 |
|||
 |
 |
||
 | |||
 | |||||||||||
|
|
Starring Peter Billingsley, Melinda Dillon, Darren McGavin. ![[Photo]](/photos/christmasstory.jpg) We are taught from a young age that materialism and unchecked desire are never good qualities to possess, something that is especially true during the holidays. This was the whole point of the beat-me-over-the-head-with-a-two-by-four point of Jingle All the Way, and also the point of Dickens' classic, A Christmas Carol. However, this didn't stop A Christmas Story's director Bob Clark and creator Jean Shepherd from creating an off-beat and enjoyable Christmas story about an eight year old boy whose one wish--ahead of millions of dollars and having Michelle Pfeiffer as his own personal bathing slave--is to get a Red Ryder Air Rifle for Christmas. Peter Billingsley, who has, for all practical purposes, appeared in absolutely nothing since, stars in A Christmas Story as Ralphie, the aforementioned eight year old, who is experiencing life growing up in the late 1940's. The film focuses on Ralphie's childhood, which is nothing more than a compilation of anecdotes that Shepherd remembered from his own life while growing up in northwestern Indiana (A Child's Christmas in Hammond?) and the routinely interesting interactions Ralphie has with his parents, friends, and the neighborhood bully as the Christmas season nears. One element of Calvin & Hobbes cartoonist Bill Watterson's work for which I have always respected him, is his ability, through the use of ink and paper, to take us back to the days when we were but little punks growing up, where each math test, gym glass, and field trip weighed down upon us like an ever nearing missile strike. Despite being lodged firmly within his '30's Watterson could always bring to mind the accurate depiction of life in the first grade. It was this part of the production that most impressed me in A Christmas Story: Shepherd's unflinchingly realistic look at childhood. By creating multitudes of these humorous scenes and smoothing combining them with other situations involving the neighbor's dogs and having to go out for Chinese food on Christmas day, Clark and Shepherd have produced in A Christmas Story a slice-of-life portrayal of childhood that is unparalleled in modern Hollywood.
|
| |||||
![[Photo]](/photos/christmasstory2.jpg)
Although the times have changed and the technology is more advanced--instead of racing home to listen to the radio, kids now run home to play Nintendo 64's and to watch movies on DVD players--the nature of the beast(s) has not. Despite all cute appearances to the contrary, let it not be forgotten that all children, as