Five Reasons The McCallisters Are the Worst Family in Movie History

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I’ve seen “Home Alone” and “Home Alone 2” at least two hundred times since 1990, and every single time I’ve seen it I’ve always wondered how anyone ever lived with the McCallisters. Yes, Kevin had his flaws, but if you take a step back you can’t really blame him for being kind of petulant, and devious, and selfish when he lives with such a huge clan of careless yuppies prone to losing their children.

After thirty years I thought I should list five reasons why the McCallisters are the Worst Family in Movie History, and why it wouldn’t surprise me if Kevin abandoned them after high school and went on to live his own life leaving them all to fester trapped in suburban hell. That’s my head canon, anyway.

Happy Holidays!

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The Mission (2023)

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Director Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine’s Nat Geo film “The Mission” is one of the most frustrating movies of the year. It’s a documentary that tip toes through its subject matter to its detriment, and avoids the outright reality of a situation that should have never happened and a life that should have never been taken. In 2018 American missionary John Chau was murdered in an illegal expedition to preach his religion to the isolated village of the Sentinelese tribe off the coast of India.

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The Bootleg Files: Dames at Sea

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BOOTLEG FILES 849: “Dames at Sea” (1971 made-for-television musical starring Ann-Margret, Ann Miller and Anne Meara).

LAST SEEN: On YouTube.

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: None.

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: There could be a rights issue preventing its release.

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: Not likely.

In 1966, the tiny Caffe Cino in New York City’s Greenwich Village offered “Dames at Sea, or Golddiggers Afloat,” a good-natured send-up of the 1930s Warner Bros. musicals. With music by Jim Wise and lyrics and a book by George Haimsohn and Robin Miller, this 50-minute mini-production presented an unknown 18-year-old Bernadette Peters as Ruby, a send-up of the kid-in-the-chorus-who-becomes-a-star role that Ruby Keeler played in the yesteryear extravaganzas.
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Elevator Game (2023)

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“The Elevator Game” is a really creepy urban legend and one that works by virtue of word of mouth. I really wish we’d gotten a great horror movie out of it, because “Elevator Game” just isn’t it. It’s tough to imagine such a great urban legend being fumbled as bad as it is, but Rebekah McKendry doesn’t do much to add on to the lore. She instead opts for a painfully silly and boring horror film involving contorting ghosts, and what feel like obvious allusions to “Stranger Things” and “The Grudge.”

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Rest in Peace, Cartoon Network (1992-2023)

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Back in the heyday of cable television, channels were all aimed toward a certain market and fan base. If you loved science fiction there was a channel for you. If you loved medical science, there was a channel or you. If you love romance movies, there was a channel. And surely enough there was the Cartoon Network. Cartoon Network offered up cartoons twenty four hours around the clock and in 1992 they guaranteed a complete line up of cartoons you couldn’t find anywhere. Their line up consisted mainly of Hanna Barbera since they were owned by Warner, so for pretty much anything non-Disney, Cartoon Network had.

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Merry Little Batman (2023)

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Now Streaming Exclusively on Amazon Prime.

Color me shocked when I found out that Warner were not only releasing a Batman animated movie this year, but a Christmas themed one at that. The way they’ve been run lately, it’s not entirely shocking that this one snuck under my radar, I guess. “Merry Little Batman” is unlike any Batman animated movie I’ve ever seen. The animation style is wild, somewhat in the vein of “Chowder,” and focuses on a completely separate non-canonical narrative.

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Every Bugs Bunny Ever: Racketeer Rabbit (1946)

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2023 marks the 85th Anniversary of Bug Bunny’s first animated appearance in 1938’s “Porky’s Hare Hunt.” Debuting originally as Happy Rabbit, Bugs eventually became one of the most iconic animated characters of all time. In honor of the landmark anniversary, we’re discussing every animated appearance by Bugs Bunny. We’re big fans of Bugsy and we hope that you are, too.  

Follow us on this massive journey where we discover and re-discover Every Bugs Bunny Ever.

Racketeer Rabbit (1946)
Directed by Friz Freleng
Written by Michael Maltese
Music by Carl W. Stalling
Animation by Gerry Chiniquy

I must have spent a majority of my childhood running around going “It’s coitans for you, Rocky! Coitains!” in the patented Brooklyn accent. I gained so much of my knowledge about mobster movies and old time gangster movies from Bugs Bunny and Looney Tunes believe it or not. Whenever Bugs referenced something about gangster movies, I always kind of went to the source to understand what they were lampooning. From there I learned to really dig my heels in to the classics. With “Racketeer Rabbit,” we’re given one of the funniest one and done villains of the Bugs repertoire with Rocky.

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