Episode 14 July 22nd 2011

Coming to you fresh from the Highbrow! Lowbrow? studios, Jesse and Shaun bring another podcast comparing the Top Box Office Earner and the Best Picture Academy Award Winner of the same year. As always, we take a look at these films, the pinnacles of critical and mainstream success and figure out who was right that year: the masses (lowbrow) or the critics (highbrow). For this episode we feature the year 1990 with the films: Dances With Wolves (highbrow) and Home Alone (lowbrow).

Dances With Wolves, directing and starring Kevin Costner, tells the story of Lieutenant Dunbar who, abandoned mentally and physically by the military, begins to embrace the spiritual and honorable ways of his Indian neighbors. Jesse found this movie and it's length (181 minutes) tolerable, fast fowarding through certain sections, and he thought Costner fluctuated between strong and week (his diary readings being fairly wooden). Shaun managed to stay invested throughout the movie's length, finding Costner's journey from Lieutenant Dunbar to Dances with Wolves strangely compelling. Though this film felt slanted towards the Native American plight, it was a refreshing and daring change of pace in 1990, from films previous that had negative views of that culture. Even though this film is overly long and a little indulgent, it's better than most people remember it, an interesting epic that embraces the Native American world.

Home Alone, directed by Chris Colombus, features Macaulay Culkin in his most infamous role as Kevin McCallister. Young Kevin finds himself home alone after his parents forget to bring him to the airport. He has to fend off evil burglars Marv and Harry, but he's got more than few tricks up his sleeves for them. Shaun found the physical comedy unparalleled, the numerous physical stunts were both hilarious and complicated. Jesse thought Kevin was an unlikable jerk, saying that the movie was an 1hr 41 of an 8 year old mugging (though he was a big fan of Marv aka Daniel Stern). This movie is a classic movie that kids will probably enjoy since they are constantly getting the upper hand on the adults. Although this movie does have it's problems and Kevin gets more annoying as you get older, Home Alone is a classic kid's movie bound to rear it's head around Christmas time.

So which movie did Jesse and Shaun, the HBLB duo, prefer? The epically long saga of Kevin Costner in Dances with Wolves? Or Macaulay Culkin's defining film Home Alone? Tune in to the next episode of Highbrow! Lowbrow? to hear our take.