of them really) still stand up as great holiday movie classics. The seasonal sentiment works as well as the laughs. And even though I was growing out of kids’ flicks when they came out, I’m glad I’m not Grinchy enough that I can still appreciate these films.