WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE CHRISTMAS MOVIE?

DIE HARD?

ELF?

MUPPET CHRISTMAS CAROL?

I have a Christmas tradition which answers the question for me.

HOME ALONE I & II are just as dated in their way as Dickens' Christmas Carol.

Yet for me they are forever young.

Chris Columbus' movies represent both a childhood long left behind and, 

indeed, a bygone age that doesn't make sense anymore viewed from the 21st century. 

The entire premise of HOME ALONE is now an impossibility, 

 because how could a child end up accidentally abandoned 

and declared missing in this new Millennium of mass communication? 

With post-War on Terror airport security checks being what they are, 

the McCallister parents couldn't possibly get on a plane to Paris without noting that one of their group is AWOL.

 
Today, Kevin would be live-tweeting his ordeal, 

sticking giddy selfies all over cyberspace and then - if he started to feel frightened and forlorn - 

signing-in to Skype to sing Christmas carols to his folks in France.

 It's actually quite fascinating and strangely comforting to revisit 

this quaint pre-internet, pre-mobile phone era of VHS tapes and 4:3-ratio TVs. 

And with regard to its precise place in history, 

as a film it also marks the timely convergence of John Hughes in his peak

 with a star about to go nova and a cultural environment that was ideal 

for HOME ALONE's explosion as an international mega-hit.


The film deftly uses Christmas as a narrative engine on which to power a resonant comedy-action-drama.

This fun movie continues to resound in the hearts of all children, no matter the age of their bodies.

The secret to HOME ALONE's longevity

 is its delicate balancing of a sense of peril and menace 

with a sense of fun and a sense of sweet Christmas-ness: 

all elements beautifully expressed by John William's wonderful score. 

WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE CHRISTMAS MOVIE 

AND WHY?