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Seeing as it’s the season and all, with all the usual Christmas films being dusted off and put on TV, it’s time to start remembering all those classic Christmas films like It’s a Wonderful Life, Scrooged, The Muppet Christmas Carol etc. But there is one great Christmas film that’s always forgotten about in this country, despite it being the very best.
A Christmas Story is a wonderful Christmas film and a firm family favourite in my household, and though it doesn’t tend to be on in the UK anymore, it’s a very cherished film in America (it’s even placed at 139 in the IMDB top 250 films of all time). People never seem to talk about it when the topic of Christmas films comes around, so here I am.
A Christmas Story is about Ralphie Parker, just a normal kid growing up in small town Indiana around the 1940’s, and all he wants for Christmas is a Red Ryder air rifle. The bad news for Ralphie, is that whenever he’s asked by anyone as to what he wants for Christmas, they always respond with the same phrase, “you’ll shoot your eye out”. So the film charts Ralphie’s dreams and schemes to get hold of the highly coveted Christmas present. He leaves adverts hidden in his parents’ magazines and even visits a rather scary department store Santa Claus.
The film progresses through the festive period, and we see all kinds of shenanigans;
Scut Farkus, an evil bully with yellow eyes, accompanied by his henchman, terrorising Ralphie and his school chums on the way to and from school every day, Ralphie’s dad doing the best Homer Simpson style act many years before the Simpson’s was even conceived and amongst other things, winning and becoming obsessed with a very tacky yet highly alluring (for him anyway) leg lamp, fighting his dodgy old basement furnace whilst “weaving a tapestry of obscenities” and having his Christmas turkey destroyed by their next-door neighbours many marauding hounds.
Ralphie’s younger brother is a whiny kid who never eats and is forced to wear about 20 layers of clothes when he goes out in the cold, his mother is a typical downtrodden mum who spends nearly the whole film in the kitchen, his friend gets his tongue stuck to a frozen metal flagpole, Ralphie has daydreams about fighting off a gang of villains using his faithful air rifle, and Chinese restaurant workers struggle to sing English Christmas carols.
There’s a great nostalgia feeling about A Christmas Story, you can really relate to it because it’s viewed from the child’s perspective (with a narrative style similar to The Wonder Years). We’ve all experienced the excitement of looking forward to Christmas, and that what this film encapsulates perfectly. It’s not loud and in your face like all new Christmas films are nowadays, it’s a small heart-warming little comedy from 1983 that makes me smile no matter how many times I see it.
People can make lists about the best Christmas films in the world evah, but for me, this is the very best. A true classic that should be viewed and enjoyed by all.
There are plenty of reviews here:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085334/externalreviews
And there’s the trailer here:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085334/trailers
A Christmas Story is a wonderful Christmas film and a firm family favourite in my household, and though it doesn’t tend to be on in the UK anymore, it’s a very cherished film in America (it’s even placed at 139 in the IMDB top 250 films of all time). People never seem to talk about it when the topic of Christmas films comes around, so here I am.
A Christmas Story is about Ralphie Parker, just a normal kid growing up in small town Indiana around the 1940’s, and all he wants for Christmas is a Red Ryder air rifle. The bad news for Ralphie, is that whenever he’s asked by anyone as to what he wants for Christmas, they always respond with the same phrase, “you’ll shoot your eye out”. So the film charts Ralphie’s dreams and schemes to get hold of the highly coveted Christmas present. He leaves adverts hidden in his parents’ magazines and even visits a rather scary department store Santa Claus.
The film progresses through the festive period, and we see all kinds of shenanigans;
Scut Farkus, an evil bully with yellow eyes, accompanied by his henchman, terrorising Ralphie and his school chums on the way to and from school every day, Ralphie’s dad doing the best Homer Simpson style act many years before the Simpson’s was even conceived and amongst other things, winning and becoming obsessed with a very tacky yet highly alluring (for him anyway) leg lamp, fighting his dodgy old basement furnace whilst “weaving a tapestry of obscenities” and having his Christmas turkey destroyed by their next-door neighbours many marauding hounds.
Ralphie’s younger brother is a whiny kid who never eats and is forced to wear about 20 layers of clothes when he goes out in the cold, his mother is a typical downtrodden mum who spends nearly the whole film in the kitchen, his friend gets his tongue stuck to a frozen metal flagpole, Ralphie has daydreams about fighting off a gang of villains using his faithful air rifle, and Chinese restaurant workers struggle to sing English Christmas carols.
There’s a great nostalgia feeling about A Christmas Story, you can really relate to it because it’s viewed from the child’s perspective (with a narrative style similar to The Wonder Years). We’ve all experienced the excitement of looking forward to Christmas, and that what this film encapsulates perfectly. It’s not loud and in your face like all new Christmas films are nowadays, it’s a small heart-warming little comedy from 1983 that makes me smile no matter how many times I see it.
People can make lists about the best Christmas films in the world evah, but for me, this is the very best. A true classic that should be viewed and enjoyed by all.
There are plenty of reviews here:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085334/externalreviews
And there’s the trailer here:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085334/trailers
Afraid it's not. It's rarely on TV anymore, but it is available on dvd (though only region 1).
When's it on?
Seeing as it’s the season and all, with all the usual Christmas films being dusted off and put on TV, it’s time to start remembering all those classic Christmas films like It’s a Wonderful Life, Scrooged, The Muppet Christmas Carol etc. But there is one great Christmas film that’s always forgotten about in this country, despite it being the very best.
A Christmas Story is a wonderful Christmas film and a firm family favourite in my household, and though it doesn’t tend to be on in the UK anymore, it’s a very cherished film in America (it’s even placed at 139 in the IMDB top 250 films of all time). People never seem to talk about it when the topic of Christmas films comes around, so here I am.
A Christmas Story is about Ralphie Parker, just a normal kid growing up in small town Indiana around the 1940’s, and all he wants for Christmas is a Red Ryder air rifle. The bad news for Ralphie, is that whenever he’s asked by anyone as to what he wants for Christmas, they always respond with the same phrase, “you’ll shoot your eye out”. So the film charts Ralphie’s dreams and schemes to get hold of the highly coveted Christmas present. He leaves adverts hidden in his parents’ magazines and even visits a rather scary department store Santa Claus.
The film progresses through the festive period, and we see all kinds of shenanigans;
Scut Farkus, an evil bully with yellow eyes, accompanied by his henchman, terrorising Ralphie and his school chums on the way to and from school every day, Ralphie’s dad doing the best Homer Simpson style act many years before the Simpson’s was even conceived and amongst other things, winning and becoming obsessed with a very tacky yet highly alluring (for him anyway) leg lamp, fighting his dodgy old basement furnace whilst “weaving a tapestry of obscenities” and having his Christmas turkey destroyed by their next-door neighbours many marauding hounds.
Ralphie’s younger brother is a whiny kid who never eats and is forced to wear about 20 layers of clothes when he goes out in the cold, his mother is a typical downtrodden mum who spends nearly the whole film in the kitchen, his friend gets his tongue stuck to a frozen metal flagpole, Ralphie has daydreams about fighting off a gang of villains using his faithful air rifle, and Chinese restaurant workers struggle to sing English Christmas carols.
There’s a great nostalgia feeling about A Christmas Story, you can really relate to it because it’s viewed from the child’s perspective (with a narrative style similar to The Wonder Years). We’ve all experienced the excitement of looking forward to Christmas, and that what this film encapsulates perfectly. It’s not loud and in your face like all new Christmas films are nowadays, it’s a small heart-warming little comedy from 1983 that makes me smile no matter how many times I see it.
People can make lists about the best Christmas films in the world evah, but for me, this is the very best. A true classic that should be viewed and enjoyed by all.
There are plenty of reviews here:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085334/externalreviews
And there’s the trailer here:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085334/trailers
A Christmas Story is a wonderful Christmas film and a firm family favourite in my household, and though it doesn’t tend to be on in the UK anymore, it’s a very cherished film in America (it’s even placed at 139 in the IMDB top 250 films of all time). People never seem to talk about it when the topic of Christmas films comes around, so here I am.
A Christmas Story is about Ralphie Parker, just a normal kid growing up in small town Indiana around the 1940’s, and all he wants for Christmas is a Red Ryder air rifle. The bad news for Ralphie, is that whenever he’s asked by anyone as to what he wants for Christmas, they always respond with the same phrase, “you’ll shoot your eye out”. So the film charts Ralphie’s dreams and schemes to get hold of the highly coveted Christmas present. He leaves adverts hidden in his parents’ magazines and even visits a rather scary department store Santa Claus.
The film progresses through the festive period, and we see all kinds of shenanigans;
Scut Farkus, an evil bully with yellow eyes, accompanied by his henchman, terrorising Ralphie and his school chums on the way to and from school every day, Ralphie’s dad doing the best Homer Simpson style act many years before the Simpson’s was even conceived and amongst other things, winning and becoming obsessed with a very tacky yet highly alluring (for him anyway) leg lamp, fighting his dodgy old basement furnace whilst “weaving a tapestry of obscenities” and having his Christmas turkey destroyed by their next-door neighbours many marauding hounds.
Ralphie’s younger brother is a whiny kid who never eats and is forced to wear about 20 layers of clothes when he goes out in the cold, his mother is a typical downtrodden mum who spends nearly the whole film in the kitchen, his friend gets his tongue stuck to a frozen metal flagpole, Ralphie has daydreams about fighting off a gang of villains using his faithful air rifle, and Chinese restaurant workers struggle to sing English Christmas carols.
There’s a great nostalgia feeling about A Christmas Story, you can really relate to it because it’s viewed from the child’s perspective (with a narrative style similar to The Wonder Years). We’ve all experienced the excitement of looking forward to Christmas, and that what this film encapsulates perfectly. It’s not loud and in your face like all new Christmas films are nowadays, it’s a small heart-warming little comedy from 1983 that makes me smile no matter how many times I see it.
People can make lists about the best Christmas films in the world evah, but for me, this is the very best. A true classic that should be viewed and enjoyed by all.
There are plenty of reviews here:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085334/externalreviews
And there’s the trailer here:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085334/trailers