Boy Meets Monster

Little Monsters
Director: Richard Greenberg
Cast: Fred Savage, Howie Mandel, Daniel Stern, Ben Savage
Released: August 25, 1989

I know it's been awhile since I last posted, but I'm back with a new review and it's a review of a terrible movie! Yay! Lucky you! Seriously, I don't know which young Fred Savage movie is worse: this or The Wizard. At least The Wizard has the Nintendo nostalgia and the immortal Power Glove scene and another bonus is that it doesn't have the annoying character of Maurice. It's a good thing Fred Savage has The Wonder Years, because he was in some sh*t movies.

This movie shares some similarities with Monsters, Inc., but it's missing the Pixar charm. Actually it lacks any charm. They're both about monsters who enter children's bedroom to scare them. At least in Monster's, Inc. there's a reason why they're scaring the kids (their screams power Monstropolis); in this movie they just do it because they can? Because it's fun? Because they're literal monsters?

The movie opens with twelve-year-old Brian (Fred Savage) who has just moved to Boston with his family. (I had no idea they were in Boston; I had to look it up on the Wikipedia). His little brother, Eric, is played by his real-life brother, Ben Savage, who is not very good in this. But in his defense, he was probably only seven or eight and was only in this because his brother was. I had to laugh that his name is Eric since that's the name of his brother in Boy Meets World  and every time I think of Eric Matthews, I think of "Fee-nay! Fee-nay! Fee-eee-eee-nay!" And when he thought "Yale" was pronounced "Ya-lay". His dad is played by Daniel Stern which is really weird since they both played the same character on The Wonder Years...it's like young Kevin Arnold from the '60s is meeting future adult Kevin Arnold from the '90s. It's like that episode of Quantum Leap when Sam Beckett leaps back into his own body when he was a kid...oh, boy!

The parents have not been getting along and they tell their sons they are getting a trial separation. It also doesn't help that every morning they wake up to little nuisances they believe Brian has caused such as leaving his bike behind the dad's car so he runs over it when he backs up or messes being made in the house. Brian believes it's Eric who is causing this, but his little brother insists it's the monster who lives under his bed. To prove there are no monsters, Brian switches rooms with Eric and this is when we meet a monster named Maurice (played by Howie Mandel). Good effing Lord. This has got to be the most irritating character in the history of cinema. He acts like he's on cocaine and has a bad case of ADD and has just eaten about a thousand pixie sticks. God, I wanted this character to die a slow, painful death that's how much I despised him. And we almost get that because sunlight makes him melt (so he's just a pile of clothes) and if the sun completely rises, he will die. He begs Brian to push him under the bed, but Brian isn't having it since he wrecked his bike, but then his conscience catches up with him and he shoves him under the bed where he heals and becomes a fully formed monster again. If only Brian had just left him...

Mandel's idea of acting is just flaring his arms around and jumping around and being really loud and obnoxious. When he sees Brian's baseball cards, he says, "Need them got them, have them, got them," just super obnoxious. Why would anyone want to be friends with this guy is beyond me. The opening line of the movie is Brian saying how he met his first friend Maurice in this new town and how he's never had a friend like him. Well, thank God for that is what I say! If I had to hang around someone that irritating, I would have to force myself to drink just so I wouldn't murder the person! He should be banned from the human world just for calling pizza "'za". What kind of person says, "Let's order some 'za?" A person who I never want to meet, that's who.

We learn that Maurice is part of a monster community (aka extras dressed up in Halloween costumes) who live underground (aka a cheap set with boxes and staircases) and who wreck havoc during the night where they can enter kids' bedroom from underneath their bed and pull pranks, making the parents believe it was their kids who caused all these shenanigans. Maurice seems to be proud of this as he gleefully tells Brian, "We're the reason why kids get sent to their rooms; the reason why brothers hate their sisters; the reason why parents send their kids back to camp." Brian also seems to love this which doesn't make any sense since HE was blamed for all the crap that Maurice pulled that made his parents (especially his dad) furious. Why would any kid like this guy who's "job" it is to get kids in trouble? Maurice brings Brian along with him as we get a montage of them "visiting" (aka breaking and entering into) childrens' bedrooms and pulling pranks. For some reason, Brian is able to materialize from the floor into the monster world even though humans should not be able to do this, right? I don't know, I didn't write the rules of this stupid world. It seems like the writers of this movie didn't think about that either. During the montage we see Maurice and Brian track mud on a white carpet with shoes; paint a girl's bedroom wall, then paint her face to look like she's the culprit; put plastic wrap over a toilet seat; put peanut butter on a phone receiver; smear their hands in chocolate sauce, then place handprints all over the fridge; Maurice places a q-tip with his ear wax back into a glass jar full of clean q-tips (that reminded me of that scene from Shrek), and even though we don't see it, apparently they also shaved someone's cat as someone's parents scream to them about that when we see the inevitable (and painful) montage of the innocent victims who get screamed at by their parents.

The only part of the movie I genuinely laughed at is when they enter the first bedroom and Brian says, "This is someone else's house" and Maurice replies, "No, duh, where'd you park the squad car, Dick Tracy?"

During their night of chaos, they also visit Ronnie, the big bully at Brian's school who is played by Buzz McCallister. They find his school lunch in the fridge and replace the tuna fish with cat food, and, more reprehensibly, Maurice drinks/spills his apple juice, then proceeds to pee in it, claiming, "Ronnie's gonna be pissed!" The next day everyone at school is beyond thrilled when Ronnie takes a swig of the urine and spits it out on the principal. I don't think he even warrants getting such cruel treatment; even though he's the bully he doesn't do anything bad except use his bigger size to intimidate the younger kids. Not even Buzz McCallister would deserve such a cruel punishment. However, he will join Brian and the others good kids by the end of the movie and I have no idea when they suddenly became friends.

There's a lot of inappropriate things in this movie and I'm not just talking about how many times the word "shit" is uttered and not just by kids. There's a scene where Maurice pulls down Brian's pants so he's just standing in his boxer shorts (no reason why he does that) and a female monster who is played by a young girl tells him, "Nice ass." Yeah, that really happens. Then Maurice and Brian visit Kiersten, the girl Brian has a crush on, but he won't admit he has a crush on her even though he's thrilled to find a Polaroid picture of himself in her bedroom that she took (she's into photography). They are literally standing over her bed watching her and it's really creepy. Then we get one of two masturbation jokes when Maurice makes his hand into a dog puppet who "eats" her big science paper that's due the next day while stroking his hand and saying something like, "The right hand...man's best friend." Like, really movie? Also, what is Brian doing that he doesn't even notice that Maurice is ruining his crush's homework? Kiersten ends up failing and Brian is pissed at Maurice. He also gets angry at him when Maurice brings him along to scare a baby and decides to saw off all the legs of the beds so Maurice can't come out from under the bed anymore. His mom believes this is how he's learning to cope with the separation and seems to be okay that her son is ruining all the beds. Way to be a parent, lady.

Brian finds out that since he's been spending so much time down in the monster world, he's suddenly starting to become one because his limbs are starting to disappear when light appears. (So does this mean that Maurice and the others were once kids who turned into monsters? Maurice does tell Brian he is eleven, but I thought he meant he was eleven in monster years. I guess I should have paid more attention while watching this!)

When Eric goes missing, Brian knows where he is and gets Kiersten and Eric's friend, Todd, to help with the rescue and later Ronnie will join them. By this time I have no idea what's going on and I really don't care. After Brian convinces Kiersten and Todd  that a monster underground exists (since it's so easy for humans to access), they get a bunch of flashlights and defeat this monster who we've never met before named Boy (because he's dressed as a school boy, I guess?) who has Eric held hostage. I guess he's the ruler of this monster world and we're just meeting him in the last ten minutes of the move. Because that makes sense. He tells Brian that he'll let Eric and the others go if Brian stays and becomes a monster and that's when they use the flashlight to get away. Maurice also comes to the rescue, they defeat the bad monster, yada, yada, yada, they need to get home but they can't go to Boston because the sun is up so they need to run to California (on the set they just put a bunch of signs with American cities in geographical order) to return to the human world.

Brian and Maurice have a tearful goodbye (WHY?) and while I'm watching this, I'm thinking that they're trying to make this like the friendship between Chunk and Sloth in The Goonies, but at least Sloth isn't annoying and that was actually a sweet friendship. Brian calls his parents to tell him he found Eric and that they're in Malibu. I don't know which is more ridiculous: the fact that his parents don't know Malibu is in California (SERIOUSLY?) or the phone on the wall that has a HUMONGOUS keypad...is this phone for people with a vision impairment? Also, I've never seen a home phone with the keypad on the wall instead of on the phone. That was super weird. When his parents ask how they ended up in California (fair question), he simply replies, "Uh, it's kind of a long story" and that's the end of the movie. Lame, lame, lame. And lazy AF.

While watching this movie, I noticed there's a lot of close up of people's faces, especially that of Kiersten and they do it with Brian a couple of times. It was just a really odd choice. If I were an actor, I sure wouldn't want people seeing my face so close up on the screen!

Brian's favorite food is an onion and peanut butter sandwich...and those are raw onions, ugh! Not that it would be any better if they were cooked, but at least it would be more tolerable to eat. This has got to be the most disgusting sandwich and I say this as someone who knows someone who likes peanut butter, lettuce, and mayo sandwiches (yeah, I'm just as baffled as you are).

This movie is truly awful. I feel sorry for all the parents whose kids dragged them too see this garbage. Luckily my parents were spared since I have no recollection of this movie from my childhood. (But I'm sure they had to see a lot of other crap! Sorry, Mom and Dad!)

I did some research (pretty much watched YouTube reviews of this movie) and a common thread I noticed was that everyone brought up this ad that was played before the movie on the video cassette where kids could call a 1-900 number to enter a contest and win prizes. You need to watch it to believe it because it's so amazingly awful and hilarious. It's like the late '80s threw up all over it. While watching I took note of the fine print at the bottom that they know that kids aren't reading when they watch this! They do say the call is 95 cents a minute and that kids should get permission from their parents first, but still. It sounds like you call the number and have to answer trivia questions, then you send your answers to the sweepstake address. Now you KNOW this game probably last about twenty minutes and they are milking you for all that 95 cents a minute. No sensible parent would agree to this. I would love to know how many kids entered this contest and they must not have told their parents, right? Boy, I bet their parents were pissed when they saw their telephone bill! I also noticed that the address they sent their answers to was in Blair, Nebraska, of all places. Now I live in Nebraska and I have never been to Blair, but now that I know it's the home of the Little Monsters sweepstake, I may have to visit. Was my sarcasm thick enough for you? Also, how did I go nearly thirty years without ever knowing this terrible rap song existed? I feel robbed.

Merry New York Christmas

Home Alone 2: Lost in New York

Director: Chris Columbus

Cast: Macaulay Culkin, Joe Pesci, Daniel Stern, Catherine O'Hara, John Heard, Brenda Fricker, Tim Curry, Rob Schneider

Released: November 20, 1992

You're probably wondering why I'm reviewing this movie and not the original. Well, it's because I already reviewed Home Alone back in 2011. I did watch it before I saw this one, so I will occasionally go back to that one. I remember seeing this movie in the theater and being so excited because I loved the first one so much. While this movie is very enjoyable, the first one is still the best. This one follows the exact same formula as the first one.

The film begins, much like the first one, with Kevin getting in trouble because of Buzz provoking him. Can I just say how much I hate Buzz? I can totally relate with Kevin because I also grew up with an older, provoking brother! I always thought how it was totally unfair in the first movie that Kevin was the only one who got in trouble for pushing Buzz and all the drinks spilled over everything, but Buzz should have gotten in trouble too! He was the one who started it when he pretended to puke up the pizzas. But nothing happened to him! And then when they're in Paris and his sister says, "Aren't you worried about Kevin?", Buzz says "No, A, I'm not that lucky" like he wanted something horrible to happened to his brother. In this movie, he messes with Kevin during a Christmas school pageant. (Which doesn't make any sense that they would be at the same school pageant because Kevin is in elementary school and I'm pretty sure Buzz is in high school.) Everyone is laughing except his parents and I just loved how Uncle Frank was laughing the loudest AND pointing. Uncle Frank is the worst, but that was pretty funny. Kevin punches Buzz and everyone falls off the stands. At least in this movie, Buzz apologizes although it's insincere and Kevin refuses to apologize in return. In fact, he has a few harsh words for all of them and he calls Uncle Frank a "cheapskate" which was hilarious and deserved. And true. 

There's something in this movie that doesn't quite add up. At least three times, they refer to the events of the first movie happening "last year". In the first movie, Kevin says he is eight. In this movie, he says he is ten. Wait, what? How is that possible?

Despite the title, he is NOT home alone, but instead gets on the wrong plane. The McCallisters are flying to Florida for the Christmas holiday. Kevin is whining he doesn't want to go to a tropical location and there are no Christmas trees there. The family wakes up late, AGAIN, and are all rushing through the airport in a mad dash to make the flight on time. Kevin has this toy, and for some reason, he needs batteries RIGHT NOW for it. Seriously, kid, you can't wait until you get on the plane? He grabs his Dad's bag and starts looking through it while running after everyone. When he does see batteries, he stops in the middle of the very crowded O'Hare airport to put them in his recorder toy. He follows a man who he thinks is his dad because he's wearing the same coat and bumps into a ticket taker and all the tickets fall on the ground and she just lets him on the plane. I mean, it's not like a little kid could be a terrorist! Dollface with his blond hair and cable knit sweaters would never torture anyone! Never! Well, this was before 9/11....as we will soon be reminded. Don't they usually have marquee signs saying the destination for each terminal? I'm just saying. 

Before they board the plane to Miami, Kate wants to make sure everyone is there, but the stewardesses are rushing her on and telling her they'll make sure everyone makes it. How would they know how many people are in her party and if somebody is missing? If I were her, I would also want to make sure all my children were there and got on the plane, sheesh! And I'm sure they would hold the plane for her to page Kevin when she noticed he was missing...although it might be too late at that time as he's already boarded his flight to New York. He has no idea he's going to the wrong city because he puts on his headphones when a stewardess announces their destination. 

Kevin lands in New York and soon realizes he's not in Miami and says, "My family's in Florida...and I'm in New York!" It does not flow as smoothly as the much more iconic line, "I made my family disappear!" We get a montage of Kevin doing touristy things. This includes going to Chinatown and buying fireworks (what is it with this kid and fireworks?) and going to the top of the World Trade Center. I always forget people could go up to the observation decks and that just terrifies me. He was the only one up there that day which seems a little....odd. And a little eerie. He has his Polaroid camera which he's been taking photos with all day. What a '90s child! 

Speaking of '90s children, if you were one, most likely you had the Talk Boy or you knew somebody who did. The Talk Boy is the recorder toy Kevin has in this movie. He puts a cassette in it and can record himself (or other people) talking and play it back in different modes. This wasn't a real toy when the movie was released, but it became so popular that it was made into a toy for the public. I didn't have one myself, but a friend of mine had one and we would play with it. To be honest, while it was fun for like, the first five minutes, it quickly became pretty boring. Today's child would think this toy lame...and they would be right! It's probably a lot more exciting if you're using it like Kevin does. He records a message asking for a suite at the Plaza Hotel and plays it over the phone in this slow-downed voice so it sounds like an adult talking. Well, it's SUPPOSE to sound like an adult is talking, but it sounds so weird! No person on Earth would ever think that was an actual human being talking and not a freaking recording! I do love the "Credit card? You got it!" line. Fun fact: that is Chris Columbus's wife in this scene: 

Somehow, it works and Kevin is able to check in the Plaza hotel, telling the hotel staff his dad is at business meetings and they probably won't be seeing a lot of him. The hotel staff, which includes Tim Curry as a concierge and Rob Schneider as a bellboy, become very suspicious of him. Kevin uses his Dad's credit card to his advantage and pays for limos and room service. Can you imagine if he didn't have any money? He would be so f***ed! It makes me wonder how his family in Florida was paying for everything. We know Uncle Frank is a cheapskate! Hopefully Kate had her own money. Also, it's a good thing Kevin did have the credit card because that's how they were able to track him down. That would be pretty terrifying if you didn't know where your child was. At least in the first movie, they knew he was at home.

Guess who else happens to be in New York the same time as Kevin? The Wet Bandits! Except now they're called the Sticky Bandits. They escaped from prison during a riot and decided to come to New York to start their next heist. It takes a very long time before they are "reunited" (that might not be the best word!) with Kevin. We first see them crossing the street from opposite sides with a bunch of people around them and Harry bumps into Kevin and he looks back, thinking he saw someone familiar, but nothing becomes of it. It's not until fifty minutes into the movie before they're finally aware of each other. Harry and Marv are standing a few feet behind Kevin, who is waiting at the crosswalk. They can't even see his face and his hair is covered by a hat. He is wearing a backpack that says "K. McCallister" and that's how they know it's him. But...did they even know his name from the first movie? I guess they did know that was the McCallister house they were robbing, but it's not like McCallister is a super uncommon name. There are a lot of McCallisters out there. Oh, well, I'm probably over thinking this way too much! Kevin screams and runs away from them. He goes back to the hotel, but he also has to run away from the employees because they've just discovered he's using a stolen credit card.

He goes to Central Park where he ends up meeting the Pigeon Lady, played by Brenda Fricker. She's such an afterthought to this movie that they didn't even bother giving her a name! Just like with Old Man Marley, Kevin was scared of her at first, but then they become friends. I found her relationship with Kevin to be really weird. Yes, she is suppose to be the Old Man Marley of this movie, and yes, she does save Kevin's life in the end, but she's this homeless lady who lives in Central Park and Kevin just invites her to join him for a hot chocolate and she takes him up to the rafters of Lincoln Center where they listen to a symphony. At least with Old Man Marley, Kevin has his heart to heart with him in a church that's brightly lit and there are plenty of witnesses around. Homeless Bird Lady tells Kevin she was once in love with a man, but then he stopped loving her and she never loved anyone again because she was afraid of her heart being broken, and therefore keeps away from people. She also has no job or no home. I thought the movie missed a great opportunity and Kevin should have taken her back to Chicago and set her up with Old Man Marley. But the whole thing was so weird with this ten-year-old kid attempting to give someone more than three times his age love advice! Brenda Fricker is great, but I wasn't a fan of this character. It didn't work for me like Old Man Marley does in the original.

The Sticky Bandits are going to rob from the super awesome toy store Kevin had visited and he knows he has to stop them because the money they will be taking is suppose to be going to the children's hospital. In this movie, he uses his uncle's apartment that's being renovated. I won't lie; I really missed the McCallister house, but I understand why they changed the location. If you thought the booby traps were bad in the first movie, they're downright torture devices in this movie! They should have killed Marv and Harry at least five times over. With the first film, I feel like, while very painful, I don't think any of the traps would have killed them....well, maybe the paint cans to the skull would...or at the very least it should have knocked them out cold. This movie starts its funhouse of horror with Kevin throwing four bricks from the roof at Marv. FOUR! I kinda feel that would kill somebody. The fact he didn't even get his nose broken is a miracle in itself. Marv even gets electrocuted at one point and we see his skeleton! Harry gets his head set on fire (again!) and douses it in a toilet bowl Kevin has filled with kerosene and there's a huge explosion. Both of them should be dead by now! I do like the nice touches of Marv cautiously walking up the steps, thinking they might be icy (they aren't) and Harry patting the door knobs to make sure they're not hot and quickly moving out of the way every time he would pull on a string to turn on a light. Obviously, Marv must have told him how he got the iron smashed in his face from the first time. We also have the old paint cans to the noggins again, except this time Harry and Marv try to trick Kevin as Kevin can't see them from the angle he's throwing the paints cans. They pretend to be hit and cry out in pain. I'm guessing Kevin had to know they were tricking him because he didn't hear the sound of metal crashing against skulls and that's probably why he has the lead pipe ready to take a swing at them. How does a ten-year-old kid lift a lead pipe? And how does a ten-year-old kid lift a 100 pound bag of concrete mix to the roof (which eventually falls on Marv after he pulls on a rope)?

Kevin is eventually caught by them when he slips on ice and they take him into Central Park and are about ready to shoot him, but Pigeon Lady and her pigeons save the day and Kevin escapes and the police arrest the Sticky Bandits. Kevin is reunited with his mom at the Christmas tree at Rockerfeller Center because she knew he would most likely be there. While it's a very nice scene, it didn't get me like the reunion the two of them have in the first movie. Whenever I watch Home Alone, I always get a little choked up during that scene. I think it's really cute how he's pretending to still be mad at her, but can't contain his joy at seeing his mom and runs to hug her. The entire McCallister family, who are also in New York, wake up the next morning at the Plaza Hotel suite to a heap of presents given to them by Mr. Duncan, the man who owns the toy store that almost got robbed by the Sticky Bandits. He thanks Kevin by giving him and his family all these presents. I would like to point out that Fuller is wearing dinosaur pajamas which makes me wonder if he was the "friend" Kevin was talking about in the first movie when he tells Old Man Marley that he had a friend who got "nailed" for wearing dinosaur pajamas.

Kevin goes outside on this cold, snowy Christmas Day where he gives Pigeon Lady a turtle dove ornament. You see, when he donated twenty bucks for the children's hospital, Mr. Duncan let him choose an ornament. He suggested Kevin choose the two turtle doves so he could keep one and give the other to a special friend. So he gives it to Pigeon Lady so they'll be "friends forever" and they hug and that's it. Seriously, kid? You're just giving this homeless lady a freaking tree ornament? What the hell is she going to do with a tree ornament? Why don't you invite her to your hotel suite and let her take a shower and give her a hot meal? Maybe you can even let her stay the night! God knows your family can afford it! Also, maybe setting her up with Old Man Marley isn't an option...but why not introduce her to Mr. Duncan and he can let her work at his toy store. I'm sure he needs people at the cash register or someone to stock the shelves! At least Old Man Marley had a house and was reunited with his son and granddaughter! This lady only gets a damn tree ornament!

Like the first movie, John Williams gives us a great score and the song, "All Alone on Christmas" sung by Darlene Love is playing during the montage of Kevin doing touristy New York things. This song is so good and catchy and it rivals Mariah Carey's "All I Want For Christmas is You" in terms of its Christmas-y goodness and joyfulness. And for some reason, at least where I live, they never play it on the radio during the holidays! I don't get it! It's so good! And the song "Somewhere in My Memory" from the first movie is really good and very Christmas-y too and they never play that on the radio either! I posted this on my Facebook, but if you didn't see it or are coming across this review from somewhere else, someone made this awesome Christmas movie montage using "All Alone On Christmas":

  

I Should've Been a Cowboy

City Slickers

Director: Ron Underwood

Cast: Billy Crystal, Daniel Stern, Bruno Kirby, Jack Palance, Patricia Wettig, Helen Slater

Released: June 7, 1991

Oscar nominations:

Best Supporting Actor - Jack Palance (won)

Spoilers for a 25 year old movie! I don't like to take any chances. 

I'm more than halfway done with my 1991 reviews! I figured since this won an Oscar in an acting category, I should rewatch and review it. I have to be honest: as with Father of the Bride, this movie wasn't as good when I saw it the first time as a kid. I am a little surprised that Jack Palance won the Oscar because comedies hardly ever win Oscars for anything. Although, Hollywood loves to give veteran actors the Oscars, especially in the Supporting category. He was nominated for Oscars two times before this, both in the '50s. While I remembered that Curly, the character Palance plays, dies, I forgot that he died with at least an hour of the movie left and he really doesn't show up until half an hour into the movie so we're lucky if we have at least 30 minutes of the best character in the movie. And that's what Curly is: the best character in the movie. I do remember Jack Palance came back in City Slickers 2: The Legend of Curly's Gold to play the twin brother of Curly. I haven't seen that movie in a very long time and I can't imagine I would like it if I wasn't too keen on the original! 

Well, hi there, lil Jake Gyllenhaal!

The movie is about a man named Mitch (Billy Crystal) who just turned 39 and is having a mid-life crisis. He works in radio advertising where he sells time to different companies so they can promote their products on the air. He realizes just how lame his job and life are when he's invited to speak about his job at his son's school and goes on a tirade about how these kids should be grateful for what they have because it's just going to get worse. He then proceeds to describe for them what their next seven decades of life will be like. With each passing decade, everything goes downhill. Playing his son is Jake Gyllenhaal in his film debut. He must have been nine or ten when he filmed this. Interesting his first movie would feature cowboys and horses when he would go on to be in Brokeback Mountain more than a decade later....although he does not partake in any of the roping and riding in this movie. 

At his birthday party (which he wants to cancel, but his wife (Patricia Wettig) insists he have it), Mitch's two friends announce that their gift to him is a two week cattle drive from New Mexico to Colorado. His friends are having their own mid-life crises (is that the right plural form of crisis? IDK!). Phil (Daniel Stern) is married to a woman he clearly does not care for and the feeling is mutual...don't ask me why these two people are married if they can't stand each other! She is very controlling of him and has an icy personality. His father-in-law is a bully and expects him to help him at the grocery store he owns. Ed (Bruno Kirby) has never been able to settle down and get married and seems the older he gets, the younger his girlfriends get. He has recently married a beautiful model, so I'm not understanding how he's having a midlife crisis! Some people are never happy. During the party, a 20-year-old who works at the grocery store with Phil arrives to tell him that she's "late" and this is how Phil's wife finds out he's having an affair. I have no idea how the 20-year-old found out where Phil was that night and even if she did know, why would she announced that to him in a roomful of people, including his wife? I know it's for the benefit of the movie, but it does not make any sense. This is the best thing that could have happened for Phil because his wife divorces him and he's fired from the job he hates. At first, Mitch wasn't thrilled about the cattle drive and told the others he couldn't go because he promised he would go with his wife to Florida to visit her parents, but she tells him to go, that she doesn't want to happen to them what happened with Phil and his ex-wife. 

So the three guys head out to New Mexico where they meet the other people who have also signed up for this adventure: an African-American father and son who are dentists, two Jewish brothers who have their own ice cream line (think Ben and Jerry's), and an attractive woman named Bonnie whose traveling partner bailed on her at the last minute and she's having second thoughts about whether she should stay and everyone implores her to. Before leaving for Colorado they are given riding lessons and learn how to rope calfs. Mitch is the only one who can't seem to, ahem, learn the ropes, if you'll excuse my bad pun. The married couple who own the ranch are not riding with them, instead they tell everyone that they'll see them in Colorado...I guess they got a head start in their car? However, they decide to leave all these "city slickers" with two unruly cowboys who like to get drunk and randomly shoot their guns at empty beer bottles. We first see how slimy they are when they're trying to "help" Bonnie with her roping skills and pretty much implying that she won't be able to do it because she's a woman. Mitch goes over to try to help her, but doesn't have much luck, because, let's face it, Billy Crystal isn't exactly imposing. Instead, he gets showed up by Curly, who may be nearly forty years older than him, but he is a head taller and a lot more imposing for an old man! He throws a very long knife (Crocodile Dundee would be proud of it!) at one of the guys, nearly missing his groin and tells him they better behave. Needless to say, everyone is scared of Curly.

Curly doesn't have much time for Mitch, which I don't blame him, because on the first morning of their cattle drive to Colorado, he decides he's going to make coffee with an electric coffee mixer and ends up scaring all the cattle and they run away and trample over the camp. I would be pretty angry too! Curly wants Mitch to go with him to help him round up the cattle and Mitch and his friends are sure that Curly is going to kill him. There was a funny line where Phil says if Mitch doesn't come back, then he's going after Mitch's wife. Of course Curly does not kill anyone and over a few days he and Mitch bond and he tells Mitch he needs to find that "one thing" that will make him happy and he's the one who needs to figure out what that one thing is. 

In one scene, Mitch has to help Curly deliver a calf and Curly wants Mitch to reach "inside" and pull out the calf while he holds the mother down. I remember this scene because they actually show the calf coming out and it was pretty graphic when I was a kid watching this! After the calf gets cleaned up, he is very cute and Mitch names him Norman. However, the mother cow is dying and Curly shoots her, thus Mitch adopting the calf and feeding him. Not long after, Curly dies while sitting up in some rocks. Mitch thinks he's just "sleeping" while keeping an eye open to watch the cattle, but no, he is indeed dead. I don't know what the husband and wife team were thinking sending them out with an eighty-year-old trail supervisor and two drunk and misogynist cowboys? Because now with Curly out of the picture, the two unruly cowboys can go back to being jackasses and they get drunk one night and start shooting off their guns. After they take Norman with a gun (and this scene made me so nervous as a kid!), Mitch goes out to try to talk to them. However, it is Phil, who hates bullies because of his former father-in-law, who ends up with one of the guns and threatens them. Nobody - humans or animals - were hurt in this little altercation. They finish the rest of the cattle drive and Mitch, Phil, and Ed all go home changed men. Phil even has a glimmer of a romantic start with Bonnie. Mitch brings Norman back with him after hearing the cattle they had all herded were going to be slaughtered and sold as steaks. He plans to put Norman in a petting zoo. 

Childhood Christmas Classic

Home Alone
Director: Chris Columbus
Cast: Macaulay Culkin, Joe Pesci, Daniel Stern, Catherine O'Hara, John Heard, John Candy
Released: November 16, 1990

Oscar nominations: (I had no idea this movie was nominated for any Oscars; probably because I didn't start watching the Oscars until 1995-ish).
Best Score - John Williams (lost to John Barry for Dances with Wolves)
Best Song - "Somewhere in My Memory" by John Williams (lost to "Sooner or Later I Always Get My Man" by Stephen Sondheim from Dick Tracy)

I'm going to try to make it a tradition to review at least one holiday movie around this time of year. Two years ago I reviewed Elf, last year I reviewed Love, Actually and this year I opted for a favorite of mine from my childhood. I remember seeing Home Alone in the theaters and just thinking it was the funniest thing ever. I still think it's pretty funny (the whole gag with the statue outside the house always falling down when it's hit by the airpot shuttle or pizza delivery car never fails to make me giggle and I love the scene with the pizza delivery boy and the video. "Well, sir, you have to pay for your pizza!"). I have to wonder, though, if I would still like this movie if it came out in this day and age. It came out when I was in fourth grade, so of course I was the target audience for it. Obviously the entire cast would be changed as they would all be too old and there would be little changes made to make it more current. It's funny because I was watching the commentary with Chris Columbus and Macaulay Culkin (which they recorded about five years ago) and they sort of joked that if the movie were made today, it would be over right before the family gets to the airport because with all the security measurements they would never make it on the plane, especially if they just had minutes to spare. Not to mention that they would all have cell phones to contact Kevin. Macaulay also joked that he wouldn't be in it because he was 26, unless he was living in his parents' basement and they forgot him on their trip to Paris. Who knew Macaulay Culkin was so funny?

How bad of a mother is Catherine O'Hara in this? I mean, who forgets their own child when leaving for a trip? I do think the movie does a good job of making it as realistic as possible. Yes, most mothers would not forget their own child, but for the sake of the movie, they do set it up as you can see why they just forget about him. First, there was fifteen people in that house (which looked like it could hold about 100 - that is a really nice house). Then we have it set up where Kevin gets in trouble (and I can totally empathize with him for having an older provoking brother) and has to sleep upstairs in the attic alone. Then there's a storm and the power goes out and everyone wakes up late and is in a mad dash to the airport. And of course we have Kevin's neighbor friend come over and he is accidentally counted as Kevin. (I loved that kid - "Does this van get good gas mileage? Does it have four-wheel drive? Does it have automatic transmission? How much horse power does it have?") So I can see how it's possible they would forget about him. The one thing that didn't really make any sense was after Kevin's mom lands in Paris and gets in touch with the police back home and they send an officer over to check on him. It didn't make any sense that he didn't say he was the police and didn't go in and check to see if the kid was hurt or something. But I guess if that had happened, the movie would be over.

I mentioned earlier how funny I thought this movie was when I was a kid and it still makes me laugh but it's only now watching it as someone older and wiser do I realize what a warped little kid Kevin was. (Maybe it was watching Angels with Filthy Souls.) Some of the things Harry and Marv have to endure when they attempt to rob Kevin's house are almost things Jack Bauer would think of to torture terrorists! The blowtorch to the head, the hand touching the hot knob, the hot iron in the face, the bare foot on the nail (oh, that scene always makes me cringe), and the bare feet stepping on those glass ornaments. Not to mention both of them falling down the icy steps.

I don't know how Kevin cleaned up the house because his mother (and the rest of the family) arrived home the next morning. He must have been up all night - or maybe he called a cleaning service! I always get a little teary-eyed when Kevin is reunited with his mother and well as when he sees his scary neighbor reunited with his family and when he's walking outside and sees a happy family together at Christmas and he's all alone. It's so sad!

I think Chris Columbus is a little clueless. Here is a funny exchange between him and Macaulay during the commentary. (And remember, the commentary was filmed around 2006-07).
Columbus: I think he went on to be in a popular kids' show (referring to Kevin's red-headed brother, Jeff).
Culkin: Yeah, The Adventures of Pete and Pete.
Columbus: Is that still on the air?
Culkin: Uh.....no.

Is Pete and Pete still on the air? Is he serious? Dude, Michelle Trachtenberg was on that show before she was on Buffy and she first joined that cast in 2001! Trust me, it's been awhile since Pete and Pete has been on the air. (It ran from '93-'96 according to IMDb). That just made me laugh.

To go back and answer my own question about whether I would like this movie if it came out in this day and age? Probably not. It wouldn't have the nostalgic factor!