His remake might have proved they can’t make ‘em like Miracle on 34th Street anymore, but nearly twenty years later, Home Alone proves they can’t make ‘em like John Hughes anymore. The Hughes canon increases in stature with each passing year and will long outlive the likes of today’s Judd Apatows because the Midwestern-raised Hughes was a genius at crafting the simplest of plots, keeping them moving, and dropping into them sympathetic and memorable characters we relate to. Characters who themselves were frequently the products  — not of lofty Manhattan or some other trendy city –  but Midwestern small towns and suburbs populated with ice rinks and churches and beautiful homes filled with good and decent people (not the Wheelers and Lester Burnham).

With an eye for physical comic comedy a Keaton or Chaplin could appreciate, Christopher Columbus does a fine job directing but this perennial holiday favorite and surprise box-office smash ($486 million domestic in today’s dollars) is through and through a John Hughes film. Not just in the sense that he produced and wrote the screenplay (which happens to be one of the best structured of the last two decades), but that his unique sensibility is all over it; from the perfect amount of sentiment to a genius understanding that no matter how big or small the role, a movie is always better for the presence of John Candy. (more…)

“Wax on, wax off.” “He slimed me.” “Fortune and Glory, kid.” “I’ll be back.” “Don’t get him wet. Keep him out of bright light. And never feed him after midnight.”

It’s hard to believe that a quarter century has passed since that magical movie summer of 1984. The calender year of George Orwell’s dire dystopian nightmares had arrived, but instead of a nation writhing in servitude to Big Brother, America was delighting in the prosperity engineered by Big Gipper. Throughout the summer of ‘84, the greatest president of the twentieth century was cruising to the single largest electoral total ever amassed by a presidential candidate in our history, and “It’s Morning Again in America” commercials were playing on TV’s across the land to widespread approval. (more…)