I had this weird hankering to watch Home Alone again...and it's awful.
It got me thinking about one of the great mysteries of cinema -- what happened to John Hughes?
Throughout the 80's, he releases a string of 15 movies -- varying from timeless classics to cute nostalgia but, with few exceptions, maintaining a consistent quality.
Then, in 1990, Home Alone...and it's all a horrible downhill slide from there.
Watching Home Alone again, I was shocked at how idiotic it was. Hughes always delved into that, but the (dare I say it?) gravitas he had in the early Ringwald era, and the quiet sense of character-driven comedy overall, was suddenly sacrificed to kid whose job it was to scream and wave his arms around right in front of the camera. An almost proto-Jar Jar Binks.
The bulk of the movie, too, is the self indulgent Culkin freakout. The whole absurd battle with the burglars is all act three. There's an almost casual disregard for every other form of storytelling outside of Culkin's antics, and yet the movie is stuffed full of a supporting cast who are only used to give Culkin the chance to stand facing the camera, right through the fourth wall, and act the goat.
Everything Hughes did after was shit... Career Opportunities...Dutch...Curly Sue. A crowded, awful year after Home Alone. Then he started cranking out Home Alone sequels and other kid-shit movies.
