Tag: A Christmas Story

Christmas Movie 9: “A Christmas Story”

Christmas Movie 9: “A Christmas Story”

by MichelleMcHatton

Most of us can relate to Ralphie Parker, the main character in “A Christmas Story”. We’ve been the kid coveting a certain something for Christmas: a special doll, a new bike, a certain something for our collection, a Red Ryder Carbine Action 200-shot Range Model air rifle. So we can shoot our goddamn eyes out.

Forty years later and a well-received revisit in 2022, “A Christmas Story” is alive and well and watched by millions leading up to Christmas and of course for 24 hours on Christmas Eve. “A Christmas Story” is so big that in 2012 it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress. That’s one helluva award.

If you don’t know by now the story revolves around Ralphie (Peter Billingsley), a 9-year-old boy living in 1940’s Hohman, Indiana, whose only wish for Christmas is to receive the aforementioned Red Ryder Carbine Action 200-shot Range Model air rifle. Which his mother (Melinda Dillon), teacher (Tedde Moore) and even Santa Claus is afraid he’ll use to shoot his eye out. Interestingly enough his father The Old Man (Darren McGavin) never mentions his worry about this. Probably because he was too preoccupied with his fra-gee-lay Italian Major Award.

There are so many memorable moments throughout the film, from Flick getting his tongue stuck to the flagpole to Ralphie beating the shit out of Scut Farkus. Fudge, anyone? I always thought Randy got the shit end of the stick. After all, he was stuffed into his winter coat by his mother until he looked like a tick about to pop, forced to eat like a pig and hid under the kitchen sink. It’s amazing he turned out to be a rich bastard as portrayed in the 2022 revisit.

And let’s not forget the Bumpus’s hounds and The Old Man and his turkey…

“A Christmas Story” truly brings back memories of Christmases past and how it used to be for so many. Such simpler times of listening to Little Orphan Annie, drinking Ovaltine and having your biggest worry be whether you’ll get your Red Ryder Carbine Action 200-shot Range Model air rifle and not shoot your eye out.

“A Christmas Story Christmas”

“A Christmas Story Christmas”

by MichelleMcHatton

Like so many others, I am a huge fan of the 1983 classic “A Christmas Story”. The movie stars Peter Billingsley as Ralphie Parker, a young boy whose dream Christmas present is a Red Ryder bb gun. The entire movie is based on whether he is going to receive it for Christmas and his on-going fear and anxiety that, for one reason or another, he won’t receive it. As we all know, Ralphie does receive it.

Fast forward almost forty years. Ralphie’s Old Man, that of the “frag-ee-lay” leg lamp fame, has passed away. Instead of the Old Man and Ralphie’s mother visiting Ralphie, his wife and two kids for Christmas in Chicago, as they normally do, Ralphie takes it upon himself to pack up the clan and drive home to Hohman, IN to spend Christmas in the house he grew up in with his mother.

While there Ralphie meets up with his usual old crowd of friends: Flick and Schwartz. He even encounters his childhood bully Scut Farkus.

The film is filled with lots of nostalgia from the original film. It makes you laugh. It makes you cry. It made me wonder why Mrs. Parker (not the original–this one is played by Julie Hagerty) was not more tearful over her husband’s death. Maybe she was relieved of the Old Man’s passing? Finally she is rid of his complaining of the Bumpus’s dogs. Or the furnace. Or his winning odd, useless prizes that she can only roll her eyes at. Although no Melinda Dillon (who, I feel, did a fantastic job as the mother in the original), Hagerty gets us by. I was a little taken aback with her paranoia of the Christmas carolers. It’s not something I felt Mrs. Parker would be paranoid of. It also seemed Mrs. Parker had become a bigger fan of liquid spirits than she had been in the original. Which may be what has led to her great paranoia of carolers.

Other than the lackluster portrayal of Mrs. Parker and Ralphie’s roundabout way of obtaining a Christmas star for the tree, I thoroughly enjoyed “A Christmas Story Christmas”. The ending was just right, as I kept wondering when they were going to have any kind of funeral or end -of-life celebration for the Old Man. They honored him just right.