These posts are almost funnier than the OP.
Almost.
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Some general thoughts and feelings on Kevin McCallister from Home Alone 1+2
- Thread starter Finale Fireworker
- Start date
- Entertainment
These posts are almost funnier than the OP.
Almost.
PRESS RELEASE
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NEWS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
DECEMBER 1ST, 2021
NEW YORK, NEW YORK -- It has come to my attention that some statements I made in the past surrounding the actions of the notorious "Wet Bandits" (also known regionally as "The Sticky Bandits") are being circulated online in an attempt to defame me. I would like to take this opportunity to clarify the situation and dispel the accusations against me.
The Wet Bandits pursued numerous attempts on the life of Kevin McCallister to make good on their promise to catch and kill him. This is illegal in both the state of Illinois and the state of New York City. As this is the law of the land, it is also wrong that The Wet Bandits sought vigilante justice outside the criminal justice system. Kevin McCallister had a right to a trial the same as anyone. As a proponent of law and order, and as a one-time appearance in the background of an episode of Law & Order on TV, I can state unequivocally that The Wet Bandits actions were wrong. They should not have tried to catch and kill Kevin McCallister.
However we must acknowledge that this is the plot of the movie. Two parties, one composed of Kevin McCallister and another of The Wet Bandits, take turns attempting to inflict mortal injury on one another. To take sides on this matter is to inherently support the murder of one party at the hands of another. I personally believe that both sides are to blame. But the fact remains that Kevin is far more successful in his attempts to kill The Wet Bandits, who are lucky to be alive. Whoever you are "rooting for" when watching the movies, the end result is immutable. Kevin always wins. It comes from a place of great empathy that I am able to feel sorry for The Wet Bandits. I hope this year you too can open your heart to the plight of the needy and relate a little more to Kevin's victims. Kevin McCallister himself once said: "Your heart might still be broken, but it isn't gone."
Thank you sincerely and good tidings to all.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
DECEMBER 1ST, 2021
STATEMENT ON ALLEGED SUPPORT FOR THE WET BANDITS
NEW YORK, NEW YORK -- It has come to my attention that some statements I made in the past surrounding the actions of the notorious "Wet Bandits" (also known regionally as "The Sticky Bandits") are being circulated online in an attempt to defame me. I would like to take this opportunity to clarify the situation and dispel the accusations against me.
The Wet Bandits pursued numerous attempts on the life of Kevin McCallister to make good on their promise to catch and kill him. This is illegal in both the state of Illinois and the state of New York City. As this is the law of the land, it is also wrong that The Wet Bandits sought vigilante justice outside the criminal justice system. Kevin McCallister had a right to a trial the same as anyone. As a proponent of law and order, and as a one-time appearance in the background of an episode of Law & Order on TV, I can state unequivocally that The Wet Bandits actions were wrong. They should not have tried to catch and kill Kevin McCallister.
However we must acknowledge that this is the plot of the movie. Two parties, one composed of Kevin McCallister and another of The Wet Bandits, take turns attempting to inflict mortal injury on one another. To take sides on this matter is to inherently support the murder of one party at the hands of another. I personally believe that both sides are to blame. But the fact remains that Kevin is far more successful in his attempts to kill The Wet Bandits, who are lucky to be alive. Whoever you are "rooting for" when watching the movies, the end result is immutable. Kevin always wins. It comes from a place of great empathy that I am able to feel sorry for The Wet Bandits. I hope this year you too can open your heart to the plight of the needy and relate a little more to Kevin's victims. Kevin McCallister himself once said: "Your heart might still be broken, but it isn't gone."
Thank you sincerely and good tidings to all.
And then the fatso falls on his ass, cue laugh track. They even have scene where two cops pass a distraught mother back and forth between departments to make it crystal clear to the audience that the police will not be helping in this movie.
Also, 'deliberately stole his father's credit card' seems a little uncharitable. Isn't the card just in the bag Kevin has? Do you want him to roam the streets of NY? I'm sure if my 10 year old was lost in another country I'd be fine with him using my credit card but that might just be me.
Kevin is great. His family sucks and the bandits had it coming both times.
Home Alone 2 makes me laugh my ass off every year. Even just the smell of fish convo cracks me up
Home Alone 2 makes me laugh my ass off every year. Even just the smell of fish convo cracks me up
There's a difference between using the credit card to make due and
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Oh my gaaaaaawd Kevin is 9 years old. Have you ever asked a 9 year old how much things cost? They're straight up dumb as rocks.
EDIT: Also the bill comes to $967.43 which for context is probably a 10th of what the family spent on the flights alone to Paris at Xmas.
It's good old physical comedy. Half of Kevin's traps would kill someone or leave them severely injured like the super heated door knobs, the stairs covered in ice, the flame thrower to the dome, etc.
Kevin is older than I was when I first watched this movie and I knew damn well that that shit was beyond the pale.
To you and me? Sure, I'll give you that. To a McCallister? Naaaaah. The kid's used to luxury.
Eh, Kevin just strikes me as a fairly average kid (who lives in a damn mansion.) In the first movie, at least. In the second movie he's progressed into being Jigsaw because he's straight up trying to kill the Wet Bandits. The traps in the first movie were like things a little kid would come up with. The traps in the second movie were like Michael Weston prepping a house.
Of course they don't come close to the DROP A RUNNING LAWNMOWER ON THEIR FACE trap from the third movie.
Of course they don't come close to the DROP A RUNNING LAWNMOWER ON THEIR FACE trap from the third movie.
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It's because it's so different from the original manga.
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Home Alone 1 I can accept as a dude practicing the Castle Doctrine in real time. He pulls off some incredible shit in the name of self-defense.
I watched Home Alone 2 Monday night and holy shit is Kevin just a burgeoning sociopath. I know Columbus and Co. had to write a feature-length film, but all he had to do was take those polaroids of Marv and Harry ransacking the toy store to any cornerstore NY cop and boom, game over.
But nah, that's not good enough for good ol' Kevin. Poor Marv, he gets so fucking rekt in this movie.
I watched Home Alone 2 Monday night and holy shit is Kevin just a burgeoning sociopath. I know Columbus and Co. had to write a feature-length film, but all he had to do was take those polaroids of Marv and Harry ransacking the toy store to any cornerstore NY cop and boom, game over.
But nah, that's not good enough for good ol' Kevin. Poor Marv, he gets so fucking rekt in this movie.
While I agree with the takes about the McAllister family being horrible rich bastards with nary a decent person among them (arguably the closest would be the mother? And even then she has raised her kids allowing a bullying piece of shit like Buzz to grow up like that) and Kevin going a little bit too far into psychopathy during HA2, I'd like to offer a very personal counterpoint. It doesn't really contradict anything you've said in your OP, or what other people have said in this very thread.
It's just a post about why Home Alone 2 (both movies actually, but HA2 especially) has a particular place in my heart despite all the very valid criticism levied at it. I think I said more or less the same last year, around the same date, but it's applicable anyway.
It's all about context, really. I was a kid born during the latter part of the 80s who not only had lived his short life in a Southern Hemisphere country (which meant xmas happened right after the official start of the summer), but also lived in a small town right in the middle of the driest desert in the world, a place that gets basically a couple of days with soft precipitation *a year*, and in which the main difference between summer and winter is mostly that winter gets far colder during the early morning and twilight hours, and there's like a bunch of cloudy days in winter and that's it.
So considering that, considering that the bunch of christmases I had known so far consisted in heat, dry land and definitely no reindeer (except for plush toys) and that the only time in *decades* that my hometown had received snowfall had coincided with me being 2 years old and being incredibly sick (which meant I could only watch the snow from *inside* the house), the idea of a "white christmas" was something you could never get at all. Literally impossible in that part of the world.
Enter Home Alone 2. I dunno why it resonated with me so much at first but I think I've started to understand why with the passage of time - what HA2 showed me was what "Christmas" was "supposed" to be like. Not the ridiculously cartoonish slapstick violence, obviously (which I enjoyed in the same way I enjoyed Looney Tunes stuff as a kid) or the fact that Kevin's family was incredibly shitty (something I realized even as a kid), but the way it all... looked. The atmosphere. The snow, the coldness, the way the houses were all decked full with decorations and lights, and the way it all seemed to radiate a *warmth* inside the cold that it wasn't even possible where I lived. It was a different kind of cold and a different kind of warmth.
And then... New York. It was as far removed from my shitty little hometown as Pluto is from Earth. It was immense, sprawling, impossibly tall, with buildings that blot out the sun and streets filled with snow and christmas lights and everything I didn't know I wanted but I knew it felt "right". It's everything I couldn't have. And, oh boy, that toy store... imagine my heartbreak knowing it wasn't a real place after all. But my kid mind loved that place, and wanted so much to be there and get lost there for an entire afternoon.
Still, those images meant so much to me. It was the vision of how it "should" be. In my hometown I'd never see something like this.
And, you know, the music... this piece by the Maestro John Williams always transports me, mentally and emotionally, back to "that place", a mythical/ideal christmastime NYC, where I'm a kid again, watching everything in awe.
So, yeah, despite all the very valid criticism (it's a rehash of the first movie, it's too violent, everybody's a PoS, and so on), there's something about HA2 that tugs at my heartstrings and makes me feel longing - for an ideal and a concept that probably doesn't really exist (or, at least, it does in a very different way), but also for something I felt and loved and wanted as a kid.
It's just a post about why Home Alone 2 (both movies actually, but HA2 especially) has a particular place in my heart despite all the very valid criticism levied at it. I think I said more or less the same last year, around the same date, but it's applicable anyway.
It's all about context, really. I was a kid born during the latter part of the 80s who not only had lived his short life in a Southern Hemisphere country (which meant xmas happened right after the official start of the summer), but also lived in a small town right in the middle of the driest desert in the world, a place that gets basically a couple of days with soft precipitation *a year*, and in which the main difference between summer and winter is mostly that winter gets far colder during the early morning and twilight hours, and there's like a bunch of cloudy days in winter and that's it.
So considering that, considering that the bunch of christmases I had known so far consisted in heat, dry land and definitely no reindeer (except for plush toys) and that the only time in *decades* that my hometown had received snowfall had coincided with me being 2 years old and being incredibly sick (which meant I could only watch the snow from *inside* the house), the idea of a "white christmas" was something you could never get at all. Literally impossible in that part of the world.
Enter Home Alone 2. I dunno why it resonated with me so much at first but I think I've started to understand why with the passage of time - what HA2 showed me was what "Christmas" was "supposed" to be like. Not the ridiculously cartoonish slapstick violence, obviously (which I enjoyed in the same way I enjoyed Looney Tunes stuff as a kid) or the fact that Kevin's family was incredibly shitty (something I realized even as a kid), but the way it all... looked. The atmosphere. The snow, the coldness, the way the houses were all decked full with decorations and lights, and the way it all seemed to radiate a *warmth* inside the cold that it wasn't even possible where I lived. It was a different kind of cold and a different kind of warmth.
And then... New York. It was as far removed from my shitty little hometown as Pluto is from Earth. It was immense, sprawling, impossibly tall, with buildings that blot out the sun and streets filled with snow and christmas lights and everything I didn't know I wanted but I knew it felt "right". It's everything I couldn't have. And, oh boy, that toy store... imagine my heartbreak knowing it wasn't a real place after all. But my kid mind loved that place, and wanted so much to be there and get lost there for an entire afternoon.
Still, those images meant so much to me. It was the vision of how it "should" be. In my hometown I'd never see something like this.
And, you know, the music... this piece by the Maestro John Williams always transports me, mentally and emotionally, back to "that place", a mythical/ideal christmastime NYC, where I'm a kid again, watching everything in awe.
So, yeah, despite all the very valid criticism (it's a rehash of the first movie, it's too violent, everybody's a PoS, and so on), there's something about HA2 that tugs at my heartstrings and makes me feel longing - for an ideal and a concept that probably doesn't really exist (or, at least, it does in a very different way), but also for something I felt and loved and wanted as a kid.
people take this shit way to seriously.
Its kinda pathetic lol or they just want to seem edgy or something.
I had no idea people take these movies seriously. They're like National Lampoon's Christmas vacation. A movie that's supposed to be silly, fun and to make you feel good around the holidays.
Not always, but the older i got, the more I wanted to, at least one time, see the coyote win and then not knowing what to do
Hint: No one takes these films seriously except the people who show up to demand people stop taking them seriously or to clutch their pearls about anyone in the Wet Bandits' corner.
Now watch the unofficial sequel Home Alone 3 : First Blood aka "The Good Son". It shows Kevin for who he truly is.
Honestly love this movie. Thought it was crazy when I was young. xD
Thank you OP this is absolutely hilarious "Kevin has worn the boot" is brilliant comedy writing.
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This thread was only made possible thanks to viewers like you. Thank you.
I never understood why they flew the entire giant-ass family from Miami to New York and then probably back to Chicago in HA2. What a waste of money, yet people are complaining about Kevin spending money at the Plaza Hotel. Clearly money is no object for this family.
As a movie, I was always impressed how Home Alone 2 was able to recreate the tone of the first. The production design and cinematography are very seamless, like if you removed the credits and played them back to back, you would think it is all one movie.
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I truly tried to produce the most outrageous sentences I could come up with to prevent anyone from missing the joke and people still take the whole thing at face value. I appreciate that you like this line in particular. It tested very well in focus groups.
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All jokes aside they are genuinely splendidly well-made films. The aesthetic they produce and maintain is the holiday standard.
I would just like to say that I greatly appreciate the work Finale Fireworker has put into this thread, and it has made me rethink Kevin McCallister as a character. Not to mention reconceptualized some of my favorite childhood films.
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You have to choose between being shot or having Joe Pesci chew your fingers off.
Gonna admit this is a tough choice.
What about in Home Alone 1 where Kevin's mom takes goes by plane, train, and automobile to get to Kevin only for the rest of the family to show up literally 2 minutes later on the flight that mom refused to wait 2 days for?
I would have been pissed after having had to sit in a cramped Budget rental van listening to polka the entire drive.
You proceed by wishing the little boy to be killed and then write a 10 page essay about how deranged and a monster the kid is. Like some of you need a step away for a minute before posting jeez.
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First of all, it's only six pages. Second of all, I have already addressed this in my press release.
But at least you would have met John Candy before he died.
I'm not gonna stand up for too hard for the second movie, it was the definition of a warmed-over rehash and i even realized it back then, but when I saw it in the theater as an 11 or 12 year old, the absolute over the top violence at the abandoned apt had me rolling, especially the brick throwing with the impeccable comic timing in that scene. It's live action Loony Tunes/Tom and Jerry stuff (i guess 3 stooges being the original live action version that slightly preceded the cartoons). I'd say HA2 is meaner, but it's on the same spectrum of slapstick violence as comedy, which i grew up on and loved, so it tracks that i'd be all over that as a kid.
Now that said, having watched it as an adult Kevin is an almost completely unsympathetic little shit. I was about his age when they both came out, so i have some nostalgia for the first one as a kinda wish fulfillment fantasy, but as the OP pointed out he's a spoiled rich kid with a spoiled rich family all being dicks to each other and everyone around them and deserve the worst
Psychopathic children defense force. I bet you think Damien from Omen is just misunderstood.
I am most fond of Home Alone 2 because of the SEGA Genesis game honestly. A totally below mediocre game that I played all of the time because it was one of the few games I owned. Everything Home Alone 2 just is especially nostalgic for me even if I recognize its seriously major issues.
I would pay good money to see this. No bullshit.
I would pay good money to see this. No bullshit.
"The staff did nothing wrong."
The staff did literally everything wrong.
Tim Curry's character enters Kevin's room (from his POV: Mr. McCallister's room) without consent. He's concerige, not hotel security. He accesses Kevin's billing information, runs the credit card and it comes back as stolen. Does he contact the police and tell them a young child is using what can only be assumed is his father's card? No, he confronts Kevin and calls him a thief. If this were a real situation, Tim Curry gets fired, the entire support staff gets fired and everyone at The Plaza (including Trump) gets sued into oblivion.
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Finally, another intellectual. I do not agree but I respect your perspective. Thank you for engaging with the material.