Facedwith the dangerous situation of a home invasion, Finn opts to handle it himself rather than calling for help. His only outside help comes from a man he met through online gaming who contacts Finn's mom once he realizes the severity of the situation. Though the entire set-up is pretty unrealistic, it does come with some strong messages about family and healthy relationships in the characters' journey to reconnect with each other. Both kids defy their parents and at times speak disrespectfully to them, but their experiences bring them closer together and celebrate the unmaterialistic gifts of the holiday.
Finn's parents love their kids enough to move across the country for a more wholesome upbringing for them, and they battle familiar foes like the media and video games for time with their kids. Their absence during the burglars' heist is coincidental rather than intentional, and they do their best to keep in touch and to return home when they sense danger. Finn and Alexis show coolness under pressure when the bad guys arrive (although the best thing would have been to call for help right away).
Predictably, there's a heap of slapstick violence that would cause serious harm in the real world, but the victims keep on kicking on screen after being pelted with marbles, trapped in a window frame, kicked in the face, and pushed down the stairs. Police draw guns on a suspect and subdue him with pepper spray, and a man verbally threatens a teen's life.
Parents need to know that Home Alone 5: The Holiday Heist delivers the franchise's expected punch of slapstick violence aimed at a team of inept burglars who break into a boy's home while he and his sister are unsupervised. As in the first four movies bearing this title, the showdown between the grown-ups and the crafty kids is as funny as it is unrealistic, but it's important to remind your own kids that this doesn't represent how a real-life scenario would play out. Despite the premise, you'll find the story rich in themes that celebrate family bonds and even raise relevant issues like monitoring screen time and staying safe online. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails.
Finn Baxter (Christian Martyn) is less than thrilled about his family's move from California to Maine, and he doesn't feel any better after laying eyes on their new home, which he fears might be haunted. Despite his parents' assurances that nothing's awry, Finn assumes the worst when he finds a secret room in the basement and discovers that his self-designed ghost trap has been tripped. So when his parents leave him and his older sister, Alexis (Jodelle Ferland), home alone while they attend a Christmas party -- and a band of thieves breaks in to steal a treasure hidden inside -- Finn rigs the house to deter them.
HOME ALONE 5: THE HOLIDAY HEIST is a fairly formulaic reworking of the plots of the previous four Home Alone movies. Boy's parents leave him at home by himself, bad guys break in, boy nearly destroys the house in an attempt to foil their plans. A few things change here, like the presence of Finn's sister and the outside help he gets from a man he met through online gaming, but it's not hard to figure where the story is going or how it will work out in the end. Of course, if kids haven't seen any of its predecessors, then they'll take particular delight in Finn's underdog story.
If you tune in with your kids, you'll be surprisingly entertained throughout, thanks to an excellent cast (including a small role for Edward Asner) and the antics of the inept crooks. You'll also notice aspects of the story that might escape your kids' attention but that offer great conversation starters about issues like balancing screen time with family time, protecting your privacy online, and, of course, staying true to the spirit of the holiday.
Families can talk about the media. How much time do you spend looking at screens in a day? A week? How much of your information do you get that way? In what way are computers or cell phones superior to traditional means of news? What, if any, are their drawbacks?
Kids: Is Finn responsible with his gaming habit? Why are his parents concerned about this hobby? Have you ever found that an interest of yours keeps you from being involved in other activities? Why is it important to strike a balance among all of your activities?
Do the characters always make smart decisions? What might Finn have done differently when he realized he was in real danger? Do you think his parents would have believed him if he'd told them what was going on? What are some of your family's plans for emergencies like fire, storms, or a home invasion?
I wish there were a way to write a positive two-star review. Harmony Korine's "Mister Lonely" is an odd, desperate film, lost in its own audacity, and yet there are passages of surreal beauty and preposterous invention that I have to admire. The film doesn't work, and indeed seems to have no clear idea of what its job is, and yet (sigh) there is the temptation to forgive its trespasses simply because it is utterly, if pointlessly, original.
All of the characters except for a priest played by Werner Herzog and some nuns live as celebrity impersonators. We can accept this from the Michael Jackson clone (Diego Luna), and we can even understand why when, in Paris, he meets a Marilyn Monroe impersonator (Samantha Morton), they would want to have drink together in a sidewalk cafe. It's when she takes him home with her that the puzzlements begin.
She lives in a house with the pretensions of a castle, in the Highlands of Scotland. It is inhabited by an extended family of celebrity impersonators, and they portray, to get this part out of the way, Charlie Chaplin (Denis Lavant), the Pope (James Fox), the Queen (Anita Pallenberg), Shirley Temple (Esme Creed-Miles), Abraham Lincoln (Richard Strange), Buckwheat, Sammy Davis Jr. and of course the Three Stooges. Now consider. How much of a market is there in the remote Highlands for one, let alone a houseful, of celebrity impersonators? How many pounds and pence can the inhabitants of the small nearby village be expected to toss into their hats? How would it feel to walk down the high street and be greeted by such a receiving line? What are the living expenses?
But such are logical questions, and you can check credibility at the door. This family is not only extended but dysfunctional, starting with Marilyn and Charlie, who are a couple, although she says she thinks of Hitler when she looks at him, and he leaves her out in the sun to burn. Lincoln is foul-mouthed and critical of everyone, Buckwheat thinks of himself as foster parent of a chicken, and the Pope proposes a toast: They should all get drunk in honor of the deaths of their sheep.
Perhaps that's how they support themselves: raising sheep. However there seem scarcely two dozen sheep, which have go be destroyed after an outbreak of one of those diseases sheep are always being destroyed for. They're shot-gunned by the Three Stooges. Or maybe there are chickens around somewhere that we don't see. The chickens would probably be in the movie in homage to Werner Herzog, who famously hates chickens.
Now you are remembering that I mentioned Herzog and some nuns. No, they do not live on the estate. They apparently live in South America, where they drop sacks of rice on hungry villages from an altitude of about 2,000 feet. Rinse well. When one of the nuns survives a fall from their airplane, she calls on all of the nuns to jump, to prove their faith in God. I would not dream of telling you if they do. Herzog feels a bond with Korine, who was still a teenager when he wrote the screenplay for Larry Clark's great "Kids" (1995). Korine is visionary and surrealistic enough to generate admiration from Herzog who also starred in his "julien donkey-boy" (he plays a schizophrenic's father, who listens to bluegrass while wearing gas mask). In addition to the chickens, "Mister Lonely" has another homage to Herzog, a shot of an airplane taking off, which you will have to be very, very familiar with the director's work to footnote.
Various melodramatic scenarios burrow to the surface. Marilyn is fraught with everything a girl can be fraught with. Lincoln has anger management problems. The Pope insists he is not dead. Everyone works on the construction of a theater, in which they will present their show, expecting folks to come all way the from town to -- what? Stand in a spotlight and do tiny bits evoking their celebrities? Then fulsome music swells, and the underlying tragedy of human existence is evoked, and the movie is more fascinating than it has any right to be, especially considering how fascinating it is that it was made at all.
Last week I mentioned I had initially planned on writing about a different movie before revisiting Meet The Robinsons and feeling inspired to write about it. I promised I'd cover the original film in the future, and this week I decided it was time to rewatch 1995's A Little Princess. Unfortunately, it didn't have much of a lasting impact on society, and it might seem random that I'd choose to analyze such a forgettable film that's over two decades old. However, for me, A Little Princess wasn't as forgettable as it was to most others.
The film is based on Frances Hodgson Burnett's novel of the same name. The movie might not be remembered by many, but it has some big names behind it. Mexican filmmaker Alfonso Cuarn, best known for his Oscar-winning films Gravity and Roma, directed the G-rated drama with Rain Man producer Mark Johnson also on board.
I watched this movie a lot as a kid, and while I realized a lot more problematic aspects than I remember from when I was a child, its themes around hope, belief, and imagination still ring true for me. On Movie Mondays With Gina, I like to cover films that allow me to dive beneath the surface and discover greater meaning than meets the eye. I chose A Little Princess so I could delve into the importance of nurturing and healing the inner child. This is something I am so passionate about, whether I'm speaking to my younger self in meditations or revisiting old movies I loved as a kid.
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