Sequel Saturday Presents Home Alone 2
By Paul Anthony
Once again sorry about the delay there is no doubt the holiday season has been rough on our schedule here at Smash Writing but no worries 2020 will be a fun year but anyway let’s get to the movie shall we! Okay so one of the all time classics when it comes to a Christmas movie is Home Alone 2, now it is a movie we as saw maybe a billion times by now but I never got to review it, so as we march to Christmas I figured hey why not. Now we know these movies pretty much made Macaulay Culkin a household name. In 1990 he starred in Home Alone part 1. Culkin played an 8 year old boy who in a large family was forgotten at home when the family woke up late to catch their plane. The family was heading to Paris for their Christmas vacation. Here Kevin played by Culkin must protect his home from the Wet Bandits played by Joe Pesci and David Stern. Needless to say he did protect his house and didn’t get into too much trouble from his family. Now The movie made nearly 480 million and is regarded as one of the best Christmas movies with all tat being said you know there needed to be a follow up and 2 years later we got Home Alone 2: Lost in New York.
Trying to follow up one of the best Christmas movies is tough because you can’t do the same thing twice can you? The events of the movie take place just one year later this time the family wants to travel to Florida for Christmas and of course Kevin does not, like the first film the family wakes up late and rushes out the house this time they make sure they have Kevin, which they do until a little mistake by Kevin leads him to the wrong gate which takes him to New York. The family doesn’t realize this until they land in Miami which is raining. Mean while Kevin with his dad’s wallets which includes a credit card and cash checks into a hotel and is enjoying a vacation to himself but it is short lived when he runs into the Wet bandits who now go by the Sticky bandits, this time they planned on robbing a big time toy store which Kevin finds out and uses his uncles house as his torture chamber for the bandits and well the plot plays out like the first film.
I know Kevin being only 9 years can’t fight these guys but using the same tricks basically over again then having the family forget their youngest kid yet again to me this hurt this film from living up to the first film. With that being said everything else was on par and I didn’t think overall this was bad follow up. If they were just little more creative with this film it could have been better. Now with that being said overall I am giving this film an B plus or 85 percent and will always continue to enjoy the film!
The Irishmen Review
By Paul Anthony
Okay now I love Mafia movies I really do and I love Mafia movies made from Martin Scorsese. I love Goodfellas and Casino and even The Departed. When I heard about this film I was excited I mean who wouldn’t just look at the talent leading the way. Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci and Al Pacino and you had the normal Italian actors playing the Mafia roles. Like many Mafia movies it tells a story at a slow pace and builds a good strong character development which is a key to the success of this type of movie but this film had one major problem and that was it just didn’t know when to end!
The Movie tells the story of Frank Sheeran or his nickname is the Irishmen, but it is from his perspective which many don’t fully believe but anyway he tells his story that he was a war veteran and became a truck driver by trade but began to sell his meat from his trucks to local Mafias and when he got caught, they bailed him out then that’s when he began working for the mafia as a hitman. The film then shifts to a time where he becomes friends with Jimmy Hoffa and sadly because of Hoffa wouldn’t listen to the Mafia, Frank who try to warned him had no other choice but to kill him, which historians and detectives dispute this claim and bunch of other kills Frank claims that he did.
The Movie made not be the most accurate film but it this did come from Frank himself which many claim that he was lying but no there is no evidence that says he wasn’t either. I won’t knock the film for that because he was telling the story and they wanted to tell Frank’s story then this is what he told them. Now there is a issue I have with casting and that was they casted Anna Paquin as Frank’s oldest daughter Peggy, the woman is seen for a few minutes and not given one line yet she is the reason for Frank confessing everything, I don’t know if they were on a tight budget because they used most of it to de age the main cast for their flashback scenes and all they could get was Anna with no lines to me this just seems like a waste of casting and money to that matter. Frank made had a long story to tell rather it was fact or fiction but this movie didn’t need to tell every single word of it.
In the end I am giving this film a B or 83 percent, I liked it and thought it had a lot of good going towards it but the poor casting of a few people and the length just ruin it to me but if you have time and I do mean if you have time then take a watch!
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