‘A Christmas Story Christmas’ Review: A Worthy Movie to Stream!

A Christmas Story is a 1983 Christmas comedy film directed by Bob Clark. It is based on Jean Shepherd’s semi-fictional stories from his 1966 book In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash, with some parts from his 1971 book Wanda Hickey’s Night of Golden Memories and Other Disasters.

It’s a holiday favorite in North America and stars Melinda Dillon, Darren McGavin, and Peter Billingsley. It has been shown in a marathon called “24 Hours of A Christmas Story” on TNT and TBS every year since 1997 and 2004 respectively. The marathon runs from the evening of Christmas Eve to the evening of Christmas Day. People often say that it is one of the best Christmas movies.

The movie came out on November 18, 1983, and critics gave it good reviews. It was partly shot in Canada, and in 1984, it won two Canadian Genie Awards. The Library of Congress chose it for the US National Film Registry in 2012 because it was “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”

A Christmas Story Trailer

A Christmas Story Plot

The story follows an adult Ralphie as he goes back to his childhood home on Cleveland Street to recreate the same magical Christmas for his own children. Along the way, he meets up with old friends and comes to terms with his father’s death.

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A Christmas Story Review

In the thirty-nine years since its initial release, Bob Clark’s A Christmas Story has gone from being a relatively unknown cult classic of the 1980s to being a mainstay of cable marathons and quotable moments. The original film was so beloved that it spawned two sequels and a half-dozen TV movies starring the Parker family. However, the live broadcast musical special was widely panned.

Ralphie Parker returns for the first direct sequel to 1983 original, and HBO Max is the ideal home for it. A Christmas Story Christmas, which features Peter Billingsley as Ralphie and many of the original cast members, is a nice and family-friendly follow-up that echoes the tone and feel of Bob Clark’s beloved movie for a worthy sequel that doesn’t reinvent or upstage the first.

A Christmas Story 1973 is set 30 years after the first film, in 1973. Ralph Parker (Peter Billingsley), now an adult, spends Christmas accepting the fact that his writing career has stalled. Ralph, whose father was portrayed by the late Darren McGavin in the film “The Old Man and the Gun”), gives himself until Christmas to either publish his novel or return to his regular job.

Ralph and his family travel from Chicago to his hometown in Indiana to spend Christmas with his mom. Sandy (Erinn Hayes) and their kid Mark (River Drosche) and Julie (Julianna Layne) accompany him (Julie Hagerty).

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Ralph is determined to make this Christmas the best one yet in honor of his late father, despite having to deal with the stress of writing the perfect obituary, the theft of presents, and countless shenanigans with his friends Flick (Scott Schwartz) and Schwartz (R.D. Robb), and the lingering thought of how his father made it all look so easy.

Short at under a hundred minutes, A Christmas Story Christmas is a faithful adaptation of the original 1983 film, down to the memorable score and Ralphie’s daydreams. A Christmas Story Christmas is an adaptation of Jean Shepherd’s book in which a new narrator tells the story.

Billingsley and Nick Schenk wrote the original story. Clay Kaytis (The Angry Birds Movie) channels the original film’s director, Bob Clark, by creating a series of vignettes and other retro visuals that feel like they could have been made in the 1970s but instead look like they were plucked straight out of the 1940s.

Billingsley jumps right back into the role of Ralph as if no time has passed, but this time Ralph is celebrating the holidays as a way to remember his late dad. As he goes along, he picks up helpful tips for navigating the holiday season with ease and focuses on the reason for the season.

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