Crofton's Media Blackout: Home Alone

In this special holiday episode, Miles and Jack are joined by Chris Crofton to watch a beloved holiday  movie that Chris has never seen before: Home Alone!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello the Internet, and welcome to this special holiday episode
of Dirnis Guys. It's a production of iHeartRadio. This is
the podcast where you take a deep dive into America's
shared consciousness. Usually for the holidays, we take a deep
dive into America's shared Christmas spirit, the Christmas Geist in German.

(00:25):
That's a direct pronunciation translation.

Speaker 2 (00:29):
The format of these episodes is something Jack and I
have talked about for maybe since we met Chris and
we realized he hasn't seen nothing, he hasn't seen shit.
Man from the we.

Speaker 3 (00:43):
Were talking about you doing a yeah, like a podcast
where I watch old.

Speaker 1 (00:46):
Movies and like just talking to you.

Speaker 2 (00:49):
You mean ship like alone. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah that
was big jo.

Speaker 3 (00:55):
I got to watch it.

Speaker 1 (00:56):
My name is Jack O'Brien and I'm joined, as it was,
by my co host, mister Miles.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
Yes sure, yes, yes, here we are, here we are,
and for.

Speaker 1 (01:06):
This very special holiday episode, we're calling Christmas blind Spots.
We've got a hilarious stand up comedian, actor, musician, one
of the very faces on Mountain Zeitemore. You can listen
to his podcast, Coldbrew Got Me Like anywhere. The poetry
window is open because it's Chris, motherfucker craft, Chris, what's

(01:26):
up the.

Speaker 3 (01:29):
Mother?

Speaker 2 (01:32):
Correct, Chris, you haven't seen a lot of movies. You've
had a you've had a life. Maybe you've had a life.
Life was lifing. Every time I feel like I've been
we've referenced a movie and you like, haven't seen it.
You're like I was. I was drinking and thought being
a rock star was cool. It's some version of that
as well.

Speaker 3 (01:47):
Yes, like during the nineties I was doing Charles Bukowski
in the sense that I was like, the meaning is
in bars, not in theaters, Like everyone knows what's gonna
happen in the theater or in a bar. You never
know what kind of random poetry is going to go
down or whatever. You know, which, of course you know
it's not true. Really, I mean, you know.

Speaker 2 (02:09):
Did you have like an idealized thing you thought would
happen at the bar? They'd be like, this is fucking why, man.

Speaker 3 (02:16):
It happened, but then you didn't remember it if you've
usually missed it like or somehow forgot it. If it
wasn't and it just turns out, it's like the revelations
in a bar are fairly repetitive. Repetitive, even more repetitive
than movies, you know what I mean. So it's like
it turns out.

Speaker 1 (02:31):
You know, I'm drinking, and you like start hanging around
people who are drinking, you do the repetition. You're like,
oh man, you guys say the same shit over and
over and over again. Yes, wild and not like.

Speaker 3 (02:45):
Just like drinking, like having a drink, like I mean,
like going out every night and getting drunk because you
think that there's something mystical about that, and you know
it always ends up with frozen pizza and you know
it's not that mystical. Really, it's just not. And so
but I did, like I was like, oh, you go
to the movies, you sell out piece of shit, you know,

(03:07):
like have a fun time at the movies. You basic bitch.
They didn't invented that term basic bitch yet.

Speaker 2 (03:11):
But yeah, but that was the vibe.

Speaker 1 (03:14):
But then you forgot that you invented it. You never
trade mine.

Speaker 3 (03:16):
I invented basic bitch in nineteen ninety.

Speaker 1 (03:21):
But so to turn you around on on this misguided
idea that people go into the movies were sell out capitalists,
we thought we would show you a home alone, a
movie with really good politics and no weird capitalist messaging
at all. Just a quick background. I mean, everybody knows it,

(03:43):
but I don't know that people quite know that. So
when it came out, it was a massive hit, to
the point that so it came out in November, it
was like the number one movie at the box office
leg every week for a number of weeks. But it
stayed in theaters until Easter. People were like seeing it
shit in the spring, going to see it, like well

(04:04):
after the Christmas season.

Speaker 2 (04:06):
That's like having your Christmas lights up until Easter. Basically
like the movie at Cleveland, like yeah, you know what,
fuck it, let's watch a Christmas movie.

Speaker 1 (04:14):
You can all right, I feel attacked now.

Speaker 3 (04:16):
I was at the FAZI concert.

Speaker 1 (04:18):
Yeah, yeah, exactly, and that yeah, yeah, you were doing
you were out doing cool shit. So you missed this.
But I think that's what's exciting to us about this
premise is that, like you're coming to this movie that
I've seen so many times that things like his cousin
calling him you're what the French call les is like

(04:40):
so burned in my fucking brain that like it's like
a part of me.

Speaker 3 (04:45):
Like burned in your brain. You say it to your
own kids.

Speaker 1 (04:48):
I say all the time to my kids.

Speaker 2 (04:50):
Yeah, I say that ship to my friends. Still we
still say that ship to it. Oh you're such a disease.
We'll say, like you did, you little jerk. I don't
even know when it comes out, but this shit comes out.
That's why it's so funny, because like on this side
of the equation, Chris, it's it's so ingrained in our

(05:11):
brains that we don't realize how much it is. Because also,
I think, at least for me specifically too, I was
six years old when this came out, and this was
like a film that was like being a fucking wild
kid is sick as fuck and you can beat the
shit out of adults because you're smarter because you're a
fun kid. And it was just Kevin mccallison was like
my fucking idol for like years.

Speaker 1 (05:32):
Wow. The number one thing I would do if my
parents weren't around is I would run around my house
with my hands over my head.

Speaker 2 (05:39):
Gone, ah hell yeah, dude.

Speaker 1 (05:42):
I will say at the time that it came out
because it has been adopted as a Christmas classic, Like
it's just one of those movies that people like put
on lists of like the top Christmas movies. At the
time it came out, reviews were mixed. I remember that
because I was a weird kid who like read movie
reviews before, like even of movies I wouldn't see.

Speaker 2 (06:03):
Oh so you're like ten years old when this comes out,
ten years old through the calendar section.

Speaker 1 (06:08):
Nine years old and thumbing through the life section of
the Dayton Daily News that was just like, get get
this front page news out of my way. I want
to see. It was like a little magazine shaped insert.
It would like give you the movie reviews of the
latest movies, and I remember this one getting like two
stars or something, and looking back, Owen Gleibman from Entertainment

(06:31):
Weekly accused the film of adult bashing, which is what
is an adults or like a persecutive minority group.

Speaker 2 (06:41):
Trying that one on adults. Yeah, that's.

Speaker 3 (06:48):
That's like Russ. That's kind of stuff Russ doubt at
does now.

Speaker 1 (06:51):
Yes, exactly right, right, But like there are on the
Wikipedia page for Home Alone, you learned that like in
Poland and Romania, the holiday tradition is that like the
main TV channel shows it every Christmas Eve. There's like,
you know, everybody watches Home Alone one year they didn't

(07:13):
show it. There was like a outraged Facebook hit, like
ninety thousand people protested, like online, And it's the same
similar in Romania, like people are.

Speaker 3 (07:24):
That's like when people get mad in America because like,
like the only kind of activism Americans do is when
they like cancel their favorite TV show.

Speaker 1 (07:32):
Yeah, sending in angry letters to fucking network TV. When
Janet Jackson's boob gets exposed.

Speaker 3 (07:40):
The closest we came to like a social revolution was
when the finale of Game of Thrones sucked, right, So, yeah,
I was much older, So I mean obviously, like you know,
I feel the same way, like I love John Denver
because I heard him when I was you know, if
I was seventeen when John Denver was putting out records,

(08:04):
I would have been listening to like, you know, Steppenwolf
or something and thought John Denver is for losers. So
I mean there was an age different. I was forty
eight when this film came out, but so no, was
I was twenty one. I was twenty one. Oh, so
it was a whole different.

Speaker 2 (08:22):
Oh yeah, god, you were dude. I can only imagine
how fuck home alone you were at this point when
you said you were really getting fuck getting drunk and
anti everything.

Speaker 3 (08:32):
I was just sort of leaving the home alone demographic
in New Canaan that. I mean, this movie made me
think of where I grew up, except like to have
a house this nice, your family wouldn't be this nice,
you know. So like, you know, I was just leaving
this andto I had only seen Peugazi like that. That

(08:52):
year I saw Melvin's for the first time.

Speaker 2 (08:54):
That Repeater just came out. Yeah, what's that said? Repeater
just came out that year.

Speaker 3 (08:58):
Yeah, And it was like that. I was just like
sort of leaving the just deciding like, oh wait, like
I don't know what. I don't know that I would
have would have gotten some heavy capitalist message out of
it or anything seeing this movie, but it was just
like I was just in the middle of So I
understand why you guys, you know, saw it and and
and you know probably loved it. You know, I can

(09:20):
see how you would love it. It's got certain qualities
to it. It actually feels like you're in a big
It feels like you're rich while you're watching it.

Speaker 1 (09:27):
I feel like that is that is what it does.
It makes you feel like you're rich. And also I
will say the people who aren't rich in this movie
are fucking idiots. They're like always the bad guy, Like
they're always like like the people who work at the
store when he accidentally shoplifts the toothbrush, or like you know,

(09:51):
the mall, Santa any anybody who's like, we're you know,
the people who work at the airline, airline attend and cops,
the pizza guy. They're just like, look at this friend
jufist the entire nation of France. The shuttle driver of
this little kid's like, what kind of gas mile did
you get on that? An objectively cute question. He's just like,

(10:13):
beat it, kid, I'm fuck out of here, you little shit.
It's it does seem to have a certain view of
basically even like there's an uncle who's like kind of
the poor asshole for being poor, Like he's just like,
you know, cheap and won't spend money, and then like

(10:35):
his brother who like that. There's been articles speculating like
how the fuck are these people making their money?

Speaker 2 (10:41):
Yeah, automating France, right, that.

Speaker 3 (10:45):
Was the first thing I noticed. I mean I was
just like, they have so they're burning so much electricity
in this house. That's the first thing I noticed. I mean,
that house is lit up like I mean like they're
trying to throw money out the window. And you start
to think, wow, houses are pretty and they're lit up
like that, and then you think how deranged that is?

Speaker 2 (11:03):
Right?

Speaker 3 (11:03):
I mean, if you go back and watch the movie,
which I watched yesterday for the first time, the first
thing I was like, I was like, this is an
advertisement for excessive electricity use first and foremost, and it
makes you feel likes electricity use would make you feel better,
like spiritually. And that's the thing is that house is
like a beacon of capitalism, and I don't like that

(11:27):
is really what it reminded me of being in a
house like in my hometown of New Canaan, Connecticut, where
I would go over to the ultra wealthy's house and
our house was fine. You know, it was not a
bad house, but it was not one of these kind
of houses where it's just like everything's brand new.

Speaker 1 (11:41):
It's like a monument to Christmas, and yeah, everything's brand
fucking use the rugs match.

Speaker 2 (11:48):
You're like, wait, you just buy all your rugs at
the same time to match in your house.

Speaker 3 (11:52):
These were kind of houses where they would run out
of a box of cereal when I was there, and
then they would go into this pantry and there'd be
like five boxes of that same cereal on backup. Like
our family, we definitely only had one box or one
item of whatever we had. We had to go get
another one after we ran out. Yes, this family, and

(12:13):
it does. I wanted to go to those people's houses
because I felt safe. It was the only place I
felt safe, you know, Like you know, like imagine if
you spilled as much milk as as Macaulay Culkin does
in that scene in my house, that was like enough
to like cause a divorce. But you know what I mean,
Like in their house, they were like just get someone
to clean it up or whatever was hire somebody to

(12:35):
clean up the milk. I mean, it's like it feels
good and the like I remember as a kid though,
being in those houses, and that's what I felt like
this movie. Actually, I could see revisiting this movie as
a tradition because it makes you feel safe. It shows
you the America you wish or you thought or you
wanted to exist, you know. And but the thing is,

(12:57):
that's what's funny about it to me, is I knew
the houses that were like I was in them, but
the people inside were not nice because to get that
kind of money, you're not going to be like playful.

Speaker 2 (13:05):
Or he might leave your.

Speaker 3 (13:06):
Kid behind, but then you blame it on your kid,
or you just like, you know, like we're gonna stay
away extra because you're such an irresponsible Actually.

Speaker 2 (13:14):
We're going to go to France. Why don't you stay here?

Speaker 3 (13:16):
Yeah, I mean.

Speaker 1 (13:17):
Really, Yeah. I think I talked about this on last
year's Christmas episodes, but I do think she left him
on purpose, Like there's I don't think she consciously knew
she was doing it, but she does realize she's doing
it on some level, because when she has the revelation,
it's not like she goes back and counts the kids.
She there's a nagging thought in the back of her mind.

(13:39):
And during those opening scenes, she fucking hates him so much. Yeah,
everybody hates him so much in those opening scenes, and
it does feel like there's a part of her unconscious
that was like, we should just fucking leave this kid,
and like that was going.

Speaker 3 (13:54):
To Tucker Carlson and those scenes, yeah, those are the way.
That's the way Tucker Carlson grew up and dad was like, yeah,
we left you behind on purpose because we're warming you up. Yeah,
boarding school.

Speaker 2 (14:04):
But his mom did leave is the one I think
is the one who left France for France.

Speaker 3 (14:12):
Oh my god alone.

Speaker 1 (14:17):
We need to look up what Tuger Carlson thinks of
the movie Home Alone left by his mom.

Speaker 2 (14:22):
To go to France for France. You must hate that ship,
hot Tucker.

Speaker 1 (14:26):
But also like living probably this wasn't weren't they like
the Air to the Ons, the Swans and.

Speaker 3 (14:35):
Oh yeah, yeah, I grew up surrounded by those fucks
and uh and uh you know I saw I saw,
like you know, just like they leave their kids alone
from for weeks while they went to like Saint Bart's
and stuff like you know, like I mean they so
this is like such a benevolent version of that, Like

(14:55):
I mean, this family at least.

Speaker 2 (14:57):
You know, gives to bring the kids, yeah.

Speaker 3 (15:00):
Gives a ship about it, like you know. But yeah,
just just the wealth was the first thing that stood
out to me. I was like, this is like, this
is crazy, and yeah, all the people who are in
the middle class still like in a decent mood, you know,
taking ship from kids about what the mileage is or whatever,
you know, because they're like still have like.

Speaker 2 (15:17):
A yeah job, could you could survive off of those
wages somewhat?

Speaker 3 (15:23):
Yeah, and you can go to the local bar and
have some self esteem like because you had a good
blue collar job and a nice mustache. Then that's all gone,
you know.

Speaker 1 (15:30):
But those guys Santa, the smoking Santa, mall Santa. The
person who tried out for that and didn't get it
was Chris Farley. He was actually tried out for that
role and shri Chris Columbus was like, no, thank you,
but yeah, he's just like, kid, I don't know, here's
a here's a fucking tic tac. You know. It's like
it is like a cautionary tale of like he's safe

(15:53):
and protecting this like warm cocoon of like capitalist wealth
and consumption. And then like he like goes out into
the scary world and like interacts with these middle class
like wage workers, and they're all just like here you go.
This is what I give my kid for Christmas? A
fucking tick tac. Oh. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (16:16):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (16:18):
Brian's point that all of this is if you are white,
there's a there's a big if you're a white thing
going on in this movie. There are no people of
color in this movie except for the life size cutout
of Michael Jordan that he uses to trick the trick.

Speaker 3 (16:36):
I noticed that too, like it. Like usually they would
be even in nineteen ninety, they'd be like, we should
probably put someone on one like.

Speaker 1 (16:47):
Michael Jordan, but the on paper as a print out.
But you're right that like the people who are you know,
lower class, they're at least somewhat helpful and like get
you know, doing their job. And the one group that
is the robbers, you know, the robbers who are like

(17:08):
I'm I'm going to break the rules and go in
and steal all this good stuff is that's even though
I didn't work for it, looking low class dental work.

Speaker 3 (17:20):
Well, I don't know if we're going to go through it,
but since you bring up the robbers, I'm just going
to say I realized that the robbers are Antifa.

Speaker 2 (17:28):
Well, maybe we should go in this movie because it
sounds like you've got notes, Chris, and I'm I think
we're fascinated to know what lies within those notes.

Speaker 3 (17:38):
Well, it's it's already like it's already been I'm I'm already.
Now I know what to watch if I ever feel like,
if I want to feel safe, I watched this movie,
and I feel like I'm in a big brick house
where the worst thing that could happen is like some
people who are going to France forget me and then
come back and yeah.

Speaker 2 (17:55):
And.

Speaker 3 (17:57):
A wheel of brie or whatever they brought back to France.

Speaker 1 (18:00):
All right, let's take a quick break, we'll come back.
We'll start going through the movie. Uh, and yeah, we'll
be right back.

Speaker 2 (18:15):
And we're back. We're back, Hello, hello, hello. Uh to
go through it should maybe just I can I can
just read a bit a chunk of plot and you
can see what what what's drummed up? Does that work
for you, Chris, just so we can kind of stay chronological,
because I know you've gotten notes script. Yeah, so let's

(18:36):
just go with plot from Wikipedia, dot com, dot org,
dot net.

Speaker 1 (18:40):
Slash along this episode. Go go, yep, go donate to Wikipedia.

Speaker 2 (18:47):
Here we go. The Mcalliser family prepares to spend Christmas
in Paris, gathering at Kate and Peter's home in Wineka,
a Chicago suburb, on the night before their departure. Kate
and Peter's youngest son, Kevin, is ridiculed by his siblings
and cousins due to his immature Kevin inadvertently ruins the
family dinner after a scuffle with his oldest brother, Buzz,
resulting in Kate punishing him by sending him up to

(19:07):
the attic. Frustrated with Kate for allowing the rest of
the family to pick on him, Kevin wishes that his
family would disappear. During the night, heavy winds damage electricity
and phone lines to the house, disabling the alarm clocks
and causing the family to oversleep. In the confusion and
rush to get to O'Hare airport, Kevin is accidentally left behind.

Speaker 1 (19:25):
So in that opening scene, there's a lot going on.

Speaker 2 (19:27):
I do.

Speaker 1 (19:28):
I feel like this is anti tourism propagant, Like it's
the anti travel propaganda. It makes travel seem so fucking stressful.
And they're just like, stay home, safe in your giant house. Yeah, yeah,
it's good, stay home and consume, don't go out there.
Cultural France. I don't know why there trying to create
a fear of France. They are, yeah, they I feel

(19:49):
like I know in the second one, they go to
Florida and like they cut to them, just like sitting
in a shit hotel room. Well yeah, yeah, while it's reigning.
We ever see them in Paris? In this, I feel
like it's very maybe very briefly and again it's just

(20:10):
everybody like stuck in a hotel.

Speaker 2 (20:11):
No, because it immediately becomes about his mom by the
time she turns, and then you kind of hear about
what's happening. But no, there's no like I don't think
there's any like Parisian scene.

Speaker 3 (20:21):
No, there's just that scene in the hotel room, and
there's this and then John Hurd isn't his name of
the father? Yeah, he yells like he's trying to find
his son on the phone. Oh do you speak English?

Speaker 2 (20:31):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (20:31):
Like really he tries, he tries to deal with these
idiotic foreigners for a little bit and then he finally
loses his temperance. Just do you speak English?

Speaker 2 (20:40):
And I think that's a laugh line.

Speaker 1 (20:41):
I thought there was a scene where the kids are
trying to watch TV and it's all in French.

Speaker 3 (20:45):
There is.

Speaker 1 (20:48):
Yeah. Yeah, it's like the worst way you can experience that,
I will say. In that opening scene where they're all
running around and getting ready and just shredding this fucking
seven year old for being a fucking idiot and being like,
you can't pack your own bags, you stupid piece of shit.

Speaker 2 (21:10):
What are you?

Speaker 1 (21:10):
Seven? Joe Peshy the burglar is brazenly casing the joint
by dressing as a cop and standing in their entryway,
and it is the least anyone has ever paid attention
to a cop, Like, it's just there's just I mean,
this I think is some thoroughly white ship where they're
just like a cops here. Oh well, couldn't couldn't be? Oh,

(21:33):
you who are in dangers here?

Speaker 3 (21:36):
We're safe? Yeah we're safer because yeah.

Speaker 2 (21:39):
It really is a pretty weak story too, where he's
just like so transparently casing the joint.

Speaker 1 (21:45):
Ah, you're going out of town, all right, I'm talking
about Okay, you adults are fucking idiots. Only Kevin knows
that something's up here.

Speaker 3 (21:58):
I'm gonna read you some notes from this first seat.
I wrote Pepsi.

Speaker 1 (22:02):
Yes, I was so, I wrote the five year old.

Speaker 3 (22:09):
I was like, there's something wrong with his family right
off the fucking that were you?

Speaker 1 (22:13):
Were you not a pepsi family? I was a Pepsi family.

Speaker 3 (22:15):
Oh my god? Really, yeah, we're crass too. We were
like Coldgate Coca Cola family. No, we were.

Speaker 2 (22:21):
I don't.

Speaker 1 (22:21):
I don't think we had any loyalty on toothpaste brands,
but we I think it was me driving the Pepsi thing.
I just like, I think I liked that there was
blue in the logo. I like the logo better. I
was a big Michael Jackson fan.

Speaker 3 (22:34):
Well, I was. I was a we were coke people.
But I also like just just noticed, like Pepsi obviously,
you know, product placement was was, yes, you.

Speaker 1 (22:43):
Know, I can't believe they had to go with little
neros instead of like Dominoes, you know, because the pad
kind of looked good to be honest.

Speaker 3 (22:51):
Yeah, oh yeah, I wrote down twenty pizzas for one
hundred and twenty two dollars.

Speaker 2 (22:55):
Yeah. But do you also think because right hearing Colkin
plays Fuller the younger cousin in Yeah, where they're like
he's drinking PEPs He's gonna pee the bed, that in
my mind, I really have a strong connection with pepsi
and pissing the bed for whatever. I'm like, bro, I
don't know, man, you drink.

Speaker 3 (23:11):
One to Bede didn't go through the movie.

Speaker 2 (23:13):
Fuller Buckminster Fuller.

Speaker 1 (23:15):
I didn't wet my bed at two later, like probably
like seven, I wet my bed after going to a
party and drinking like so much soda. And I've always
I've always wondered if it had something to do it,
like you know, sugar like kind of will make you
not go to the bathroom. But then like all that,

(23:36):
like what is released later or something.

Speaker 2 (23:38):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (23:38):
I haven't quite figured it out.

Speaker 2 (23:42):
Yeah, were you at a sleep a sleepover?

Speaker 1 (23:46):
No? No, it was like we were at a family party.
Drink came home, so many sodas came has just.

Speaker 2 (23:54):
Gotten ripped at a family party? Come on, man, Taylor's
oldest time.

Speaker 3 (23:58):
That's American too, like you know, like thinking about some
one time you pissed the bed and still trying to
think of an excuse, like fifty years later like that.

Speaker 2 (24:06):
So I don't know if it was sugar, you know sugar, Yeah,
failure every human function is like I was just that
all the time when I was seven, that thought.

Speaker 3 (24:18):
I was like sugar, I only did that once.

Speaker 1 (24:21):
Shouldn't let me drag all the sugar?

Speaker 2 (24:23):
It is wild?

Speaker 1 (24:24):
How like I don't think many people let kids drink
PEPSI or coke like at age five these days, you.

Speaker 2 (24:31):
Know, no, not in Biden's America.

Speaker 3 (24:33):
Yeah, no, exactly, So PEPSI, no phones, educated children, friendly
cop huge amount of electricity, middle class, twenty pizzas, one
hundred and twenty two dollars, America's dumb attitude toward other countries.
And then I wrote Christmas with the Trumps.

Speaker 1 (24:52):
The which Donald Trump. Uh. Probably his most famous media
hit up to The Apprentice was his appearance and Home alone.

Speaker 2 (24:59):
Two. Wait did you write down? So they got twenty
pizzas for one hundred that's what that pizza?

Speaker 1 (25:03):
I don't know, ten pizzas for one hundred and twenty dollars,
so twelve dollars per pizza. And but they're like, what
the fuck is this hotway robbery?

Speaker 3 (25:12):
But I think pizza is probably the same price now,
it's just that wages are so low or wages are
no sorry, what am I saying? Pizza's higher? Yeah, like
you'd never be able to get way higher and wages
would be the same.

Speaker 2 (25:23):
Probably you could find a twelve dollars pizza though, you
know what I mean, Like you get you can get
a little Caesars.

Speaker 1 (25:29):
Not for the hot from a little neros that place,
Hi not shit, and the delivery people drive it to
you ship faced it would appear I do the electricity.
How brightly lit the houses are is such a good call.
Like I still remember. That's the thing I remember about

(25:50):
the fake party. He throws with a cutout Michael Jordan
is like every house in every light in the house
is like turned on. The place is fucking glowing like
a Christmas tree, and it just seems so happy. It
is a celebration of just burning electricity as much as
you can.

Speaker 2 (26:08):
Absolutely it's you know, like we didn't know much about
climate or anything like that, so yeah, just run your
incandescent bulbs because like that shit probably costs a lot
too when you think about how energy and efficient that is.
But it their flexes all around.

Speaker 1 (26:22):
The pizza guy treated like kind of a dipshit when
we first see him. I could I can never read.
Do you guys think he's being sarcastic when he says
nice tip? He kind of delivers its leg.

Speaker 2 (26:33):
I've always taken it.

Speaker 3 (26:35):
I thought it.

Speaker 2 (26:36):
Yeah, I know it because it totally could be bad acting.
But I always thought I was being a dick.

Speaker 3 (26:40):
Yeah, it seems like nice, I thought they were just
trying to establish that these people were generous.

Speaker 1 (26:44):
I thought it was yeah to be acting bad. Yeah,
and he's an asshole. But then Kevin later makes him
think that he's about to be murdered, which like with
no real justification other than like, I guess he needs
to eat. But again they're just like, hey, he's a
fucking stupid pizza delivery man who gives a ship.

Speaker 3 (27:05):
Well, why did the pizza guy keep running into that
lawn jockey? And why was there a lawn jockey? But
why was there a lawn jockey? I mean even in
nineteen ninety lawn jockeys were.

Speaker 2 (27:15):
Let me just see what he says from the niceness, how.

Speaker 3 (27:19):
Come you bring more Chief pizzas?

Speaker 2 (27:22):
Nice tip?

Speaker 3 (27:23):
Thanks a lot.

Speaker 1 (27:24):
Thanks?

Speaker 2 (27:24):
He might be yes, actually just a bad actor. Yeah,
there's they're supposed to be that tip thanks a lot.

Speaker 3 (27:30):
Wow. These people are using most of the resources of
this country, but they tip.

Speaker 1 (27:34):
Well, yeah, every light in the whole fucking house is
on at all.

Speaker 3 (27:42):
Our department loaded it up too much, like it had
everything in there.

Speaker 1 (27:46):
Increasingly that will be what people notice about this movie.
Like as we get further further into a world where
like you have to pay so much money for electricity
because they're using it all on AI and shit, people
are just gonna be like wow, wow, Wow, people are living.

Speaker 3 (28:02):
Probably didn't mean to make him seem so rich. I
think it probably just didn't look as abnormal well back then.

Speaker 2 (28:09):
But yeah, I mean it's just that thing that all
media did was like it was this very high level
version of what normal was. So you're like, damn, Like
you know, just like the same way on like TV
shows people they're never gonna it's never gonna actually reflect
what the living conditions are for most.

Speaker 1 (28:23):
Yeah, it was all whi fulfilm and it was like
Friends or you know, this is a John Hughes movie.
Like he's the same person who made Ferris Bueller's Day Off,
where like the kid you're supposed to the two kids
you're supposed to like identify with as like the protagonists
of the movie are like incredibly well, that's true, Like
she didn't be any richer.

Speaker 2 (28:42):
Like Cameron's house. I'm like, what the fuck your parents
they fucking own black Rock or something.

Speaker 1 (28:49):
But his dad, his dad has to work really hard,
so he's like not always that black rock back then?

Speaker 3 (28:53):
Was he probably his dad probably down a gas station. Yeah,
like the economy was so different, like it was there
were no billionaires around. They were just like there was
so much less resentment. I am old enough to remember that. Like,
I mean, you you knew these kind of people were rich,
but you didn't necessarily want to burn their fucking house,
you did, because.

Speaker 2 (29:11):
They weren't to your disenfranchisement.

Speaker 3 (29:13):
They weren't like they hadn't quite figured out. The monopolies
were still building. You know, we're at the moment where
they've all like fully bloomed, you know, But back then,
like there was such a thing as a middle class
that sort of was happy enough that they didn't want
to strangle these people when they delivered their pizza, Like
they would knock over their lawn jockey, but they put
it back up for real, you know what I mean,
Like as now they'd piss on the long jockey after

(29:35):
they and so they should be pissing on lawn jockeys
because lawn jockeys are racist. And I didn't understand why
they wanted to establish this family was racist right out
of the gate, because that's one of the first things
that happens. It is supposed to be wacky, and I
just couldn't figure out if it was a statement. But
I don't think it was any kind of statement. I
think it was just supposed to be somebody hitting a lock.

Speaker 2 (29:52):
These idiotic wage workers yet my lawn jockey.

Speaker 1 (29:56):
Yeah, you know how much I paid for that lawn jockey.

Speaker 2 (29:59):
You know much I paid for this airport shuttle van.

Speaker 3 (30:02):
Yeah, But those people could go back to their part
of town and like have a fucking pot luck and
everybody could get laid and smoke cigarettes or whatever. And
they were not that mad at the electricity gobblers across town.
We're going to France because they thought they were idiots anyway,
because they're like, who needs France? And we got this
keg of beer and these cigarettes. So I just think, like,
there's like this show, this movie, show this whatever, show's stability.

(30:26):
You know, it's exaggerated, but there was, you know, unless
you I mean, of course, you have the factor in
like it's never for white people. I guess I would
say everybody in this movie's white. So I'm you know,
as far as white people went, things were definitely more
stable for white people in nineteen ninety.

Speaker 2 (30:43):
Yeah, And I think just general the class consciousness to
your point, broadly also just wasn't really there in that
sense either. It's like some people are rich, and some people.

Speaker 3 (30:51):
Will take away people's fucking ability to pay rent. It's
on you know, you take away. If someone could pay
the rent even and have a dart board, you know
they're gonna be okay. You know, they can house, yes
they need a house, a dart you know, or an
apartment doesn't even have to be a house, just something
they can pay off without losing their ship, you know,

(31:13):
and enough money, you know, then you have you know,
you can have those kinds of relationships where you don't
want to just you know, knock these people out. But now,
like the airport shuttle guy, if somebody makes a joke
about the mileage, probably fucking abandons the wheels, starts jumps
in the back seat and starts trying to kill.

Speaker 2 (31:30):
Everyone, or just jump jump out the driver's seat on
pH and like good luck, yeah something, you know.

Speaker 1 (31:35):
What I mean.

Speaker 3 (31:36):
And then people will be like, man, society's gone downhill.
I remember when he used to be able to make
jokes to these wage workers and they didn't go berserk.
But that's that's what It's not their fault. It's just
that they're hanging by a fucking thread.

Speaker 2 (31:49):
Now, all right, So the next section of plot, if
there's anything, so now Kevin's been left behind, He's like,
what the fuck happened? Kevin wakes up to find the
house empty and the family cars still in the garage,
unaware that they had rented vans from poor people to
take them to the airport. Thinking that his wish has
come true, he's overjoyed with his newfound freedom. Later, Kevin

(32:11):
becomes frightened by his eccentric next door neighbor, old Man Marley,
rumored to be a serial killer nicknamed the South Bend
shovel Slayer, a murdered his own family agent mccowster. Home
is soon stocked by the Wet Bandits Harry and Marv,
a pair of burglars who have been breaking into the
other houses in the neighborhood where the families are on vacation.

(32:31):
Kevin tricks them into thinking that his family is still home,
forcing them to postpone their plans to rob the mcollister house.

Speaker 1 (32:38):
The shot where they like go up to break into
the back door and he turns on the light and
they're like, hey, someone's here, let's get out. Of here
and scurry away is like that. I just remember seeing
that in so many like alarm system commercials where it
was like, oh, you know, lights that turn turn on,
and like it's created a genre of like alarm system commercials,

(33:02):
like that's exactly how every Burglar dressed that, just like
the nit cap with yeah right, and if it wasn't wintertime,
crow bar, you have that a crow bar.

Speaker 2 (33:12):
You gotta have a nit cap. You gotta be wearing
all black. Yeah, And that's like a little yeah exactly
the way Growar DJ.

Speaker 1 (33:21):
Is dressed like Burglar's wet bandit core. Let's what the
kids are doing these days. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (33:27):
The Old Man. When you first saw the film Old
Man Mark, I remember being like, oh, this guy's a
fucking murderer. I remember that for the right. I'm like,
this guy's a fucking sick murder and he killed his family,
and like what he's doing, he.

Speaker 1 (33:43):
Saw a lot of just questionable decisions to just glare
at children while standing there something without saying anything. As
I stream and run away from him, he doesn't, he doesn't.
And then when you see him later when he finally
explains him off, he's like, hey.

Speaker 3 (34:02):
You yeah, less dramatic pauses.

Speaker 2 (34:05):
Buddy, Yeah, yeah, yeah, don't give don't give kids a
thousand yards stare for.

Speaker 1 (34:10):
The I do.

Speaker 3 (34:11):
That guy is me, Like, I'm like I could. I
felt bad for that guy because I was like, this
is me. I'm that guy with the shovel at this age,
not when I watched him. I never saw at this age.
Right now, I'm like, I'm like that, they better stop
yelling at that guy. He's probably got some stuff going on.

Speaker 1 (34:24):
Old neighbors all have legends about you.

Speaker 3 (34:27):
Yeah, exactly. The only difference with me is I talk
immediately and a lot.

Speaker 2 (34:31):
He turns his victims into cold brew and he drinks it.

Speaker 3 (34:35):
Yeah yeah, but I'd be like, no, I don't what
the hell, but that guy, I felt bad for you
because I was like, this is more of this ship
or the other you know, othering of like you know,
i mean sure he was like acting creepy, but still
it's just like all these things that used to be innocent.
Now I'm like, Oh, teach people to be afraid of
old guys.

Speaker 1 (34:53):
Yeah, adult bashing the stand for it.

Speaker 3 (34:59):
Old people are yeah, yeah, oh great, well that's half
your life, So have a nice time, everybody.

Speaker 2 (35:07):
Chris any loose notes up until the point where the
mom realizes Kevin has gone.

Speaker 3 (35:13):
And what no, there's got some thoughts about the mom
okay at the airport, But we can get to that.

Speaker 2 (35:18):
We're going to get to that then.

Speaker 3 (35:19):
Other than that, just the shoveler I wrote down. The
shoveler guy is sewing fear of the other. He is
the poor or the elderly.

Speaker 2 (35:28):
Hell yeah, dude. So then Kate McAllister realizes mid flight
that Kevin was left behind, and upon arrival in Paris,
Kate plans to return home immediately due to Kevin being
home alone. That all nailed it, but the family discovers
that all flights of the next two days are booked
and that the phone lines are still down back home

(35:49):
in Chicago. How whimsical the phone line no way to
contact that part of the world. Oh well, I guess
people just died. Like it's just terribly fucked up. Ways
when the phone lines went down, you like these like really.

Speaker 3 (36:03):
Thought about that?

Speaker 1 (36:05):
You want story about that?

Speaker 2 (36:07):
Man?

Speaker 1 (36:07):
You drink?

Speaker 3 (36:09):
You just drink. And when the boone lines were up,
you also drink.

Speaker 2 (36:13):
Yeah, right good?

Speaker 1 (36:13):
What if Kevin had gotten ship faced the second his parents.

Speaker 2 (36:16):
Are Oh my god, right, he was pretending with that
after shave. I'm surprised at it.

Speaker 3 (36:24):
Very whimsical. I know people i've met in AA you
started drinking when they were eight. He was a very
whimsical eight year old, I know, just Dray Clean, living
popcorn and singing.

Speaker 2 (36:32):
He was more Yeah, traumatic brain injuries he could put
due to adults with paint cans.

Speaker 1 (36:37):
The one example of like middle class people being fucking
idiots and terrible at their job that I feel like
this movie my nail is the police being completely helpless. Uh,
they're so bad. There's like, all right, she says, their
kids home alone. She also again like a convenient uh

(36:58):
inability to talk at certain point is just like my
child is home alone. Instead of telling the whole detail
of like he's definitely there, we are in pair like
just explaining it. She would just be like, my child
is home alone, would you please go check on him?
Is like not enough information you need to be like
he's eight, he's there all by himself, right, and that

(37:20):
the person just knocks on the door and then doesn't
and then is like, I don't know what this lady's
talking about. This is a completely empty house with all
the lights on.

Speaker 3 (37:30):
Yeah, yeah, sometimes they got to do that. Yeah, they
got to do that in the movies. Yeah, I mean
say less than they normally would.

Speaker 2 (37:36):
Yes, I mean yeah, I'm glad that they at least
made the police look completely incompetent at their job.

Speaker 1 (37:41):
Right, So would not be the case for a for
a cop who is a documentary part of them? Yeah yeah, right,
not not for this class of family. Though this story
would have been on the local news the first night
that they left, like they they would have been handlelight
vigil Yes, exactly, every o the South.

Speaker 3 (38:01):
Side of Chicago. They wouldn't have shown up at all.

Speaker 2 (38:03):
It wouldn't shown up at all, exactly.

Speaker 1 (38:04):
It wouldn't have been able to get through to the cops. Uh.

Speaker 2 (38:07):
So we go back to the plot here, the phone
mines are down, Peter and the rest of the family
stay at his brother Rob's apartment in Paris, while Kate
stays at the airport and hopes of finding a seat
on an outbound flight to Chicago. More quickly, Kate is understed,
been stanky, but this was a wild part. Remember this
is a couple ticket trades. Later, she's able to get

(38:29):
to Dallas, Texas, and then Flats, Dallas, Texas. Yes, I
convinces a couple to trade tickets to Dallas with her,
and then then she flies to Scranton and meets Gus
Polinski John Candy.

Speaker 1 (38:44):
The only leader of the po we call her people
in the movie.

Speaker 3 (38:46):
He's barely in He's in it so little. I was
surprised they didn't give him much.

Speaker 1 (38:50):
He wasn't supposed to be in it, right, Yeah, he
appeared in this movie as a favorite to John Hughes'
I guess in exchange for like Uncle Buck, and he
like did his role in Home Alone. He was paid
like a little over one thousand dollars for like the
Wikipedia is like in exchange for that, he was allowed
to improvise his whole like everyone dialogue, not learn any

(39:12):
of I know you could tell right. It is also
interesting there's a I just noticed it for the first
time this time that she literally says, like I would
do a deal with the devil to go back and
to get to Chicago. And that's when he like taps
on her shoulder. I was setting it up because she

(39:33):
is like getting into a van with a bunch of
men who like could do anything, and they kind of
set it up as if it could go in that
direction where she's like, I'll do a deal with the
devil and then he's like, hey, hey hello, then he's
he's just John Candy.

Speaker 2 (39:49):
Yeah, yeah, the devil and.

Speaker 3 (39:51):
This if this movie was directed by your ghosts, whatever
is to become a horror movie. At that point, noverybody
was like, he's genius. Oh my gosh, you're kidnapped. My
oh god, this is we have ever seen in my life.

Speaker 2 (40:05):
Look what a mother's desperation.

Speaker 3 (40:06):
He changed tone with no warning. He's a genius. I
fucking saw that movie Pogonia, and I want to oh god,
oh that holy well. If I know that guy directed
the Lobster, I never would have walked in the theater.
I just didn't know. The Lobster made me madder than
almost anything in the world.

Speaker 1 (40:29):
Uh is dog Tooth if you've ever seen dog Tooth?

Speaker 3 (40:32):
Anyway, Begonia made me mad because it was one of
those things where it's like a surprise ending or whatever.
After you go through a whole movie where you're supposed
to be you think you're supposed to be learning something.

Speaker 2 (40:40):
Anyway, well, what did you learn about Kate McAllister? You
said you had a couple of notes about the mother
at this point.

Speaker 3 (40:45):
Uh, white ladies trying to make their problems into other
people's problems, a little pandemic preview. I demand, I demand
the supply chain work for me immediately.

Speaker 1 (41:06):
She just happens, Like I feel like the way the
writers were thinking of it is like she's using everything
on her. She's like being resourceful to like get back.
She's trading her ear rings and a Rolex and all
these different things to these people for their tickets. And
it's like, yeah, but she like has fucking thousand dollars
earrings and a Rolex and like all this shit on her.

Speaker 2 (41:28):
Yeah, she's able to make it work, you know.

Speaker 3 (41:30):
Yeah, just I need a plane ticket right now because
of a mistake that I made. You Who do I
talk to to fix my timeline? Anyway? That's the dark
I mean. And then as it's just to mention though,
at the end of this movie, I could see watching
it again because it does have a comfort food sort

(41:53):
of quality to it that I did not pick up
on while I was analyzing it because I was analyzing
it and seeing capitalism and all this stuff. But also
I did understand why, you know, it is like a
way of like accessing the American dream through a VCR,
you know.

Speaker 2 (42:07):
True, Yeah, no, I think that's especially now as I
become an adult. It's truly just to regress and like
go to some other like to feel six and I
knew fuck all about how fucked everything was. Yeah. Yeah,
it's sort of sort of like where you land.

Speaker 1 (42:23):
Let's take one more break, all right, then we'll come back.
We'll get to the murder house part of the uh
oh baby of the movie and uh and then some
trivia and.

Speaker 3 (42:34):
I forgot about that's fucking insane.

Speaker 2 (42:35):
Go ahead, we'll be.

Speaker 1 (42:36):
Right that.

Speaker 3 (42:46):
And we're back.

Speaker 2 (42:48):
We're back.

Speaker 1 (42:48):
And this is kind of like an Equalizer shaped movie.
I don't know if you've seen the Denzel movie Equalizer,
but it's it's basically the same thing where you like
see this person, like you know, developing like teasing at
their skills a little bit throughout, and then in the
final like thirty minutes, you get to see him pull

(43:09):
it all together into just like a fucking murder gauntlet.

Speaker 2 (43:14):
You see it with the fake party. He can hook
gadgets up to make it look like people are moving around.
He knows how to use firecrackers. To scare a poor
pizza delivery guy with an old timy gangster movie and
now like, yeah, he's putting it together. So it's Christmas Eve.
At this point, Harry and Marv now realize that it
is only freaking Kevin in there's just a little kid

(43:35):
in there, and Kevin over heres by a kindy garden
he over hears yeah discussing plans to break into their
house that night. He starts to miss his family and
ask the local Santa Claus impersonator if he could bring
them back for Christmas. Kevin attends a church choir performance,
eventually re encountering Marley, who proves the rumors about himself
to be false. Mary point just.

Speaker 1 (43:57):
Crams himself to be a very charismatic yeah exactly, no
such thing as a murderer who makes himself seem nice
and yeah warm and cudley.

Speaker 2 (44:07):
But he also points out he goes, hey, you see
that girl there, that's my granddaughter in the choir and
I've never met her since I am as strange from
my son. And Kevin's like, oh, you should probably figure
that out, man, with your kid. I don't know. I'm
about to go fuck these guys up now, sorry, I
got to go kill some guys. I gotta go fucking
try and kill these two fucks.

Speaker 1 (44:25):
This is I think the the scene of the movie.
It's not the most memorable scene. Definitely wasn't the one
I liked the best of a kid, But like, the
two performances by old Man Marley and McCauley culkin in
the church are really good. Like that s really fucking works.
It's very heartfelt, for sure, It's very heartfelt, and like

(44:47):
it's the one like McCauley Culkin's performance for the rest
of the movie is a lot of just being like,
look surprised, Kevin. Okay, look surprised again, Yeah, do like
a yes, But that one he you know, it's like
the precocious part of his character, but like you kind

(45:08):
of believe it, and he's pretty cute. So that's a
good scene.

Speaker 2 (45:12):
So that was for you.

Speaker 3 (45:14):
That was Jack, Sorry, that was the scene that for you.
That was like Martin Sheen and Marlon Brando and Apocalypse Now.

Speaker 1 (45:21):
Yeah, exactly, heavyweights at the top of their game. Yeah,
throwing haymaker. It was the one that definitely, uh, I thought,
I was like, oh this, I see why. This is
like a Christmas class that's got the oscar?

Speaker 2 (45:37):
Yeah, exactly, why not have he was robbed? He was
so the booby trap scene comes. Now Kevin returns home,
rigs the house with handmade booby traps. Herring Marv break in,
spring the traps and suffer various injuries. I love this
distillation of this entire various injuries. And then Kevin calls

(45:59):
the police and lures a into a neighboring house that
had previously been broken into. Harry Marv ambush Kevin to
prepare to get their revenge, and then Marley intervenes the house.
The booby trap scene, the suspense that builds when he's like,
it's time to fuck fuck these guys up, and I'm
going to turn my house into a kill room.

Speaker 1 (46:18):
And the music that's playing there where it isn't it,
And then they like start the drums come in and
it really gets he pumped off. Something I noticed this
time was that it's eight o'clock when he leaves the
church and he hasn't said any of the booby traps,
and they're coming at nine house murder murdered.

Speaker 2 (46:41):
Well, he was like setting machines off. Try have you
seen a gid try to use tools earnestly. There's no
fucking way.

Speaker 1 (46:51):
But it is also as when I was seventh, that
is about the amount of time I would have given
myself that I would have just got our gutting, fucking
bludgeon bludgeoned to death. I was setting the Christmas ornaments
up by the window.

Speaker 2 (47:11):
Hold on, this is the paint can. You'd throw the
paint can, but you don't know how to tie a nott,
so it just falls right off the string and you're like, fuck,
all right, just bludgeed me, Chris, your notes for everything
up until this point where the various injuries, the ingenious
engineering feats.

Speaker 3 (47:30):
All I wrote was, here's what I wrote on this,
this is this is I'm starting to fall off at
the end here McCauley has McCauley has lipstick on the
whole MOVIEU paint cans equal FMW deathmatch wrestling.

Speaker 1 (47:48):
Uh. And that was that.

Speaker 3 (47:50):
I was just into death match wrestling in the nineties
and I was thinking it appealed to the same you know,
it appeals to the same like you know. It was
only a few years a few years later that wrestlers
were literally getting hit in the head with paint Kansas
stepping on nails. So I thought that. But but aside
from that, I just thought that I realized that the
burglars were the good guys, and they were Antifa, and

(48:10):
that these guys are deserved to get their hands on
this money and electricity, and and McCaulay, for some reason,
is a damn Jedi. Yeah, yeah, and you know, just
just humiliates them even though they were the good guys.

Speaker 1 (48:23):
And in the sense that he can control them, control
their brains, so they go the exact route that he
wanted them to in every case.

Speaker 2 (48:31):
In this exact sequence.

Speaker 1 (48:33):
The nail that was when I realized nail McCauley was
the nail is the one he was just going to say,
which one sticks with you the most? And while the
the one with the blowtorch that could have easily just
killed saying yeah, like unless it was not if if
it was tipped down five percent, it would have murdered him.

(48:55):
Your hair off by far the most visceral one, Like
I don't know if they do something with the sound effect,
but his like foot goes down into it slowly and
you like hear a little something and then Daniel's reaction
physical performance.

Speaker 2 (49:12):
It has to be said, Daniel Stearn's physical reactions are
pretty amazing in the film, like he sells so much
of it was like crossing and it's just his like
screaming for me, honestly, the paint can is the one
that I remember when I like rewatched it again when
I was like nineteen. Yeah, I was like, dude, that
would have because I think at the time I was

(49:33):
really into jackass type shit and like hurting myself for
fun and seeing that I was like, dude, no, you
would die. You die, Like I remember this really odd
realization because I'd lived enough, like like that's not actually
really that should have killed them, and I don't know.

Speaker 1 (49:50):
That was actually not cool, Kevin True. For some reason,
the paint can has not bothered me because every paint
can that we ever had at our house would be
half empty and also dented, so it seemed like it
was like made of like I don't know, it was
like soft, like don't.

Speaker 2 (50:09):
Think, I guess I'm thinking of a full paint can,
like you know what I mean, right, beating up a
full paint can.

Speaker 1 (50:15):
That's I've never been hit with one of those. Also,
you must try, you simply must you must get fucked
up in Kentucky.

Speaker 3 (50:25):
I guess I was just wondering, Yeah, how much of
an influence. I didn't think of Jackass, but whether this
scene influenced death match wrestling or Jackass, Like, I mean,
they were the right age to see it and be like,
what if we did that to each other all day long,
every day until Steve O went to rehab.

Speaker 2 (50:39):
Well, I'm also just thinking of like when when was
a film giving you this kind of like stunt shit
with like like gag and injuries, you know what i mean, Like,
because it was pretty wild inness that, Like I remember
half the appeal too was like dude, he focks these
guys up pretty bad. Yeah, Like there the guy's burning
his hand, he's getting his head blow torched off, he's

(51:01):
taking paint cans to the face. Like I don't I
can't think of a thing before that that was anything
like that in terms of like the physical it was.

Speaker 1 (51:09):
I mean, it was Tom and Jerry. It was like cartoons. Yeah,
which it's interesting that like the first entertainment that they
made for kids, they were just like, well, i'll tell
you what kids want to see. They want to see
two people like just beating the living shit out of it.
Sull they die, but they don't die from their injuries. Yeah,
and then it became like not cool for a while,

(51:32):
and then they were smart to bring it back, I think.

Speaker 2 (51:35):
Yeah. So then Christmas Day comes, Kevin is initially disappointed
after waking to find that his family is still gone. However,
Kate arrives home a few minutes later and they reconcile.
The rest of the family, then returns only a few
minutes after that, having waited in Paris for a direct
flight to Chicago. Kevin keeps silent about his encounter with

(51:55):
Harry and Marv, although Peter finds Harry's knocked out gold Tooth.
Kevin then watches Marley reuniting with his family. That's the
i thing we don't talk about was the clean up.

Speaker 1 (52:06):
The cleanup. Yeah, he's he's got some cat in the
hat in him that he's able to set things up
and clean things up incredibly quickly. I thought that the dad,
after he was like, Okay, what's this with the gold Tooths,
was was going to be like, are you fucking cheating
on me?

Speaker 3 (52:28):
That's a whole nother sequel.

Speaker 1 (52:30):
Yeah, that's because you're right whose gold tooth is this? Hey, Hey,
whose fucking gold tooth is this? When did you get home?
I will say, Uh, Joe Pasche and Macaulay Culkin didn't
get along on the set. Joe Peshi was pissed because
they had to like get there or like start shooting
at seven am in the morning because like the rules

(52:51):
are like the kid can't shoot too late. And he
was like, uh, that doesn't work for me. I like
I golf, I got to get nine holes in And
it's just funny. It's like you read about it and
it's like the subtext is basically like the set wasn't
big enough for these two egos. Like Joe Pesci was
like threatened and like annoyed that he wasn't allowed to

(53:12):
cuss on the set and stuff. But you think about
the spread of like classics from this period that Joe
Peschi was in, because they tried to give this role
to de Niro and then John love It and then
Peschi was the third choice. But he had home alone. Goodfellas.
You know my cousin Vinnie, like he was really he

(53:35):
was on a heater.

Speaker 2 (53:36):
Yeah, okay, my cousin Vinnie, Come on, Jack, lethal weapon
three Lethal Weapon.

Speaker 1 (53:41):
He just like shows up and is like, you know,
suddenly a big you know, Okay, you remember I saw
that movie.

Speaker 2 (53:50):
There you go, Chris.

Speaker 3 (53:51):
I don't know what kind of movies I was making
exceptions for, but I saw Lethal Weapon three.

Speaker 2 (53:55):
I think it makes sense because you're like, yeah, that
looks like it's for adults.

Speaker 3 (53:59):
I wouldn't say yeah, I mean, this is There's no reason.
There's a lot of movies I did see that were
aimed at adults that like Forrest Gump. I mean that
I didn't see like Forrest Gump. That was something I
was supposed to see. But this would have been crazy
for me to take time out from you know, f
Gazzi to see Home alone. But uh, what I was

(54:20):
thinking about, you know what movies just like this fucking movie,
which was a great movie at least I remember.

Speaker 1 (54:25):
I mean I saw this movie when I was young.
Risky Business. Yeah, it's like the same story as Risky Business,
except it is Risky Business except instead.

Speaker 3 (54:34):
Of like you know, having a popcorn party, that he
had sex with a yeah, a sex worker. And that's like,
that's more of my kind of movie, you know, more
more poetry, right deep deep ship doesn't Risky Business take
place in Chicago?

Speaker 1 (54:51):
Also, I feel like it's like it could be in
the same neighborhood. Again, It's just like rich kid gets
to be alone and I just never the same talking
movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

Speaker 2 (55:01):
Yeah, yeah, the.

Speaker 3 (55:02):
Same movie, except they just crack. He cracks that egg,
you know, they find the crack in the egg. What
if this rich kid actually had some freedom and those
risky business parents were more realistic as far as the
kind of parents that would have a house that was
that opulent, because they were they were truly frightening. Whereas
like to have the kind of money that McCauley's parents had,
these guys were pretty benevolent. You can't. I mean, I

(55:24):
was just like everything in there, like you're just looking
at man. You know, they got a rhododendrum every three feet,
they got, they got you know, every goddamn pillows fluffed,
every damn I mean, each room is just a pageant
of consumerism. And then the parents are are have a
sense of humor, and those two things do not go
together normally unless they won their money from a lottery

(55:48):
or you know, something like that. I would imagine then
they'd be nice.

Speaker 1 (55:51):
But I do think to your point about capitalism and
like consumerism being like ultimately the main message of this
It is interesting that when everybody gets home and they're like, Kevin,
it's it's pretty cool you didn't burn the house down, man,
because that was That's the other thing that like literally stops,

(56:11):
Like everybody stops and is like hmm. When they're like, honey,
we got to go get milk because honey, the milk
is gonna be spoiled, and Kevin, Kevin's like, I went shopping.
I got milk and tyre surgeon and everyone's like you
are the best dude. They're like, he did food shopping

(56:32):
the ultimate.

Speaker 2 (56:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (56:35):
Yeah, but it's also you know, consumerism is the best
thing that you can possibly do. Go to the grocery store.

Speaker 3 (56:41):
The promise of capitalism is that you you know everything
in this movie, it's like, oh, this is it, this
is this is this is your dream. Here you are
the dream and you're so fully been fucked over into
caring about products that you forget your own child.

Speaker 1 (56:54):
Right.

Speaker 3 (56:55):
Yeah, I mean it's really a cautionary to of all.
It's a tragedy, it's a mirable tragedy.

Speaker 1 (57:04):
Is that when they get on the plane and they're
like I did notice an eighty yard line where they're like, okay, kids,
you're in coach, we're in first class. The parents are
in first class, and the kids go back into coach,
which like, so you're right, like this is symbolic of
an overall like they like part of how they parent,
which is like out of sight, out of mind, you

(57:24):
know what I'm saying, the fuck out of here, and
I am obsessed with that I and I didn't think
of this. I mean I think of this movie as
probably not really thinking that deeply about these things. They
were probably just making a movie to some extent, you know,
nineteen ninety things were like it was looking like maybe
it is possible for you know, all of us to

(57:46):
coexist while some of us have all the electricity. They
might have really thought that that was possible, because it
didn't seem possible.

Speaker 3 (57:52):
At that time.

Speaker 1 (57:52):
It didn't.

Speaker 3 (57:53):
It was not as dark as as it is now,
so you just didn't. But but yeah, the idea like
those those sort of relationships like as long as you
can keep the food and the products coming, then you
can basically get away with a yeah, you don't have
to see each other. But then what happens is I
do think a lot about people like Tucker, just because

(58:17):
they ended up being so powerful and so empty, and
it's because they really were. And these are the people
I grew up with who were left behind when their
parents went on vacation and they had all their needs met,
like they had often had servants that took care of them,
like like, for real, this is a level of shit.
I grew up and that's why I thought our house
looked like shit. Our house was a normal house, but

(58:37):
I was like, we live in a shack, you know
what I mean, like because we didn't have servants or
you know whatever, a prototype microwave or one of these
fun people. I went over to their house, they had
like uh, you know whatever, there's ship they had.

Speaker 1 (58:49):
But anyway, this realistic part of this movie, by the way,
is that they don't have like a nanny or a maid,
you know, like that would up the plot.

Speaker 3 (58:56):
But sure, yeah, but then then the problem is like, yeah,
you get these you know, it turns out a kid
needs more than a nanny, and you know whatever they
had in that house, a big fat couch or whatever
in a big TV, like a kid needs more than
that you can't and then the kid ends up like
this Macauley guy. This character probably ended up being a
right wing monster when he grew up because maybe the

(59:18):
family's fortune went away and he didn't know who to
blame and he had no resources inside because his own
mother forgot him on a vacation and anyway, but you know,
this is what I bring to the table. This reminds me,
This reminds me of and you can maybe cut this
this maybe too. I hate saying it, but it's like
I saw this kid at an ice cream store, like

(59:38):
throwing a tantrum like because and his dad was like,
get him the ice cream that he wants. Get him.
He's like three years old, and he's like the kid
was like throwing sample spoons on the floor and stuff.
And I went and did stand up that night and
I said, listen, I saw this kid, you know, and
his dad kept going, get him another flavor, get him
another flavor.

Speaker 4 (59:55):
Oh my god, Oh my god, you know, And and
I was like, you know, if you if you never
say no to a kid, especially a male kid, when
do you when do you think the first time he
hears no is gonna be yea you know dead series, right,
and then the host came up and said, ladies and gentlemen.

Speaker 3 (01:00:11):
Chris crofton some people see a three year old, he
sees a rapist, So yeah, he probably have to cut that.
But anyway, that's that's along the lines of like I do,
I can't ruin any party. It was like me going
to Disneyland. Remember when I told you about that. Oh yeah,
I didn't do accid Disneyland, and it's a good things.
I would have ruined everybody's truck. Caribbean was like you know,

(01:00:34):
Jeff Bezos' anus or whatever. You know, Yeah, because I'm
a spoiler.

Speaker 1 (01:00:39):
Yeah, just a couple of stray things that you learn
from the Wikipedia page. The Old Gangster Movie, which I
always assumed as a kid, was a real old gangster
movie that that's probably the best piece of filmmaking in
the movie. They they like went and got old cameras
and old film stock and shot that. That was the

(01:00:59):
last thing they shot before they started actual production. And
I it does like come across as an old movie,
like it was a real old movie. No, it wasn't
a real old movie. They shot it just for this,
but they actually like kind of nail the look of
like old gangster movies, which I will say that we
owed this movie to Chevy Chase being a complete asshole,
because Chris Columbus was actually supposed to be making National

(01:01:21):
Lampoon's Christmas Vacation when this movie filmed, but chevy Chase
was such an asshole that he quit that and became
available to make a Home alone. Wow. Yeah, so that's
the reason that we get Chris Columbus, who is I
think the perfect person to make this movie, you know,
like he just like his sensibility is like so right

(01:01:42):
down the middle for sure. I think one of the
big reasons that this became so popular and iconic is
because it was one of the first videos that was sold.
There was like a big war of like we you know,
we shouldn't sell videos because that'll ruin movies and like
theater going things, so we can only rent them, and
like so only a few movies were sold, and this

(01:02:05):
was the second highest selling video of all time behind
et Like, so they were I think Disney sold movies
every once in a while, but it was like kind
of rare, and this was one of the first ones
that was like sold wide and like everybody owned it,
and then it's Gerald Ford's favorite movie for the reason
the old old dipshit ex president is like this fucking

(01:02:28):
movie rules.

Speaker 2 (01:02:29):
It looks like my house. Oh my, just pissing himself laughing.

Speaker 3 (01:02:32):
I remember my parents left me behind for four weeks,
but that was on purpose.

Speaker 1 (01:02:36):
And then this blew my mind. They wanted to audition
a person who's like a famous comedian now after seeing
him in a sketch comedy show, like a children's sketch
comedy show, but his parents wouldn't let him. Do you
know who that young man is? No, John Mulaney. They
wanted John mulaney to audition for the McAuley culkinroll, and

(01:02:58):
his parents were like, no, no, thanks.

Speaker 2 (01:03:01):
Holy ship, Yeah John mulaney. No, that's that's a fucking
weird timeline.

Speaker 1 (01:03:07):
Yeah, that would be Also, I don't think the movie
where like just he still has the energy of like
kind of a wise ass little kid. Uh, but like
I feel like not the right type of wise ass
little No.

Speaker 2 (01:03:19):
And also if he was if he had a cocaine
problem as an adult a child actor like that, we
would John mulaney would not be here.

Speaker 1 (01:03:28):
Yeah, that's all I got for home alone. Chris crofton
thank you for watching Home Alone for us, No.

Speaker 3 (01:03:35):
Problem was fun. I I'm living in this house with
all these roommates, and so it's like a I normally
don't have a laser projector or whatever they are those
projectors projector lasers. So I got to watch it on
this big one of my roommates has like a big night. Yeah,
like we projected. I projected it on the wall, so

(01:03:56):
I got a good look at all this opulence.

Speaker 2 (01:03:59):
That like tricity.

Speaker 3 (01:04:01):
Yeah, yeah, it was really fun and it was really
fun and uh and yeah, I actually did have affection
for it. After it was done, I kind of wanted
to go back in that pulls in that house.

Speaker 1 (01:04:13):
Well, well, we'll be back for another edition of this.
When Miles and I watch a Christmas classic that Chris
has seen and that we've never seen.

Speaker 3 (01:04:22):
You've both never seen. It's a wonderful life.

Speaker 2 (01:04:24):
We've both never seen a wonderful I mean I know
that it's I knew that it was on TV, and
I immediately went like, what the fuck, No, bro, it's
black and white.

Speaker 3 (01:04:34):
Yeah, that immediately, I do. I agree. That makes sense
to me, Yes totally.

Speaker 1 (01:04:39):
If it's so good, why is it in black and white.
Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas everyone, and we'll be back. Happy Holidays,
Happy Holidays, Happy holidays.

Speaker 2 (01:04:49):
Woke. No, we're not saying Merry Christmas here no, not here,
no no no Mary Capitalism, Donnie will have you killed.

Speaker 3 (01:04:58):
I gotta go to the Huffington Post. I gotta check
the Uffing to post.

Speaker 1 (01:05:01):
In all right, we'll be back tomorrow with another holiday episode,
or back on the next weekday. Until then, Happy Holidays, bye.
The Daily Zeitgeist is executive produced by Catherine Law, co
produced by Bebe Wayne.

Speaker 2 (01:05:17):
Co produced by Victor Wright

Speaker 3 (01:05:19):
Co written by j M McNabb, and edited and engineered
by Brian Jefferies.