The Screengrab : daniel stern

Yesterday's Hits: Home Alone (1990, Chris Columbus)

Paul Clark — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 20:00:00 GMT

The 1990 holiday movie slate boasted a number of sure-fire hits from many of Hollywood’s most bankable names. Arnold Schwarzenegger was getting pushed around by a classroom full of kids, Sylvester Stallone was revisiting his most iconic character once again, Tim Burton was debuting his first project after Batman made him Hollywood’s hottest young director, and Kevin Costner premiered his debut behind the camera, an epic Western that went on to win several Oscars. Heck, there was even a new Godfather movie. Yet none of these movies went on to become the year’s top grossing blockbuster. No, the reigning king of 1990’s box office boasted little more than a precocious child star, a kid-friendly concept, and a memorable scream.

That movie, of course, was Home Alone, directed by Chris Columbus. Sold to moviegoers with the tagline, “a family comedy… without the family,” the movie’s premise encompassed every kid’s dream- having the run of the house with no adult supervision- and many parents’ nightmare- accidentally leaving their child behind when they leave on vacation. At the center of the action was Kevin, played by Macaulay Culkin, for whom producer/screenwriter John Hughes specifically wrote the role after previously working with him on the previous year’s Uncle Buck. Expectations for Home Alone were relatively low, but good word of mouth about the film and its young star made it the runaway hit of the season, and its overwhelming success led to two sequels.

Alas, Home Alone doesn’t hold up very well, in part because of the mountain of contrivances the movie asks us to accept in order to make the storyline work. To begin with, although I’m sure that children have been accidentally left behind by their parents, it’s hard to believe that it would happen the way it does in the movie- surely one of the adults in the house was an early riser, no? Likewise, a repeated gag involving characters being fooled into thinking that a violent-sounding movie scene is really happening in the house is kind of a forehead-slapper- like any reasonably intelligent adult couldn’t tell the difference between real gunshots to those playing on a television?

But then, intelligence seems to be in short supply among the characters. One of my cinematic pet peeves is when a movie requires that its characters be idiots and Home Alone has some real doozies. Chief among the movie’s morons are Harry and Marv, a pair of bumbling burglars played by Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern. Here’s a pair so thickheaded that they get all manner of indignities vested upon them by a little kid, yet never think that, hey, maybe it’d be best to just cut their losses and run rather than risk incurring still more pain and suffering. Of course, it helps that Kevin is preternaturally at jerry-rigging booby traps all over the house with relatively little preparation, and placing them just where the crooks will strike.

This is indicative of the movie’s biggest problem, then Kevin is almost never convincing as a real kid. Oh sure, Culkin bugs his eyes out real cute and delivers the wiseassed one-liners almost like he means them. But it’s just hard to believe that Kevin would be capable of most of what he does or says, whether he’s delivering a monologue in the bathroom mirror or faking out the baddies. Part of the blame must fall on Culkin himself. Like most child actors, Culkin has self-assurance in spades but can’t sell the dialogue as his own, especially not when he’s given lines like “Bless this highly nutritious microwavable macaroni and cheese dinner and the people who sold it on sale. Amen.” Culkin was the biggest child star of his day, making $8 million a movie at the peak of his popularity, but it’s easy to see why he hasn’t been able to make the leap to grown-up roles with the same success that contemporaries like Elijah Wood have.

Time and again, I’ve bemoaned the tendency of many adults to forgive family movies their faults and manipulations on the grounds that they’re “just for kids.” While I realize that children aren’t particularly discerning movie watchers, it doesn’t seem right to use this as an excuse to foist subpar entertainment upon them. Home Alone might have been a hit in its day, but it’s also manipulative and often stupid, and making children watch movies like this is practically an insult to their budding intelligence. With all the high-quality family movies now available on DVD, there’s really no reason to show your kids Home Alone.

Yesterday's Hits: City Slickers (1991, Ron Underwood)

Paul Clark — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 19:00:00 GMT

What made City Slickers a hit?: The Western was one of classical Hollywood’s most popular genres. But while the greatest Westerns have endured in the American consciousness to this day, the popularity of Western films went downhill during the 1960s. By the 1980s, the number of Westerns made by Hollywood had dwindled to a handful of titles per year, and only a few of these (Young Guns, Dances With Wolves) made any money. At a time when people sat through long commutes to work and sweated the economic recession, it was hard for most audiences to relate to the old-fashioned cowboy mythos.

Yet even then, Westerns exerted a pull on our imaginations. The inspiration behind City Slickers was the way it combined the pleasures of an old-fashioned cattle-drive Western with characters with whom the audience could identify. The movie’s heroes weren’t larger than life, but rather a trio of middle-aged everyguys trying to escape the doldrums of modern life- bad marriages, dead-end jobs, fears of growing old- by embracing (after a fashion) the cowboy lifestyle, if only for two weeks. Add to this the presence of popular comic Billy Crystal, who has recently shown his leading-man chops with 1989’s When Harry Met Sally, and the combination of comedy and cowboys proved irresistible to audiences. City Slickers became one of 1991’s biggest hits, raking in nearly $125 million at the domestic box office.

What happened?: Sometimes, there’s no easily-pinpointed factor to explain a movie’s fall from its original level of popularity. While some blockbusters continue to factor prominently in popular culture and others fall from grace, most just sort of fade into the background. Of course, the misbegotten 1994 sequel City Slickers II: The Legend of Curly’s Gold didn’t help matters. But mostly, City Slickers’ lack of enduring pop culture influence can be chalked up to the fact that it appealed primarily to middle-aged moviegoers, rarely the sort of audiences that fanatically obsess over a movie until it enters the popular lexicon.

Does City Slickers still work?: It mostly does, although it’s not without its drawbacks. For a movie that was sold primarily on its famously funny leading man, the comedic scenes are among the movie’s least effective. Part of the problem is Crystal, whose trademark kvetching (and oft-repeated refrain of “hel-loooooooooo???”) quickly becomes irritating. Not helping matters is director Ron Underwood’s misguided decision to underscore all of the big slapstick moments with jaunty, cutesy music by Marc Shaiman. These scenes lean too heavily on the wacky factor, which drains away whatever wit was originally there.

But while it’s not nearly as funny as it thinks it is, City Slickers is a sturdy and self-aware twist on the Western genre. Despite their fast-paced modern lives, lifelong friends Mitch (Crystal), Phil (Daniel Stern) and Ed (Bruno Kirby) were raised on Westerns, and this colors their experiences on the trail. They show both fear and respect for aging trail boss Curly (Oscar-winner Jack Palance), who Mitch proclaims “the toughest guy I’ve ever seen,” but the two of them also bond during their time together on the trail. The characters explicitly reference Red River, The Magnificent Seven, Rawhide, Bonanza, and other favorites, but they do so in a way that presents them as shared pieces of their past instead of simply clever allusions. And the movie becomes surprisingly exciting when the unlikely cowpokes have to bring the herd in by themselves, and it’s a satisfying scene when they actually pull it off.

However, City Slickers is at its best when dealing with the friendship between its heroes. Screenwriters Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel were Hollywood’s go-to guys in the late eighties and early nineties for mainstream fare about middle-aged everyguys, and this movie demonstrates why. Likewise, Crystal, Stern and Kirby have an easy and infectious bonhomie that makes them convincing as three men who’ve remained friends through both good and bad. The late Kirby is especially good as the most pragmatic of the three, who worked his way up from a difficult childhood to create a comfortable life, but has never lost his taste for adventure. And verbal shtick aside, Crystal is affecting as the ill-at-ease salaryman Mitch, who ventures West with his lifelong friends with the goal of “finding his smile.” In the end, he does, and so did I.

DVD Digest for June 3, 2008

Paul Clark — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 14:00:00 GMT

With Father’s Day coming in less than two weeks, the studios begin to unveil their snazzy new editions of what TNT used to call “movies for guys who like movies.” We’ve got all the manly movies you need to keep dad happy while mom and her friends are out seeing the Sex and the City movie (seriously, how did we not see that coming?).

Before Clint Eastwood became known as an Academy Award-winning filmmaker (or a guy who co-starred with an orangutan) he was first and foremost a grimacing badass. And while some- including yours truly- have a soft spot for his Man With No Name trilogy- the most enduring character from this period would also certainly be “Dirty” Harry Callahan. This week, Warner unveils new DVD and Blu-Ray editions of all five of Eastwood’s Dirty Harry films, featuring all of the features from previous DVD editions plus a number of new ones. Most notably, Warner Brothers’ box set (the films are also sold separately) includes a new feature-length documentary, Clint Eastwood: Out of the Shadows. In addition, the memorabilia included in the box set includes a 40-page hardcover book and a map of San Francisco detailing Harry’s hunt for Scorpio.

But if dad’s looking for wartime heroism (Blu-Ray only), MGM and Fox both have something that’ll fit the bill. MGM will unveil Blu-Ray editions of A Bridge Too Far and Battle of Britain this week, although these new discs will contain no special features. So if it’s tricked out Blu-Rays (and better movies) you want, go with Fox’s war DVDs. The studio will be releasing three of its classics- Patton, The Longest Day and The Sand Pebbles- exclusively on Blu-Ray, packed with special features and all the bells and whistles he could ever hope for.

But that’s not all, folks. If dad wants some laughs with his testosterone, buy him the new City Slickers: Collector’s Edition (MGM), which gives him some Western action, male bonding humor courtesy of Crystal, Kirby and Stern, and of course Jack Palance, who even in death can still crap bigger than you. Other, more recent dudely comedies releasing this week include Semi-Pro (New Line, also Blu-Ray), Vince Vaughn’s Wild West Comedy Show (Lionsgate), and for the father whose enjoyment of movies far outweighs his taste, Meet the Spartans (Fox, also Blu-Ray). And what’s a list of guy movies with James Bond? Sony will release a new three-disc edition of Casino Royale, Bond’s best big-screen adventure since the sixties (there, I said it).

Other new releases this week include: Anton Corbijn’s Ian Curtis biopic Control (Weinstein Company); the Jessica Alba remake of The Eye (Lionsgate, also Blu-Ray); Michael Caine and Demi Moore in Flawless (Magnolia); the long-delayed The Onion Movie (Fox); and Asia Argento just the way we like her (i.e. mostly naked and toting a gun) in Olivier Assayas’ Boarding Gate (Magnolia). The week’s most notable non-guy-movie old-school release is Jean-Jacques Beineix’s seminal Cinema du look classic Diva (Lionsgate). Finally, releasing on Blu-Ray only: Cloverfield (Paramount), Signs (Buena Vista), The Recruit (Buena Vista), There Will Be Blood (Paramount).