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Thursday, December 08, 2011

Thursday Night At The Arcade - Super Mario 3

In most cases, I find sequels to be somewhat hit and miss.

For the most part, I find sequels to be a bit on the unnecessary side. Not that I don't appreciate them, because some of them are well-done, and carefully thought out. But sometimes a movie franchise will take it a bit too far. Did we really need five Final Destination movies? Was there really a need to have six Saw movies? Was there any need to make Scream 4, years after the third movie was released?

Again, some movies have sequels that measure up to the original quite nicely. Take Home Alone 2: Lost In New York, for example. The sequel was basically a retelling of the first movie, only in a different city, and yet it managed to be just as funny and entertaining as the first one. Home Alone 3 and 4...should have NEVER been made.

Same deal with Lethal Weapon. The first two movies were great. The third one lagged in places, but was more or less enjoyable. But the fourth one wasn't exactly all that memorable. When the first scenes involve Murtaugh stripping to his underwear because Riggs tricked him into doing so, it pretty much told us that we were all getting to old for this...well, you know.

The truth is that in the world of film, sequels can do well at the box office, but more often than not fail to make as huge of an impression as the original film.

In the world of video gaming, however, sequels seem to have the opposite effect. In most cases, the sequels end up performing better and sell more copies than the original games in the series. I could go on and on about the various titles that have had successful sequels. A perfect example is the Final Fantasy series. Granted, none of them have the same characters in between game to game, but some games in the series sell better than others, and is still a force in the gaming industry. The Spyro series spawned two successful sequels before another game company took over future game projects and made the series crash and burn. Sonic the Hedgehog continues to launch successful hit game right after another. And I suppose in recent years, Grand Theft Auto and Call Of Duty are examples of sequels doing very well (even though I myself am not a fan of the series).

And then there's the Super Mario series.

I talked about Super Mario Brothers 2 way back in June of this year, and how while it was a game that was largely created by plagiarism, and was not originally a Mario game, was still enjoyable to play. Well, today's entry is all about another game in the Mario series that outperformed and outsold both the original Super Mario and Super Mario 2.



Super Mario Brothers 3 could arguably be considered to be the best (or at least one of the best) sequel to the original Super Mario Brothers game. The Nintendo game was originally released in Japan in 1988, and came to North America approximately a year and a half later in 1990. Upon its release, Super Mario 3 had become one of the best-selling video games of all time. It was ranked #6 in the Top 200 Nintendo Games ever made by Nintendo Power magazine, sold more than eighteen million copies worldwide, and made almost half a billion dollars in revenue for Nintendo.



Oh, and it was one of the gifts that I found underneath my Christmas tree from Santa Claus the same year the game was released...just three months after I saved up and bought my Nintendo console.



Part of the reason for the game's success? It actually appeared in a movie about a year before the North American version was released. In 1989, a movie was released called The Wizard, starring Fred Savage. Although the movie was critically panned and was highly regarded as a 90-minute commercial for Nintendo, the movie boasted one feature. It allowed people to get an advanced screening of Super Mario 3, as it was one of the games played in the video game competition that one of the characters enters.



I happen to know quite a few people who only saw the movie to scope out the game, and the few scenes that people saw in the movie was enough to make them desperate to play it the minute it hit the stores.

I can also attest to the popularity of Super Mario 3. Before I got it as a Christmas gift, I actually had to be put on a waiting list to be able to rent it from the video store. That's how you knew that a game was hot!



And Super Mario 3 was definitely a game that was addictive. I recall spending hundreds of hours playing that game, not stopping until I found every secret, every 1-UP mushroom, every coin, every power-up...everything. I even found both ways in which you could defeat Bowser at the end of the game. (HINT: One way involves fire, the other way involves destroying the floor.)



One reason why I enjoyed the game was because it was similar in gameplay to the original Super Mario Brothers. The basic goal was to play as either Mario or Luigi, and make your way through the Mushroom Kingdom, killing bad guys and collecting coins to rescue Princess Peach from Bowser's castle. That is the standard, basic plot in every Mario game ever made, and it will likely be that way for future Mario games to come.

What was different was the way the game was presented. There were overworlds that Mario and Luigi could walk across, and unlike the more linear Mario games before it, you could choose whatever paths you wanted to take.



Each of the worlds in the game were styled after a specific theme. And while Super Mario 2 toyed around with the idea of creating different levels with different types of weather, Super Mario 3 expanded on this concept.

The eight worlds of Super Mario 3 began with a standard grassy knoll level. Consider it an intro world, so to speak. As the game progressed, Mario and Luigi would pass through a vast desert, an island nation with lots of rivers and oceans, a land where the enemies are three times the size of Mario, a city in the clouds, a frozen tundra level, a maze that proves to be a plumbing nightmare, and ending off in Bowser's lava-filled domain.

The power-ups have greatly improved as well. No longer does Mario have to rely on his grandpappy's mushrooms and fire flowers anymore. In this game, there's also a leaf power-up which allows Mario to transform into a flying raccoon.

Yes, I know what you're saying. In real life, raccoons cannot fly. In Mario's world, anything is possible. And if Mario runs fast enough, Mario can fly up to the sky provided that his power gauge is high enough. This new power can help Mario get through almost any level. Other suits that Mario can try on for size include a frog suit (which can help Mario get through those terrible underwater levels I hate so much), a hammer brother suit (my personal favourite, as you can throw hammers at things), and a Tanooki bear suit (which you can use to turn into an invincible statue if things get too tough).



One handy feature with Super Mario 3 is the fact that unlike other games, you could actually pick up items to be used at a later date. This feature would be re-used in other Mario games, but this one was used brilliantly. You could get items a number of ways to hold on to. You could get the mostly by visiting Toad in one of his many homes (seriously, how does a stupid mushroom dude own so much real estate in Mushroom Kingdom?) and by opening treasure chests. But you can also win items from killing off Hammer Brothers and Hammer Brother cousin enemies as a prize.

Yeah, that's another main difference about Super Mario 3 compared to earlier Mario games. Goombas could fly. Hammer Brothers could throw boomerangs, sledgehammers, and can breathe fire. Koopa shells could now be picked up and thrown. Oh, and pirahna plants can now try to burn you. What fun.

There's even more mini-boss action in this game...far more than the other games before it. Super Mario 2 attempted this the first time around with creative end bosses, but all of them were just a figment of Mario's imagination.  For one, you had various forms of a boss known as Boom-Boom that appeared in almost every fortress or castle in the game that one would have to defeat to unlock doors blocking your path.



For another, apparently in the five years that passed between Super Mario Brothers and the third game, Bowser fathered seven children. Who knew that there was even a Mrs. Bowser in the picture? Or maybe she left Bowser because of his unhealthy obsession with Princess Peach? All interesting, unanswered questions.

Alas, there's a little bit of business to take care of before you rescue Princess Peach. Each of Bowser's seven children has stolen a magic wand belonging to each world ruler in the Mushroom Kingdom, and at some point, you'll have to find a way to board each of the Koopalings airships to steal the wand back from them. What I find interesting is that each of the kids have their own distinct look and personality, and each one had their own battle strategies, making the game much more challenging.

The order of each Koopa Kid you encounter, as well as their main attack and what celebrity they happen to be named after are as follows.

WORLD 1: Larry Koopa (named after Larry King). Shoots magic beams from wand

WORLD 2: Morton Koopa Jr. (named after Morton Downey Jr.) Shoots magic beams from wand

WORLD 3: Wendy O. Koopa (named after Plasmatics singer Wendy O. Williams) Throws deadly red and white bracelets that bounce around

WORLD 4: Iggy Koopa (named after Iggy Pop) Shoots magic beams from wand, and bounces around room quite often

WORLD 5: Roy Koopa (named after Roy Orbison) Shakes the ground, immobilizing people if jumped on

WORLD 6: Lemmy Koopa (named after Lemmy Kilmister) Throws bouncy balls at Mario which bounce around room

WORLD 7: Ludwig von Koopa (named after Beethoven) Shakes the ground, immobilizing people if jumped on, bounces around room quite often)

Once the Koopalings are defeated, they disappear, give up their wand, change the world rulers back into humans, and from there, Mario gets a letter from Peach along with clues to defeating future levels, clues to finding warp whistles, and a power-up.

Oh, yeah, forgot to mention, there's three hidden warp whistles that can be found in Super Mario 3. These whistles can be used to warp between worlds. The more whistles you have, the best chance you have of making it all the way to world eight without having to play the game straight through (which came in handy given that the original NES version had no save files on it).

I won't reveal how you can find these whistles, but I can tell you that you can find two of them in World 1, and one in World 2. And, in the case of one of the whistles, you're going to need to have a hammer power-up. But that's all I will say. Besides, I'm sure those of you who have played the game know how to get them already, so I'll leave you to it.



All in all, Super Mario 3 was a fine game, and if anything, it proved that sometimes sequels can become much powerful and more well-known than their predecessors.

While the case may be largely true that if something isn't broken, don't fix it, this didn't happen with Super Mario 3. In fact, the sequel was so ground-breaking that it influenced several future games.



In fact, having recently bought the Nintendo 3DS game Super Mario 3D Land, I'm amazed at the similarity between it and Super Mario 3. It's like playing a three-dimensional version of that game.

No wonder why every time I play it, I get a sense of nostalgia...

Wednesday, December 07, 2011

Across The Pond and Beyond - Xuxa

Sometimes when I plot these entries out (I usually do them about three or four weeks in advance), I don't necessarily plan for each entry to have the same recurring theme to run for days.

And yet, for the third entry in a row, that theme seems to pop up like one of those moles in a Whack-A-Mole game.

The theme being not judging a book by its cover.

We're taking a bit of a break from the holiday fun and festivities for a bit. Don't worry, I've got quite a few holiday-themed entries lined up yet. December's only just begun after all. I mean, I suppose our subject has had a few Christmas themed albums and shows at some point during her career, right?

The reason why I chose to make this entry non-Christmas themed is a sound one.

In all the months that I've had the Across The Pond And Beyond feature up and running, I've featured subjects from a variety of countries. Britain, Spain, Australia, Japan, Ireland, Wales, Scotland...there's quite a few that I have brought up in this spot.

I'm going to introduce a new country to this blog entry.

Brazil.

And why not? Brazil actually has quite a few topics that we can bring up. Brazil is a force in the world of soccer. Brazil also has some of the best beaches in the world.



They even have their own version of America's Next Top Model...or at least had one.

Today's subject happens to have had a lengthy career in the world of entertainment, both in her native Brazil and for a brief period, the United States. And, our subject had gotten a lot of scrutiny from people over the years who claim that maybe she wasn't the best role model for young children given her past dalliances with more adult forms of entertainment. And our subject almost walked away from it all after a devastating event with could have been incredibly catastrophic, but didn't.

I suppose you want to know who I'm talking about in this blog entry. Well, you probably have seen it up above in the title anyways...but I never said that keeping people in suspense was my strong point.



Our subject for today is Brazilian children show hostess Maria de Graça Meneghel, who usually goes by the stage name of 'Xuxa' (pronounced Shoo-Sha), a name given to her by her brother.

Born in 1963 in Santa Rosa, Brazil, Xuxa's family moved to the city of Rio de Janeiro in 1970, when she was seven. A few years later, Xuxa was discovered by a publishing company that specialized in printing fashion magazines, and at the age of sixteen, she appeared on the front cover of a Brazilian magazine, kicking off her modeling career.

Seems pretty innocent, right? And if Xuxa had just stuck to modeling for fashion magazines, it probably wouldn't have been such a big deal.

But then things started happening in her personal and early professional life that got the proverbial ball of criticism rolling.



When Xuxa was just seventeen, she began dating famous soccer player, Pele, who at the time was in his early 40s. The relationship somehow managed to last five years, ending for good in 1986. A little bit on the uncomfortable side I must admit, but they say that when one finds true love, age isn't much of a factor, and in this case it wasn't. A couple of years later, she dated someone more close to her age, Formula One driver, Ayrton Senna from 1988-1992. Sadly, Senna was killed in a racing accident in 1994.

So, okay, her personal relationships were somewhat exploited in the media, and they painted her in some rather ugly colours, but that's what tabloids do with celebrity couples all the time.

But then in 1982, when Xuxa was nineteen, she made the decision to pose for the Brazilian version of Playboy magazine. And anyone who has ever read a Playboy magazine knows that the magazine is filled with women who don't really wear a whole lot of clothing...if any at all. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing though. It's not my business what people do with their personal lives, and if they want to pose nude in a magazine, then more power to them. But considering the negative rap that Playboy magazine, and similar magazines like Playboy get, some people would get a little intimidated to pose in a magazine wearing nothing at all. Not Xuxa though. She went into that shoot, took dozens of pictures for the magazine and was published in the pages. It wouldn't be until years later that Xuxa would begin to regret that decision, but we're getting to that.



Throughout the 1980s, Xuxa would continue her career by starring in a variety of South American produced films. Mostly comedy films with Brazilian comedy troupes and similar themes. Though a couple of these films would also be a bit controversial in nature. In one such film, Xuxa portrayed the role of a prostitute, and the film could best be described as being a soft core pornography film.

So, when Xuxa expressed interest in creating a show for children, parents immediately raised their red flags in shock and horror. According to some parents, Xuxa was not the type of person that they wanted to see hosting a children's show at all. She liked to pose nude, they said. She made adult films, they said. She dated men who were old enough to be her father, they said.

But, here's the thing. Kids loved Xuxa. When Xuxa debuted her very first children's show in 1986 on Brazil's Globo TV network, (a program entitled Xou de Xuxa), it immediately became a hit with kids.

From the success of the program came a slew of children's albums that Xuxa recorded. Much like other children's shows in North America such as Sharon, Lois, and Bram's Elephant Show, the songs heard in Xou de Xuxa were pressed into albums, and sold in stores all across South America. The album sales were huge in Brazil, with her third album selling three and a half million copies worldwide.



Below is a clip that can be found of the show Xou de Xuxa. This one's from 1988.  The quality's not that great, and I'm afraid that I don't speak Portuguese at all, so I can't translate what Xuxa is saying, but you can get an idea of what the show was like back then.



One thing that I immediately notice is how much action and excitement there is on the program. Look at the audience, and the dancers, and the people in costume, and how excited they are to be there. In all the years I used to watch children's shows, I had never seen one so loud and colourful as this one. It kind of made me wish I was Brazilian, because back when the show was in its prime in Brazil, I was in the show's target demographic.

Something else I noticed though was that Xuxa's outfits on the show were a bit elaborate and cut very short! Yeah, it is true that Xuxa didn't look like the host of a children's show...more often than not, she looked as if she should be dancing at a Rio de Janeiro night club after hours. But, again, there's a lot of cultural differences between North and South America, and maybe Xuxa's look at the time was deemed appropriate enough. At least she was wearing clothes, so that's something.

But with the success of Xou de Xuxa bringing Xuxa fame from a younger audience, Xuxa was beginning to realize that maybe posing for Playboy and acting in films for an adult audience maybe wasn't the right way to go. During the early 1990s, Xuxa launched a campaign to try and buy back all of the film negatives, tapes, and other things from Xuxa's past so that they couldn't be seen by her new audience. It was a valiant effort, and she even had help from her ex-boyfriend Pele to try and get everything back. Unfortunately, with the Internet gaining more and more popularity, and people being able to scan and post these images on websites all over the world, it was only inevitable that the pictures would somehow leak out.

And of course, parents complained that Xuxa's past dalliances with Playboy magazine, as well as her tendency to kiss young boys on their cheeks during the taping of Xou de Xuxa, were not qualities that they wanted to see on a show for children.



But this is where today's life lesson comes into play. Yeah, she did have a rather eventful past where she did a lot of experimentation. But then again, haven't all of us had those experiences at one point? It's unfortunate that the Brazilian media made such an example out of her, but I think that her past shouldn't really have mattered in this case. Looking back on it, she didn't really do anything that was considered to be sadistic, and she didn't kill anyone, so really, who is anyone to judge what someone did in their youth and young adulthood?

Xuxa rebranded herself, marketed herself towards a younger crowd, and the kids loved her. I'll be the first to admit that while I didn't understand one word she was saying, she did put on one hell of a show. And Xou de Xuxa ran for six years, wrapping up in 1992.

Following the end of Xou de Xuxa, Xuxa attempted to expand her fame into other nations including Argentina, Spain, and even the United States. The American version of the show (simply called Xuxa) was filmed during the summer of 1993 and began airing in September of that year. I actually remember watching one episode of the American version and being completely absorbed in it. The show aired insanely early on the ABC station that aired it (I think it was on at 7:30am), and the only reason why I was up early enough to watch it was because I was up all night throwing up with the stomach flu. It was the only show I can think of that made the words “GLOOP TIME” a household expression.  Take a look at a clip below.



TRIVIA: Ventriloquist Jeff Dunham once worked on the set of Xuxa.

Part Fun House, part Sesame Street, maybe even a couple of shades of Barney the Dinosaur was mixed in there too, I don't know. But I sat through the whole episode with a mixture of puzzlement and interest. It was by far one of the strangest shows I had ever seen, and I don't even know if I fully understood what the show was about, even though the show was in English. It was a show that like the Brazilian version was filled with lots of excitement, fun, songs, and games.

And immediately after watching the show, I threw up, providing a whole new meaning to the phrase 'Gloop Time'.

Regardless, it was a decent attempt at a kids show, but somehow American audiences weren't impressed. The show managed to barely last until 1994 before the plug was pulled. However, while Xuxa's popularity in the United States didn't resonate well, her star in Brazil continued to rise with two brand new shows. In 1994, Xuxa Park premiered in Brazil and was once again a hit. About a year later, a show for more adult audiences called Planeta Xuxa debuted, and that show featured celebrity guests, musical groups, and more adult discussion. And in 1998, Xuxa gave birth to her one and only child, a daughter, and she embraced motherhood. It seemed as though the early 2000s would be Xuxa's golden moment.

And then came the events of January 11, 2001.

It started off like any normal day on the set of Xuxa Park. Xuxa was taping a show with an audience of about 300 people, most of them young children. She was doing a dance number in front of a large colourful spaceship. She would do the number, enter the spaceship as part of the act, and then the show would end for the day.

But then this happened.



If you watch the clip closely you may see a stage hand attempting to put out a small fire that started around the spaceship set, but for whatever reason, the fire grew out of control and engulfed the whole stage. A quick evacuation effort by the crew of the set resulted in no fatalities, but twenty-six people suffered burns in the blaze which destroyed the whole soundstage. Xuxa was devastated over the fire, and she felt horrible for everyone who had gotten hurt, even though the fire was nobody's fault (it was started by an electrical short circuit).



Xuxa Park was eventually taken off the air shortly after the fire, and everyone who was hurt in the fire recovered from their injuries. Still, Xuxa felt badly, and it took her years to return back to the stage again. Fortunately, in 2005, Xuxa returned to television to present the television show Xuxa TV, a program that as of right now is still airing today.

But I think that's something else that we should also talk about. The fact that Xuxa cared so much about her fans. Days after the fire, Xuxa was visiting the victims of the fire as they recovered from their injuries almost daily, and she wanted to make sure that they were all right. Of course, some people will claim that the only reason she did that was so she wouldn't get sued, but looking as various articles I've read on this fire, I don't buy that. I think she genuinely cared for the children who were hurt.

And it's not the first time that her love for children has been shown publicly. In 1987, Xuxa loaned her image for a campaign urging parents to vaccinate their children against polio. That year, 97% of all Brazilian children received the polio vaccination. Two years later, she established the Xuxa Meneghel Foundation, a foundation designed to help children.

As recently as 2007, Xuxa met with the president of Brazil to discuss starting up another national campaign designed to stop children from experiencing physical or emotional abuse through bullying at school and in their own homes.

Xuxa's commercial success has admittedly been hit and miss. Certainly her acting skills have been widely panned in the media, as four of her movies (in particular with her 2000 film Xuxa Popstar) are currently ranked as some of the lowest rated programs on the Internet Movie Database. Yet her musical career has garnered her much success, including her winning a Latin Grammy Award for best children's album in 2002. In total, Xuxa has recorded almost ONE THOUSAND songs during her whole musical career.

So, I guess what I'm trying to say is that Xuxa's path to stardom in her native Brazil may have been a bit unorthodox, and certainly she had to encounter a lot of criticism along the way. She even faced tragedy head-on. So for her to come out of all that to become a success, and to be loved by so many children all over the world is nothing short of remarkable.

So, really, when you look back on it all...the past doesn't really matter. All that matters is the person one becomes now.

A pretty heavy lesson talked about today, but one that we should take with us.


Tuesday, December 06, 2011

The Great Gift-Wrap Massacre Of 1994

All right. I have a question to ask all of you, and before I ask it, I ask that you please refrain from throwing tomatoes, expired egg nog, and giant lumps of coal my direction.

How many of you are done your Christmas shopping? Or Hanukkah shopping? Or Kwanzaa shopping? Any sort of holiday shopping?

Okay, that was actually FOUR questions...my bad.

So, what's the answer? Myself, I've gotten mine finished already. I actually had it done the day after Black Friday.

I know, I know...I see some of you shooting daggers my way, but just hear me out. I used to be a December 23 shopper too. I used to postpone Christmas shopping until the very last possible minute too. Sometimes, it wasn't by choice. When I was Christmas shopping, especially during my teen years when money was quite tight, I'd have to wait until close to the end of the holiday rush before I could buy one gift. But after working years in retail and seeing how crazy some people can get in regards to getting everything on their list by whatever means necessary, it's made me realize that the earlier I get my shopping done, the happier holiday that I get to enjoy.

As of right now, my December is looking stress-free, which is exactly what my intention was this holiday season. Besides, it gives me more time to write in this blog, right?

But that's the shopping out of the way. Next comes one of the necessary evils of the holidays that is linked to the holiday shopping.

That necessary evil being the joy of gift wrapping.



Until a few years ago, I absolutely hated wrapping presents. I was by far one of the worst wrappers that ever existed. My presents always looked like they were wrapped by someone who didn't have any fingers. I'm saying that I made Slater from Saved By The Bell look good. When I was a teenager, I reckon that a two year old could have done a better job wrapping Christmas presents than I could.

Oh sure, I could have avoided the whole idea of wrapping presents by performing a few short cuts. I could have just put everything in convenient gift bags. I could have just not bothered to wrap them at all. I could have put them in decorative boxes that looked like they were wrapped. Heck, I could have just gotten the people at the gift wrapping booth at the mall to wrap them for me.

But I guess it was to my credit that I chose not to go that route. I was one determined little kid and I refused to let a roll of red and green wrapping paper and Scotch tape prevent me from learning how to wrap.

But that first year of wrapping my own presents was a bit of a disaster in the making right from the get-go.

If memory serves me, it was Christmas 1994. I was thirteen, and prior to 1994, my sisters used to help me with my wrapping jobs. But by '94, both of them were out of the house, and I realized that I had to step up to the plate, and attempt to wrap my gifts by myself. Had to learn how to do it sometime, right?

And what a disaster it was.



The above picture is a simulation of what some of my gifts looked like that first year I wrapped them. Maybe they didn't seem as bad as the one up above, but they were really bad. Some of the gifts were covered with either too much paper, or not enough. The gift tags that I used were the same colour as the paper, so they blended together. I think I may have ended up using an ENTIRE roll of Scotch tape to wrap one gift. I think the only thing I did right was sticking the bow on the gift, and that's only because I bought the stick-on bows with the adhesive backing on them. You wouldn't have wanted me near a spool of silk ribbon. I was liable to either tie my arms and legs together with it, or end up strangling myself with it.

Let's just say that my gift-wrapping skills needed work.



I even think that one Christmas I ended up running out of Scotch tape and ended up wrapping one of my dad's gifts with duct tape. While it is true that duct tape has a million and one uses, using it for wrapping presents is not the best choice.



All I really wanted was for my gifts to look as elaborately wrapped and beautifully done the same way that gifts were shown wrapped in television shows, commercials, and the Sears Wish Book. Because I was at the age where I was struggling to find out who I really was, and feeling as thought I was failing at everything new that I was trying out, and I really wanted to succeed at something.

And well...back in 1994, gift wrapping just wasn't working out.

Oh, certainly my family didn't really care too much about my sub-par wrapping job. And I suppose in the long run, it didn't matter how nicely wrapped a gift was as the paper would be ripped to shreds in a fifteen seconds flat. But, compared to the wonderful wrapping jobs that the other members of my family had done with their presents made mine kind of look like something a blind chimpanzee would have done. For whatever reason, the shoddy workmanship on my presents really stood out, and for whatever reason, it really bothered me.

I swore to myself that the following Christmas would be different, and that I would make up for my lack of gift-wrapping experience.

Unfortunately, it took several years for me to master the art of gift wrapping. The next year, Christmas 1995, was just as disasterous as 1994. That year, I didn't know where my family had hidden all of the gift wrap for Christmas present wrapping, so I ended up having to use some leftover birthday wrap...wrapping paper that looked as if it had been in our family before I was born. The paper was brittle, the tape refused to stick, I had to make gift tags out of loose leaf paper...yeah, that was a great Christmas.

Things didn't improve any during 1996 either. That was the year that I made the mistake of buying the El Cheapo Scotch tape from the local dollar store. Note to all of you out there, do not buy the El Cheapo tape. It doesn't stick, it doesn't hold, and I ended up having to rewrap the gifts on a couple of occasions because the tape didn't stick at all.

By 1998, I was beginning to get a little better at wrapping boxes, but wrapping up clothing items was a disaster, as my packages would usually resemble shiny red and green blobs of some unknown substance. But, hey, if I could offer up one hint of positivity in this, at least nobody could tell what was underneath the wrapping paper.

And then in 1999 (which was one of the last years my family had a real Christmas tree as opposed to artificial), I had to rewrap (and in one case, re-buy) gifts because the tree stand was overflowing with water, and all of my gifts that I had just put under the tree were soaking wet! It was a total disaster, and admittedly, I was so angry at the prospect of having to wrap my gifts over again that I just used tissue paper to wrap them up instead, and kept them far away from the tree until Christmas Eve.

But you know, over the years, my handiwork with wrapping gifts got a little better each year. I knew how to measure exactly how much paper I needed, I didn't have to spend a fortune on tape, and I even got better at penmanship for writing everyone's names on the tags. The more and more I did it, the better I got. Mind you, I'll never wrap as well as say, Martha Stewart, but I really am at the point where it doesn't really matter what I think of my wrapping abilities anymore because I know that the real judges wouldn't care.

I suppose you can say that the perfect lesson to learn from this is not to judge a book by its cover...or in this case, not to judge the gift (or the gift giver) by its wrapping job. And that's a good lesson to learn. Not the one that I really wanted to express in this entry, but just putting it out there.

No, the lesson that we can all learn from my mishaps in giftwrapping is persistence. Never giving up. Practice making near-perfect.

Because if one keeps at it, you never know what magic you can create. Case in point, here's a few of the gifts that I ended up wrapping for Christmas 2010.



And you may wonder why there's so many. Well, I don't have kids of my own yet, so I tend to spoil my nieces and nephews. That, plus I have ten people to buy for on my list. But as you can see, not one of these gifts look all that terrible. They may not be suitable for a holiday display at Macy's, but they're good enough for me.

Definitely a far cry from my misadventures in gift-wrapping during Christmas '94, at least.

Something else happened along the way. I went from loathing wrapping to LOVING wrapping. I now do the gift wrapping of my gifts, as well as volunteering my services to people who want their gifts wrapped too. If I was more confident in my ability, I'd add a fee.

But, then again, that wouldn't be very Christmasy, would it? Or, maybe it would, I don't know.

Monday, December 05, 2011

Monday Matinee - Home Alone

Sometimes being the youngest child in a family can be nothing but trouble.

I can make this claim. I am the youngest of three. I know what it's like to be the baby of the family, and how uncomfortable of a position it can be.

Oh sure, there's people that will tell you that being the baby of the family is the best possible position to be in. Everyone spoils you with gifts, they say. Give you lots of attention, they say. Treat you like a little prince or princess, they say.

They lie!

Truth is, I didn't particularly like being the youngest. I was constantly supervised to the point where my mother would freak out if I crossed the street by myself. And don't even get me started on my two older sisters. They would constantly come up with new ways to have fun with me from pouring a whole bottle of styling gel on my head to tickling me every chance they got.

I also felt as though my opinions weren't taken as seriously as the ones given by the 'adults' of the family, even though I had thought that my opinions were good. It was very frustrating to see everyone else's ideas and thoughts entertained while mine ended up becoming dust in the wind.

I tried everything to try and become heard, even resorting to making mischief to get attention. But all I got instead was sent to my room, or some other punishment, and in the long run, all I ended up doing was proving that I was too immature to be taken seriously. Took me a while to figure it out.

But you know, even at the age of 30, I still get the feeling that because I'm the youngest, everyone assumes that I think and act like a child when the truth is that I haven't been a child for years. I guess it's one of the many pitfalls to being the youngest of a family...no matter how old you get, people still treat you as if you're a child.

This is kind of related to the main character of today's Monday Matinee subject...one of three holiday films that I'm going to be spotlighting this month.  Like me, our subject was also the youngest one in his family, and like me, he always felt as if nobody took him seriously. I think in his case, he may have been worse off than I was because he actually had siblings who point blank told him that he was completely helpless and that he was nothing but a disease.

That's harsh.

You know, I think before we continue, I think we should add a little mood music...how about the music from the opening?



Yep, in case you haven't figured it out yet (and in case the title wasn't a dead giveaway), the subject for today's entry is the movie Home Alone.



Released in movie theaters everywhere on November 16, 1990, Home Alone is the story of what happens when a family who goes off on an overseas Christmas vacation accidentally leave their child at home. That's bad enough. But what happens when two robbers happen to be stalking the neighbourhood and they decide to break into the home of the family, leaving the child to defend his home against the thieves?

Well, that's just plain scary...for the thieves.

The movie was directed by John Hughes of Sixteen Candles and Pretty In Pink fame, and is widely considered to be the breakout performance of Macaulay Culkin, who was just ten when the film was released. The movie also starred Daniel Stern, Joe Pesci, John Heard, Catherine O'Hara, and Roberts Blossom. The movie performed favourably at the box office, taking in a final gross of almost three hundred million dollars during the last months of 1990 and first months of 1991. It was listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as being the highest grossing live-action comedy ever. Despite this, the film itself got mixed reviews.  Some critics praised the movie, while others panned it.

Regardless, it was one of the most memorable movies of 1990, and I wanted to talk about it in this blog, being that it's Christmas, and because I think there's a couple of things we can learn about ourselves that this movie shows us.



Kevin McCallister (Culkin) is eight years old. He's the youngest member of the McCallister family. He is the son of Kate (O'Hara) and Peter (Heard), and he has four older brothers and sisters. In order of birth they are Buzz, Megan, Linnie, and Jeff.

TRIVIA: All four actors cast in the roles of Kevin's brothers and sisters were born in 1977 (even Buzz, if you can believe it). Either that was a wild coincidence, or Kate McCallister had quadruplets.

The McCallister family has big plans for the holiday season. For Christmas, they planned a vacation to Paris, France. Paris was the home of Peter's brother, Rob, and Rob had invited all of the McCallister family to his home for a Christmas reunion vacation.

As a result of this, the already full McCallister home was even more packed. In addition to Peter, Kate, and their children, Peter's other brother Frank was also invited to go. Frank, his wife Leslie, and their children were all at the McCallister home, as the two families were to board the same flight to Paris.

This situation is Kevin's worst nightmare. All of Kevin's siblings and cousins are mean to him, poke fun at him, and make him feel as though he was worthless. His older brother Buzz is especially nasty to him, telling him some scary stories about the next door neighbour, Old Man Marley (Blossom), about how he was a serial killer who grinded up his victims into rock salt used to melt the ice off of the sidewalks. This story was obviously an urban legend created by Buzz, but it would cause Kevin much grief, especially as the film progressed.

To make matters worse, Kevin couldn't stand his uncle Frank. For the record, Kevin couldn't stand much of his extended family at all. He especially seemed to take a dislike to his cousin Fuller (who was played by Culkin's younger brother, Kieran), who had a tendency to wet his bed...especially if he was given a soda to drink just before bed. But Frank very much had the same maturity and mentality as any of the children that were staying at the McCallister home, and he took delight in picking on Kevin just as much as the kids did.

During dinner, Kevin is dismayed to learn that Buzz purposely ate all of the plain cheese pizza that was ordered, and ends up shoving Buzz away, spilling milk all over the airplane tickets and spilling soda down the front of Frank's pants. An enraged Kate, after Kevin sasses her with attitude, drags him up to the third floor attic as a punishment for his actions, and where he wished that his whole family would just disappear.

That night, a strong wind blew over the city of Chicago. Christmas decorations blew away, and tree branches swayed in the wind. In the case of the majestic tree outside of the McCallister home, one of the branches broke off and fell on top of a set of power lines, blowing the transformer, and plunging the neighbourhood into darkness.

And resetting all of the electric alarm clocks inside the McCallister family home, causing everyone in the home to oversleep. Which then leads to a frantic mad rush of getting everyone up, dressed, and into the airport shuttle buses so they can make their flight. Fortunately, the McCallisters make their flight with seconds to spare.

Unfortunately, they left someone behind. Kevin.



Turns out that in between the shuffling of bodies and accidentally counting a neighbour's kid as an extra head, Kevin was lost in the kerfuffle. Waking up and wandering through the house, he's wondering where everyone went. It suddenly dawned on him that he made that wish...the one where he wished his family would disappear.



At first, Kevin was horrified. Then he got that devilish grin in his eyes.

Why he could do whatever he wanted without anyone telling him what to do. If he wanted to jump on his parents bed eating popcorn, he could. If he wanted to steal things out of Buzz's room, he could. If he wanted to eat ice cream for dinner while watching violent movies, he could. Really, things were great for Kevin.



Not so much for Kate McCallister though, who realized on the plane that she wasn't going to win the 1990 Mother Of The Year Award. Immediately after landing in Paris, the worried McCallister clan rushes towards the nearest phone to try and get someone to check on Kevin to see if he's okay. But when that fails, Kate realizes that she must find a way to get back home to Chicago.



At the same time that Kevin is trying to adjust to life without a family, a couple of robbers happen to be scoping out the neighbourhood, looking at stealing all the valuables they can carry. They're the Wet Bandits, a team of two comprised of Marv (Stern) and Harry (Pesci). Harry was the brains of the operation (well, figuratively speaking), who posed as a police officer to get access to each of the homes they broke into. Once he got in, the clueless owners would tell him all of the security precautions that they used to protect their home, as well as their vacation plans. Of course, once Harry found out, he filled Marv in, and the two of them would bypass all the security measures to break in and out without even triggering an alarm. Oh, and the name Wet Bandits? That was the brainchild of Marv, who left the sinks running in the kitchens as a calling card.



Yeah, Marv was kind of a space case.

Anyway, Kevin attempted to make the best of his situation. He went to the store to buy food, he decorated his own miniature Christmas tree, and he even went to buy a toothbrush...of which he accidentally shoplifted running away from Old Man Marley, which spawned a police chase across a frozen pond...

...yeah, it didn't go to well.

To make matters worse, Kevin bumps into Harry and Marv on his travels, and Kevin immediately recognized Harry as the police officer that visited his home earlier through the gold tooth in his mouth.

So now, Kevin was in a pickle. He knew that Harry and Marv were bad news and were up to something. But he couldn't go to the police because he thought that they would arrest him for shoplifting the toothbrush. He soon figured out that maybe wishing his family away wasn't the brightest move.

And with Harry and Marv scoping out his home at all hours, Kevin knew that he had to do everything he could to protect himself as well as his family's belongings...especially since he overheard the two talking about breaking into the house that night. Now he REALLY wants his family back, but he doesn't know how to get them back.

He tries asking a neighbourhood Santa Claus for help in bringing them back, but when that fails, he decides to go to a nearby church. It is here that he happens to cross paths with Old Man Marley once again...but this time, Old Man Marley smiles at him, sits down beside him, and Kevin soon realizes that he's not as bad as Buzz made him out to be. 



In fact, Kevin soon discovers that Old Man Marley got into a fight with his only son, and they hadn't spoken in years. Going to the church was the only way he could get to see his granddaughter, as she was a member of the church choir. Kevin tried to tell Old Man Marley not to be afraid to reach out to his son, and that maybe if he tried to talk to him, things might get better.

Wow...sounds to me like Kevin could have taken his own advice there. Had he not taken Buzz's description of Marley so seriously, it's possible that Marley could have helped him out a lot sooner...maybe he could have stayed with him until the McCallisters made their way home. But hey, if he had, the movie wouldn't have been as much fun, and we would have been deprived of scenes such as the ones below, when Kevin set up booby traps all over his home to ward off Harry and Marv.

In one of the most memorable scenes of the whole movie, Kevin rushes home after visiting with Old Man Marley, and quickly sets up the traps before Harry and Marv arrive. I only wish I could find the clip of him setting up the traps, but there really wasn't any that were all that great...so, I hope that posting the iconic music that went along with that scene will bring back memories.



Though, I did manage to find a little montage of some of these traps in action, and you can see some of them below...problem is they're mixed in with scenes from the Home Alone sequel released in 1992. I'll point out the traps that appeared in the first one though...



The clip where Marv has Buzz's tarantula on his face
The clip where a barefoot Marv steps on the very fragile ornaments
The clip where Harry gets set on fire with the blowtorch in the kitchen
The clip where Harry and Marv get shot with the BB gun
The clip where Marv falls down the basement stairs after stepping on a nail
The clip where Marv falls down the ice covered stairs
The clip where Harry slips on the front steps
The clip where Harry grabs on the red hot doorknob
The clip where Harry gets covered in glue and feathers
The clip where Marv hits Harry with a crowbar to kill Buzz's tarantula

Man...it's a wonder those two didn't end up DEAD!

Now, I'm going to stop here because I don't like to post endings to movies. But since you know a sequel was made, you have to have some idea. All I'll tell you is that there's more traps, a cameo role by John Candy, and Old Man Marley makes a smashing appearance 15 minutes before the end of the film. Literally, quite smashing.

The whole idea of Home Alone was to provide a whole bunch of laughs and slapstick comedy to the audience, and it certainly achieved just that. But I think there's a deeper meaning to the whole movie as well.

Actually, there's two lessons that we can take away from Home Alone.

One...don't take what others say about someone else to be the truth until you get to know them. Any of the scenes between Kevin and Old Man Marley will prove that lesson to be true.

But I also think that a lesson that we can take from this is that no matter what, every member of a family is important, and that we shouldn't dismiss anyone's ideas because of age. I mean, Kevin was only eight, and yet his booby traps were almost Rube Goldberg like. I mean, the kid was a genius. Every single trap worked the way it was supposed to. I couldn't imagine Megan, or Linnie, or Jeff even coming up with that plan. Certainly not Buzz.

And I also think that Kevin learned a very valuable lesson as well...and that lesson is that no matter what you may feel about your family, it's always better to have them around.

But then again, given that there was a sequel, maybe he DIDN'T learn it after all...