Every couple of days, I'm forcing Mike to watch a Christmas movie with me. I just love this time of year! Added with the fact that there's snow outside and temperatures have been in the teens, I'm totally getting into the holiday spirit!So far we've watched "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation" (all-time favorite), the "Holiday" (sure, not a classic, but has classically handsome Jude Law in it) and last night we watched "Home Alone." Oh my gosh, I haven't seen this movie in probably 10 years!
Can you believe "Home Alone" debuted 20 years ago? (Watch trailer here) Argh! How does time go so fast?? It was written and produced by my all-time favorite, John Hughes, and filmed right here in Chicago! (Nearly all of Hughes' movies were filmed here.)
The beautiful McCallister home is in Winnetka, a suburb just north of Chicago. It was built in 1920 and is worth between $1.27 million and $1.74 million. As a kid, I dreamed of living in that house. As an adult, I still dream of living in this house.
Here are some other facts about the movie I found on-line:
* John Hughes wrote the script for the movie in one weekend!
* John Candy filmed his part in only 1 day
* The role of Uncle Frank was originally written for Kelsey Grammar
* John Hughes wrote the script with Macaulay Culkin in mind after working with him in Uncle Buck. Director Chris Columbus still auditioned hundreds of other boys, just to make sure Macaulay was right. (Can you imagine it with anyone else??)
* The movie is the 3rd highest grossing film of all time, and highest grossing live-action comedy of all time. It took in $533 million worldwide.
* It was #1 at the Box Office for 12 straight weeks. It debuted in November of 1990, and was in theaters past Easter of 1991. (I totally remember seeing this in the theater, and I remember it being the most packed movie I'd ever seen in Cheyenne, Wyoming. There were entire parts of the movie I couldn't hear because kids were laughing so loud.)
* The scenes were the family is running in the airport and in the Paris airport are both shot at Chicago's O'Hare Airport.
* There is a scene where Kevin is walking past a driveway just as Harry and Marv are driving down it, and they stop just in time to avoid hitting him. This was achieved by having McCauley Culkin walk backwards, as the van was driven in reverse away from him; the film was then shown backwards. It's hard to tell - but if you look at the smoke from the exhaust, it's drifting toward the van rather than away from it. So cool!
Truly, if you haven't seen this movie in awhile, I highly recommend it! So well written. This weekend, Mike and I are going to try and find the Home Alone house, so stay tuned!
Omg! I love this movie!!! I watch it every single year at least a half dozen times. We watched it last night also and it's at least the 3rd time I've watched it since thanksgiving. I'm a huge Home Alone nerd. :)
ReplyDeleteI LOVE Home Alone!! I think I'm going to have to watch it again soon :)
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