Chris Columbus
210 connections found
Filmography
Home Alone 1990 
Rent 2005 
Pixels 2015 
Adventures in Babysitting 1987 
Home Alone 2: Lost in New York 1992 
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone 2001 
Mrs. Doubtfire 1993 
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets 2002 
Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief 2010 
Nine Months 1995 
Only the Lonely 1991 
Bicentennial Man 1999 
Stepmom 1998 View:
Connections, in both directions
He even gets his own Home Alone style kills!
Michael Cera brings a grounded sincerity as a zine-making rebel before leaning into Wright's indulgences for a Home Alone-like zaniness…
…outside of a delightful sequence in which Daniels and Michael Cera’s Elton unleash a series of Home Alone-style traps on invading cops…
An example is a cartoonishly violent house invasion including Michael Cera with a Home-Alone style series of booby traps…
Michael Cera pops up just long enough to cosplay “Home Alone” for the Kristi Noem era…
Michael Cera gets a deliriously unhinged Home Alone-style sequence that injects manic comedy into the dread…
While Tommy Wirkola’s Violent Night draws inspiration from Christmas films like Die Hard and Home Alone , both of which are referenced throughout, it bears more resemblance to that recent comedy sketch, only without any of the self-awareness about how the cynicism of films like Joker has become played out.
“Christmas Vacation” is echoed in the casting of Beverly D’Angelo as the matriarch; the kid in question is a “Home Alone” fan, so there’s a lengthy (and gorier, and death-ier) riff on its slapstick home invasion sequence; Leguizamo gets a “Gremlins”-style monologue about why he hates Christmas; and the central family drama, with worthless adult kids angling for their mother’s money even while they’re being held hostage, recalls “The Ref.”
This is a movie in the same spirit as Die Hard and Home Alone (with direct references to the latter), pitting the good guys vs. the bad guys on Christmas Eve.
Indeed, “Violent Night” is a bloody and downright ludicrous romp that has no business being this fun with the obvious (and appropriate) comparison belonging to “Die Hard” and “Home Alone,” but this heavily R-rated Christmas themed actioner knows exactly what it is and isn’t afraid to be extra naughty.
His approach makes for a hyper-self-aware, modern redux of the character in a film that pays as much homage to films like Deadpool as it does to Die Hard and Home Alone.
One particularly inspired sequence delivers what Home Alone could, were it to be given a more adult rating.
She rigs up murder traps so quickly that Becky becomes the bloodiest Home Alone ripoff in existence.
Wilson does a fine job as the emotional anchor of this film, and like Home Alone‘s Kevin McAllister before her, I love how creative Becky gets with her revenge.
Print this column This description probably gives the wrong impression, but I can’t help but make it: the new thriller “Becky” is an angry, R-rated “Home Alone.”
The ultra-violent take on “ Home Alone ” with a precocious teen girl who dispatches bad guys like a killer in a slasher movie?
Becky is the kind of senselessly violent Home Alone knockoff that only exists in the VOD realm these days.
Although there is nothing remotely original or nuanced about Becky – a formulaic thriller that hybridizes Straw Dogs, Home Alone, and Green Room – there’s an undeniable grindhouse pleasure in watching a 13-year-old girl murder the hell out of some Nazis.
The Night Before (2015)
Directed by Jonathan Levine
influenced by Home Alone (1990)
Themes Plot Music
As a film that celebrates the holiday classics that came before it – there’s loving nods to Home Alone , A Christmas Carol, and How the Grinch Stole Christmas – Levine’s film is more rooted in telling a story of friendship over stitching together nonsensical comedic scenarios.
The true spirit of Christmas is challenged at every turn – meanwhile, homage is paid to all the festive perennials you can think of, including Die Hard , Home Alone and The Grinch .
But, as we said, the film is about the men, and Gordon-Levitt, Rogen, and Mackie make an odd but appealing trio, weaving their way through their own weird Christmas traditions and a series of wacky obstacles worthy of Adventures in Babysitting or even Home Alone.
The Home Alone score’s in there for some flavor.
Our guys have a long journey ahead of them, full of callbacks to their beloved Christmas stories: the Grinch, Home Alone, and most importantly, Scrooge.
With nods to holiday films like "Home Alone," "Die Hard" and "It's a Wonderful Life," "The Night Before" knows exactly what it is — a movie to watch every year with friends, a plate of leftovers on your lap, your mood enhanced by tryptophan or ... something.
John and the Hole (2021)
Directed by Pascual Sisto
influenced by Home Alone (1990)
Plot Themes Characters
Initial critical responses to John and the Hole seem invariably keen to evoke comparison with the 1990 Chris Columbus/John Hughes family classic Home Alone —but such a juxtaposition only confirms the limited lens with which we interpret behaviors but also expectations of cinematic intentions or possibilities.
It’s been described (including by Sisto) as a combination of Michael Haneke and Home Alone , and I can’t improve on that.
The director has jokingly referred to his psychological coming-of-age thriller as a Michael Haneke version of Home Alone , which isn’t far from the truth.
If you can imagine “Home Alone” remade as a pretentious art-house movie where Macaulay Culkin is playing both Kevin and the Wet Bandits simultaneously.
But the most popular victim (or villain, depending on your reading) is Kevin McCallister from Home Alone , whose cartoonish antics strike fear in the hearts of people who think about their real ramifications.
While that kind of childhood fantasy was immortalized by Macaulay Culkin’s exuberant performance in Home Alone , Shotwell’s hollow expression and stony silence during these activities make you wonder if he’s enjoying himself at all.
Yes, that film was "Home Alone," the 1990 Christmas comedy where he played Kevin McCallister who created fairly ingenious booby-traps to ward off the intruders played by Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern.
Based on Robert Kimmel Smith's novel of the same name, the screenplay by Tom J. Astle and Matt Ember dives quickly into "Home Alone" territory.
Little kids might find the slapstick amusing, but Home Alone did it a lot better with more warmth and some valuable life lessons about family along the way.
His punishment is a series of high jinks that “Home Alone” would balk at.
There’s a vague Home Alone vibe, although the familial relationship at the movie’s center makes it difficult to go the full Macaulay Culkin on poor De Niro.
The antics in The War with Grandpa draw along similar lines to Home Alone.
To All the Boys: P.S. I Still Love You (2020)
Directed by Michael Fimognari
influenced by Adventures in Babysitting (1987)
Visuals
Despite Condor’s determination to make Lara Jean feel like a real girl — albeit with distracting false eyelashes — she’s stuck being a clone, opening the film crooning “And Then He Kissed Me” to her bedroom mirror just as Elisabeth Shue did in “Adventures in Babysitting.”
It’s only fitting that a franchise that so pulls so liberally from its ’80s-era predecessors — no other teen movie has made such a meal out of heart-eyed teens throwing their hands in the paramour’s back pockets since, of course, “16 Candles” — kicks off with a bopping tribute to “Adventures in Babysitting,” as Lara Jean dances around to “And Then He Kissed Me,” a la Elizabeth Shue.
I Still Love You tries to further subvert the genre while still paying homage to the classics right from the jump: The opening scene finds Lara Jean Covey (Lana Condor) mimicking the iconic opening of Adventures in Babysitting.
The patchy humour fares a bit better as the ‘good’ family gets increasingly violent in their fight back, but it’s so on the nose it literally references Home Alone .
As with Get Out , the film is shot through with notes of jet-black humour, along with some very funny film references, e.g. an argument over who gets to drive, based on who's got the highest kill count, or the parents discussing whether they should booby-trap the house like in Home Alone (Zora's reply: “What's Home Alone?
Elsewhere, Peele drops in overt references to Jaws (1975), Home Alone (1991), and John Landis’ legendary music video for Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” (1983).
Make no mistake, Us is self-consciously a horror film, reduplicating elements familiar from home invasion (Michael Haneke’s Funny Games mixed with, heh, Chris Columbus’ Home Alone) and doppelgänger movies (Peele has cited the particular influence of John Brahm’s 1960 ‘Mirror Image’ episode from TV’s The Twilight Zone ).
When Josh jokes about an intruder scenario he mentions OJ Simpson, whereas Gabe thinks instantly of the burglars in Home Alone ; a black threat for the white father, a white threat for the black one.
He's akin to Joe Pesci from Home Alone with a nitpicky brain.
What develops rests somewhere between Byrne’s Neighbors movies and the Home Alone movies: a community competition with nasty slapstick battles: since he gets to be both Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern, Gleeson takes the full brunt of hurled projectiles and electrified doorknobs.
This ought not to have raised an eyebrow in a movie that owes as much to Home Alone as it does to Beatrix Potter’s best-known creation.
Filled with cartoon-style comic violence – some of which is downright nasty (an electrocution and a fight that leads to a controversial allergy attack among them – see notes below) – this lacks the charm of children’s book adaptations like Paddington and Babe and instead feels more like a furry version of Home Alone .
Peter Rabbit is structured like the third act of Home Alone, with Gleeson standing in for the burglars, and Peter Rabbit and his coterie of animated animals in the Macaulay Culkin role, and the two sides clashing largely with sophisticated booby traps.
The slapstick humor is akin to Home Alone levels of violence, which seems out of place for the age group that’s coming to see a talking rabbit.
(He could be airing out his dirty laundry, but hey.) Dolan’s juvenile greeting is both appropriate and hardly unexpected, coming from a filmmaker whose latest emotional tornado finds the time for masturbation jokes, Home Alone shout-outs, and cheesy-great ’90s music cues—filmed, for the most part, in a brazen 1:1 aspect ratio that’s sure to infuriate a few critics.
There are moments of intense humor, including one of the most infectiously laugh-along scenes of drunken female bonding that we've ever seen and right down to tiny details like Steve doing the Macauley Culkin "Home Alone" face when looking in the bathroom mirror.
Pilon, a handsome young man who could pass for Macaulay Culkin’s older cousin (Dolan even throws in a fun, passing reference to Home Alone), radiates vulnerability and menace in equal measure.
There’s a feeling that just about anything could happen — that a serious film could include a shout-out to “Home Alone” or milk agony out of a scene where someone karaokes Andrea Bocelli at a dive bar.
One 1980s pop culture item it might have referenced is “The Last Starfighter” (1984), which has a very similar plot.
Like I said, the premise of "Pixels" (which was inspired by a 2010 short) is sound, and in a perfect world, it could have been the hi-tech hybrid of "The Last Starfighter" and "Ghostbusters" that it clearly wants to be.
This noxious stew -- part "The Last Starfighter," part "Ghostbusters," part "Wreck-It Ralph"-- doesn't even bother to look expensive.
Jason and the Argonauts (1963)
Directed by Don Chaffey
influenced Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief (2010), Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002)
Visuals
And while the film spends far too much time on the tricks -- CGI blue Cornish pixies, giant spiders that aren't so nifty as those in 8 Legged Freaks, screaming mandrake roots, and a humungo and not very well realized snake that makes poor Harry look like he's suddenly been transported into Jason and the Argonauts -- it does provide several choice moments for stalwart Hermoine Granger (Emma Watson), as she learns about prejudice.
Director Chris Columbus and his crew take a literal approach to spectacle that denies the magnificent use of weirdness and scale that famed stop-action animator Ray Harryhausen brought to such myth-inspired classics as "Jason and the Argonauts" (1963) and "Clash of the Titans" (1981).
Directed by Hollywood veteran Chris Columbus, Pixels aims for a mix of Ghostbusters and Independence Day, but it can barely keep Jean’s original concept afloat long enough to make it to feature length.
Among all of the U.S. presidents we’ve seen in film – Morgan Freeman sold it in “Deep Impact” and “Olympus Has Fallen” and so did Bill Pullman in “Independence Day” – James has got to be the worst one.
And so, thanks to the Sandler cabal’s input, “Pixels” feels like two different films haphazardly spliced together — like “Independence Day” cut into last year’s leaden “Blended.”
4. What’s particularly frustrating is that this concept—of our video-game icons coming to life and interacting with the real world—was done splendidly just three years ago in Wreck-It Ralph, which featured cameos from some of the same characters.
It also recalls the much cleverer “Galaxy Quest,” as well as “Wreck-It Ralph,” which impressively invented an original game with a retro 1980s feel.
Pixels isn't the heartwarming or innovative homage that Wreck-It Ralph was.
There are witty touches – the aliens deliver their challenges to the human race through manipulated images of eighties celebrities, from Ronald Reagan to Tammy Faye Bakker to Madonna – but there’s also a mechanical feel to the action, particularly in a final act that employs cute animated character Q*bert (who also appeared in Disney’s 2012 Wreck-It Ralph ) to boost kid appeal.
The special effects are pretty cool, but the film is working nostalgia already thoroughly mined in movies (including the video-game-themed “Wreck-It Ralph”) and television (“The Goldbergs” and such).
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
Directed by Steven Spielberg
influenced Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002)
Visuals Plot
Darker, funnier and more action-packed than the first film, "Chamber" seems inspired as much by Steven Spielberg's galloping "Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Naturally, Harry and company go mano-a-mano with Harry’s arch-nemesis, Lord Voldemort (the evil wizard who murdered Harry’s parents), in between homages (which feel more like grand theft) to “Star Wars”, “Gremlins”, “E.T.”, and “Raiders of the Lost Ark”.
Clash of the Titans (1981)
Directed by Desmond Davis
influenced Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief (2010)
Visuals
Director Chris Columbus and his crew take a literal approach to spectacle that denies the magnificent use of weirdness and scale that famed stop-action animator Ray Harryhausen brought to such myth-inspired classics as "Jason and the Argonauts" (1963) and "Clash of the Titans" (1981).
Booksmart (2019)
Directed by Olivia Wilde
influenced by Adventures in Babysitting (1987), Pixels (2015)
Themes Plot Characters
The formula has been executed oodles of times before, of course, and it’s flexible enough to accommodate different tones: overt nostalgia trips like American Graffiti (1973) and Dazed and Confused (1993), for example, or faintly fantastical nocturnal odysseys like Adventures in Babysitting (1987) and Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle (2004).
It’s a funny, silly journey, complete with vulgar jokes and ridiculous supporting characters (Lourd steals every scene she’s in), following a template that recalls everything from Dazed and Confused to Superbad to Adventures in Babysitting .
(Think of Pixels, trying to refashion Adam Sandler’s usual regular-schlub persona as a nerdy underdog.)
Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day (2014)
Directed by Miguel Arteta
influenced by Home Alone (1990)
Plot Visuals Themes
After a rotten day at school, Alexander makes a “Big”/“Home Alone”-like wish that his family members have a bad day, too.
From oversleeping the next morning — a John Hughes ploy right out of the “Home Alone” playbook — the family dashes headlong into a series of mini-disasters from dead car batteries to baby shenanigans and blown career opportunities.
Some are in the style of the E.T.- Drew Barrymore closet confrontation; others are reminiscent of the "Home Alone" Macaulay Culkin scream.
In fact, it’s somewhat refreshing to see a family film that, while containing no shortage of the adolescent, gross-out humor that’s been a staple of kids’ films since “Home Alone,” feels downright small and devoid of the kind of outrageous, big-budget set pieces normally required for a major motion picture these days.
They aren't even as inspired as Kevin McAllister's booby-trapped revenge against burglars Harry and Marv in 1990's "Home Alone."
Off the top of my head, the last time a movie nailed consistent slapstick was the finale of Home Alone.
The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters (2007)
Directed by Seth Gordon
influenced Pixels (2015)
Characters Plot Themes
Unofficially the film also borrows some of its character dynamics from Seth Gordon's 2007 documentary "The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters" about what became of arcade game champions later in life.
(Their rivalry will look very familiar to anyone who’s seen the terrific gaming documentary The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters .)
Moviegoers looking for an arcade game fix would be much better served seeking out terrific Donkey Kong doc “ The King Of Kong: A Fistful Of Quarters .”