10 Lessons Learned from the Greatest Christmas Movie of All-Time on Its 25th Anniversary
By: Jeff McDonough
My love for the Christmas
season and loathing of Christmas things before Thanksgiving are equally potent.
It’s for that reason that I’ve been pleased to see some stores have announced they are taking a stand against the recent trend of
Black Friday sales creeping into Thanksgiving Day, and will remained closed that Thursday. The sales can wait ‘til Friday. Let retail
employees have Thanksgiving off! Nordstrom has gone further saying they won’t even put up Christmas decorations until after Turkey Day. All of this is to
say that it goes against a hardline stance I have to write this column, but the
25th anniversary of one my all-time favorite movies is a worthy
exception.
Home Alone hit theaters on November 16, 1990. How old do you feel? It’s my
assertion that this is the best Christmas movie there is. Yes, the story of a
boy, who was left behind when his family goes on vacation for the holidays,
fending off two zany burglars by using household items as deadly weapons. Talk
about holiday cheer! I don’t think my family has ever gone a year without
watching this move. It’s tradition. But it’s not just us. Home Alone remains the highest-grossing live-action comedy of
all-time, earning about a half a billion dollars worldwide during its theatrical run. When you consider the
drastic raise in tickets prices, the upcharges tacked on for 3-D and just
general inflation — I mean, we’re talking about before I was born here! — that
is a remarkable feat. If you look at the Top-50 films in box office history, after
James Cameron’s Top-2 of Avatar and Titanic, every film remaining is either
a cartoon or a blockbuster that’s part of an action-adventure franchise. So for
a family Christmas comedy to have the run it had is telling. The film has of
course lived on with home video and several TV channels playing it many times every Christmas season.
So I know I am not alone in
my love for Home Alone. But what made this film so great? Why did it stay with
so many of us all these years? For those answers, let’s get to the list!
A Running Diary While Watching the Pilot of The Fresh
Prince of Bel-Air 25 Years Later
By: Jeff McDonough
Last week on September 10, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air celebrated its 25th anniversary.
It was back at the end of the summer of 1990 — a little less than a year before I was
born — that the inaugural episode aired on NBC. To commemorate this milestone
for one of my all-time favorite television shows, I decided to watch the pilot
and keep a running diary of my to-the-second reactions. Fresh Prince is a special series for many reasons. It took a big chance
by casting a popular rapper with no acting experience as its lead, and in turn launched the
career of one of the biggest movie stars in history. Will Smith set a box office record last decade when eight straight films where he was the lead
grossed over $100 million in the US alone. He had four previous $100 million
domestic efforts before the streak as well, but took a short break from
printing money to do some more serious films such as Ali — all that did was earn him his first Oscar nomination, no biggie. While Smith — whose character’s name, in
true Seinfeld-ian fashion, is Will Smith
— is the center of this universe around which everything else orbits, it ended
up being much more of an ensemble show than I imagine the creators expected.
Each of the seven main characters gives a
worthwhile performance — which consisted of eight actors because the role of the
matriarchal Vivian was shared by Janet Hubert-Whitten and Daphne Maxwell Reid.
Unlike most shows where a character has to be recast, this wasn’t a jumping-the-shark-type
moment. I don't really consider one actress more the “true” Aunt Viv
than the other — probably because they split their time so evenly and were both
fine actresses. Hubert-Whitten was the original for the first three seasons
before she was forcibly removed due to a reported attitude problem that caused
friction amongst the cast and crew. Maxwell Reid took over for the final three
seasons and is the only Aunt Viv seen in any reunion sort of setting. None of
this is to slight memorable recurring guest stars like DJ Jazzy Jeff as Jazz,
Nia Long as Will’s fiancé Lisa, Tyra Banks as Jackie, Ross Bagley as little Nicky and Vernee
Watson-Johnson as Will’s mom. It is the relationships amongst the main
characters, however, that make the series shine. So let's dive in and run back
the pilot — alternatively titled “The Fresh Prince Project” — after two and a
half decades. It is 22 minutes in length without commercials — you can stream
it yourself here — and all times reflect how far into the episode we are.
How the Hell is This Show Still So Relevant 20 Years Later?
By: Jeff McDonough
Monday was the 236th day of the year, as
August 24 always is on non-leap years. The significance of this date — beyond
being Cal Ripken’s 55th birthday — is that if you started watching Friends on a strict episode-a-day
regimen when Netflix released all 236 episodes
after the ball dropped this New Year’s, you’d be all
finished! In reality, nobody binge-watches TV this way, with that level of
self-control. You either end up getting distracted by something else and
flaking on your show, or you power through it in embarrassingly quick fashion
with only Doritos crumbs in your bed and a laptop burn on your tummy to show
for it.
Regardless, there has been adequate time for anyone interested in doing
so to run through the entire series, whether for the first time or the 51st
time. Why does this deal even matter? The episodes have been in reruns nonstop, since even
before the show ended, on TBS and Nick at Nite and many local broadcast affiliates.
Well, the answer to this question is really a sign of how things are in 2015 in
general: we want our content when we want it however we want it.
John Oliver's Takedown of Public Funding for Stadiums
By: Jeff McDonough
All over the country there are sports franchises that are
rumored to be at least considering leaving their current city. The biggest
reason given always seems to be because their stadium or arena is too old.
This complaint always seems overblown to me. Stadiums cost so much money to
build, that to tear down a perfectly functional one seems gratuitously
wasteful. When you visit ballparks like Wrigley Field and Fenway Park, it is
like watching a baseball game in a museum. It doesn’t matter if the game is a
blowout because you can get your money’s worth just soaking in the sights. As
long as older stadiums have sporadic updates over the years, I am an advocate
of keeping them. Even places with much less prestige but that are still viewed
as outdated, like Royal Farms Arena in Baltimore, are perfectly adequate in my
mind. I’ve seen basketball and wrestling there in recent years and had a lovely
time. I see no reason why the city would spend the money to tear this place down and
construct a new one.
That’s the real issue though. The money so often comes from the
pockets of the government, and therefore, the taxpayers. The billionaires who
run these teams — often as their secondary or tertiary businesses once they’ve made
their fortunes — have the unmitigated gall to ask us to fund
their fancy, new, luxury projects. The thinking is that new stadiums and all
the events there will boost the local economy. John Oliver, the host of HBO’s Last Week Tonight, asserts that this is
a fallacy, in a scathing condemnation of this practice that he delivered two weeks ago. The money from those gaudy naming rights deals that landed Baltimore
clunky-sounding stadiums like the aforementioned Royal Farms Arena — or how
about when the Ravens called PSINet Stadium home? — often goes to the
franchises and not the city. The money from additional events like concerts,
well, Oliver points out that they may be only lining team owners’ pockets as well.
But you better give them what they want because the threat to move your
favorite team to another city always looms.
