2. Home Alone Has All The Christmas Music You'll Ever Need
Home Alone is pre-teen angst at its finest, and from the finest authority on the subject. And in a certain light, Hughes' screenplays may not be very different from Kevin's traps... With Home Alone, and its well-conceived soundtrack included, Hughes seemed to be genuinely interested in producing a family-friendly holiday movie that could be welcomed into a family tradition Kevin McCallister (perhaps a stand-in for a much younger Hughes) often felt alienated from. But the unique charm of Home Alone is that its soundtrack is so loaded bookend to bookend with original aesthetically-seasonal compositions by John Williams, as well as hand-picked soundtrack inclusions by Hughes (e.g. "White Christmas" by the Drifters, "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" by Brenda Lee, "Run Rudolph Run" by Chuck Berry, "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch," etc.), you could enjoy the movie all the same with your eyes closed. Or while eating Christmas dinner in the other room. While most probably have a VHS tape of this post-80s Hughes classic lying around the house somewhere, the soundtrack has to be one of the few holiday CDs, even amongst just holiday movie soundtracks, that wouldn't be a redundant thing to go out and buy. Between Home Alone and Christmas Vacation, Hughes becomes a holiday institution late in December.