Brothers, Ralphie
(Peter Billingsley) and Randy (Ian Petrella) live with their parents somewhere
in the Midwest. The father, played by Darren McGavin, is an excitable man who
likes to swear and fight with the furnace and neighbors. The mom, played by
Melinda Dillon, has almost endless patients. Randy is the little brother who
just wants to fit in with Ralphie and his friends.
Finally we have
Ralphie. He is the main part of the movie and represents every child on
Christmas. He wants more than anything to have the real Red Ryder 200-shot
Carbine Action Air Rifle for Christmas. The only problem is that everyone keeps
warning him that “You’ll shoot your eye out.” Even Santa Claus, played by Jeff
Gillen, puts down his spirit in one of the funniest Christmas moments ever seen
on film.
What makes “A Christmas
Story” a classic is that everyone can relate to Ralphie. In Ralphie’s dilemma
we see the genuine spirit of what Christmas is all about: Getting Presents!
Eric said in his review, “Yes, I know of the Nativity Story and the lesson of
"It is better to give than receive", but to a child, Christmas is the
one time of year when it is not only okay to be greedy, it is encouraged.”
Adults still enjoy the holidays, but for children, Christmas is just a joyous
occasion. They ask for gifts and wait for that magical morning to see if their
gifts have been given. Ralphie’s journey takes the adult audience through a
trip down memory lane while children easily recognize themselves in him.
“A Christmas Story” is
a true holiday movie that it gets shown on Christmas Day on AMC. It’s seen so
many times around the holiday time. Eric noted, “The house where the movie was
filmed has recently been bought and renovated to look like the movie set. You
can take tours. I have seen shirts with the cast on them. I saw ornaments based
on the movie for sale in stores. I have even seen the Red Ryder BB Gun for
sale. One store was giving a copy of the DVD away with every purchase of the
gun.”
Like all classic films,
“A Christmas Story” is filled with memorable lines, “Only I didn’t say ‘Fudge.’
I said the word, the big one, the
queen-mother of dirty words, like ‘F-dash-dash-dash’ word!” “Fra-gee-lay. That
must be Italian.” “Randy lay there like a slug! It was his only defense!” “Well
I double-DOG-dare ya!”
Eric ended his review
by saying, “No matter who you are, A Christmas Story is as satisfying as having
a warm mug of hot chocolate and a Christmas cookie after a day of sledding down
a snow covered hill with family and friends.”
A few years have passed
for the Parkers, but nothing really has changed. Randy, played by Valin
Shinyei, is crazy over Buck Rogers, going around the neighborhood in costume.
Ralphie (Braeden Lemasters) is close to his 16th birthday, wanting
to get a car to impress his crush (Tiera Skovbye). His mom (Stacey Travis)
stays a loyal housewife, trying to hold everyone together with “bite the bar”
threats while losing her patience with his dad (Daniel Stern), who continues to
complain about everything, give clichéd words of wisdom, and fight with a broken
furnace. When Ralphie tries to see the inside of his dream car, he releases the
breaks and gets it into an accident, so this poor protagonist needs cash quick
to pay for the damages before his parents find out, getting a part-time job at
local department store Higbee’s, along with his friends Flick (David W.
Thompson) and Schwartz (David Buehrle). Not being able to take the frustration
of the holiday shopping season, Ralphie sees trouble, while his dad, not
wanting to pay the overpriced amount for his favorite Christmas turkey, goes out
into the freezing cold to ice fish his family a holiday meal.
Obviously, there’s no
need for “A Christmas Story 2,” released in 2012, to be made without the
involvement of the original cast and crew (sadly, a few have passed away over
the decades). Orndorf noted, “However, that doesn’t stop director Brian Levant
from attempting the impossible, hoping to match the warm nostalgia and acidic
sense of Shepherdian humor from the earlier picture by simply reworking the
same jokes with an adolescent Ralphie. It’s actually shocking to find the
script by Nat Mauldin (who also accepts narration duties) so slavish to the
original, as though anyone sitting down to watch “A Christmas Story 2” might
have no working knowledge of the earlier effort, requiring a refresher on
established temperaments, habits, and slapstick situations.”
Except for the Bumpus
dogs and the fear of Scut Farkus, every single joke and situation of disaster
comes back in “A Christmas Story 2.” Like Randy and the amount snow gear, the
father’s furnace fight and turkey love, Ralphie’s “Fuuuuuudge!” yell and many
daydreams of heroism, a twist with an irritable department store Santa, played
by Garry Chalk, the leg lamp, the chop suey/bowling alley location, the reveal
of Aunt Clara’s Christmas morning costume, and Flick’s pressure to stick his
tongue in terrible areas (in this film, a pneumatic tube). From beginning to
end, it’s a completely copy.
In small amounts,
references to the 1983 film are nice, good for a few laughs as Ralphie’s story
continues. Levant basically ends the sequel in copying; hoping this extended
copy of “A Christmas Story” is enough to call it as a sequel. Orndorf noted, “There’s
also some initial effort to match the brief flashes of profanity that marked
the original, while the follow-up chases its own sauciness by building sight
gags around female undergarments and breast-centric tomfoolery, bending the PG
rating.”
Orndorf continued, “What’s
new here is the Old Man’s ice fishing obsession, though the sense of isolation
and ungodly cold is undercut by the use of cheap backgrounds and echoed sound,
keeping the movie uncomfortably set-bound, while crude CGI takes cares of the
time machine aspects of the story. Ralphie’s maturation is perhaps the most
interesting subplot of the picture, watching the once geeky kid grow as a
teenager, developing crushes on girls and praying for some four-wheeled
independence to come his way.” It’s a terrible job to be like Peter
Billinglsey, but Lemasters does what he can, creating a concerned, whiny
Ralphie who always gets problems. His work at Higbee’s would normally be a
perfect escape from the family film cliché, but Levant doesn’t want to do that,
going back on annoying slapstick routines as an easy way.
Orndorf ended his
review by saying, ““A Christmas Story 2” closes with a conventional display of
holiday charity and do-goodery, along with a tree-side present unwrapping
montage to successfully mirror the original film. It’s a cheap sense of
seasonal morality, but appears perfectly at home inside such a relentlessly
artificial production. Instead of bringing these itchy characters into a new
realm of domestic destruction, encouraging a sequel that urges the franchise
forward, “A Christmas Story 2” merely traces over previous accomplishments,
hoping adults won’t mind the repetition and kids won’t understand they’re being
fed moldy leftovers.”
I’m sorry, but even
though the first one is overplayed, it’s still a classic Christmas movie that I
wouldn’t mind seeing again, just not every year. However, the sequel was really
unneeded. I think the blame is for people overplaying the first movie and
marketing off so many merchandise and accessories that of course they would
make a sequel because they wanted to make a huge money grab. If you loved the
first movie, like everyone does, stay away from the sequel at all costs. You
will plague the day that you even thought of checking it out.
Yes, I know they made “A
Christmas Story Live” a couple of years back, but I’m not seeing that one at
all.
Happy Holidays to all
my online readers. I hope that everyone had a blessed day today, and hopefully
you got plenty of good gifts. Stay tuned tomorrow for the continuation of “Disney
Channel Original Movie Month.”
No comments:
Post a Comment