The Willy Wonka of a New Generation!

Rating: 10/10 (2 April 2020)

John Hughes hit every detail with this movie! it is a timeless classic of filmmaking every bit as significant as any dramatic movie. Why? Well, watch it. It has everything. This film should be studied by students and a class taught on how to make a great movie.
The atmosphere is perfect. The house, the neighborhood...it all is perfection. The snow, the Santa Shop, the grocery store, it all works as the template or canvas for this Hughes painting.
Casting. Mom and dad are perfect. They play their parts subdued to let the main characters shine. All the kids blend in. Even Santa Claus is played to perfection...guy is smoking and off to a card game, car won't start. The pizza kid...Casting the B and C roles is just as important as the A roles.
Pace & tempo. The film builds well. Joe Pesci as the officer scouting the neighborhood with the gold tooth...not over done. By the time Kevin defends his house we are all in.
Of course no 8yo would be able to pull off what Kevin did, but this is part of a movie and it works so well we believe it for two hours because the fun is so good. This is family entertainment...all ages will enjoy this. The old man is brilliant, again, the casting is perfection and the storyline very believable. We all knew that old guy in the neighborhood that had a scary story.
Culkin should have been nominated for an Oscar his performance was that good. The church scene with the old man was a director's dream come true. There are so many detailed plot lines that merge together like the tarantula, hitting the house metal sculpture, the gold tooth, a John Candy cameo...the only other movie of this generation that hit all these marks was Back to the Future. Same brilliance and attention to detail. You can watch BTTF 10 times and catch something new each visit.
The reason we don't have many of these movies is because it is hard to pull off. This was major effort and Hughes was the master of this style.