A Christmas Story Christmas (2022)

[Flack]

The year is 1973, and Ralphie -- the young boy who wanted a Red Ryder BB Gun for Christmas more than anything in the world back in the 1940s -- is now married, with children of his own. With the passing of Ralphie's father ("the Old Man"), Ralphie and his family must rush from Chicago back to the home he remembers (the one we all remember) in Cleveland to take care of family affairs while pulling off Christmas for the first time without help from his father.

Several actors from the original film have returned to portray adult versions of themselves including Peter Billingsley (Ralphie), his younger brother Randy (Ian Petrella), his childhood friends Schwartz and Flick (R.D. Robb and Scott Schwartz) and others. Sorely missed are Ralphie's parents, The Old Man (originally (Darren McGavin, who passed away in 2006) and Melinda Dillon as the mom, who has been replaced by Julie Hagerty (of Airplane!), who plays the role completely wrong.

A Christmas Story Christmas has its own story of Ralphie attempting to pull of Christmas with a b-plot of him attempting to become an author, but there are so many callbacks and references to the original film that at times the plot gets lost. Multiple times throughout the film Ralphie reminisces about events from his childhood, after which we are treated to short clips from the original film. The original A Christmas Story is one of the most watched holiday films of all time. Nobody watching this film doesn't remember the pink bunny suit, Flick sticking his tongue to a frozen flagpole, or what a triple-dog dare means.

Now that the Old Man has passed, it is up to Ralphie to put together Christmas for his family. Much of the plot is dedicated to how he's going to accomplish this, but it's almost played as if Ralphie has never seen or heard of Christmas before. Ralphie struggles to come up with things for his family to do, but he's a married man with a roughly 10 year old son and slightly younger daughter. I guess... do what you've been doing the past 10 years? How much brainstorming is involved in putting up lights and a tree? Fortunately, everybody in the film takes a pact "not to be sad" early on, so little time is spent mourning, talking about, or even reminiscing about The Old Man. And how convenient that the Bumpasses still live next door, and still have a lot of dogs.

A Christmas Story Christmas isn't terrible -- it's a Christmas story with people you know. There's fun and laughs to be had, and more nostalgia than Cleveland has snow. The film relies heavily on nostalgia (in many cases nostalgia of the first film), but until the original which was about the magic of Christmas and a boy who would do anything to get the present of his dreams, this one is about a middle-aged man trying to hold together Christmas while dealing with the loss of his father. Merry Christmas!

[AArdvark]

I'm thinking this is National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation mixed with A Christmas Story.

In general I dislike movies that are basically money-grabs relying on other movies and a big nostalgia factor. Couldn't someone think up a whole new spin on Christmas?

How about a Hallmark movie but made by the people that did Airplane! ?

THE
SURELY YOU CAN'T
BE SERIOUS
AARDVARK

[Flack]

Couldn't someone think up a whole new spin on Christmas?

Well, here's the problem. Since 2000, Hallmark has made more than 150 original Christmas movies. No google, name one.

[AArdvark]

Cant.

There was the one with Denzil Washington who was an angel with a fish typewriter....don't remember the name.

There was the one with Bruce Willis who was a policeman

I read somewhere that most of the Hallmark Christmas movies were produced in Canada and they rigorously avoid having the actors say the word 'about'.


Anyway, take one of those 150 movies and turn it into an Airplane! type of movie. Even without Leslie Neilson it'll be great.

[Casual Observer]

"the christmas consultant"

I don't even have to google it but I bet Hallmark had its hands dirty in it. This movie confirmed my long time suspicion that David Hasselhoff is actually flaymingly GAY.

[Flack]

And there's my point. When asked if anyone can come up with the name of a Hallmark Christmas movie released over the past 22 years, CO comes up with a Lifetime movie, and Aardvark comes up with "the one where Denzil Washington who was an angel with a fish typewriter."

[Tdarcos]

When someone starts to be recognized for "carload quantities" of material, the works tend to blur. (If you watched his show) Does anyone remember what Bob Ross' paintings were about or of?

I mentioned this in my Signature Storage thread, I had no idea Anne Murray released over 350 songs, yet maybe I can remember 1/2 a dozen of them.

[pinback]

Does anyone remember what Bob Ross' paintings were about or of?

Happy little clouds and trees, motherfucker.

[AArdvark]

Nailed it!

They were all landscapes, more than that, I dunno.

[Flack]

I'd say they're exactly the same, except one is a throwaway painting done in half an hour and the other is a movie with a three million dollar budget.

[Tdarcos]

Does anyone remember what Bob Ross' paintings were about or of?

Happy little clouds and trees, motherfucker.

Yippee-ki-yay!

[pinback]

Violent Night looks pretty good.

[Flack]

I rewatched A Christmas Story Christmas because something was bugging me that I couldn't put my finger on the first time.

People write stories because they have a story to tell. What invariably happens, more so in movies than novels, is that for multiple reasons -- could be because it's a sequel, could be due to an advertiser or product placement deal, whatever -- you end up with scenes that "have" to be there. To work these in, writers have a couple of options; they can either come up with a logical reason for the scene that also serves the story, or they can simply have the characters say and do unrealistic things to put them into those situations. When this happens, the illusion is completely shattered as the characters begin to act more like puppets than real characters.

For example, in A Christmas Story Christmas, despite the fact that The Old Man has died the week before Christmas, it's never really mentioned. When Ralphie arrives at his mother's house, she says "hey, your dad would have wanted us to have normal Christmas, so don't be sad and don't bring it up." And they don't. Like, not at one point does Ralphie sit down and say, "boy, it sure sucks that my dad died." Instead they're off and running, getting a tree and doing their shopping and building snowman.

There's another scene early on where Ralphie calls his little brother Randy, who happens to be in India on a business trip. Randy doesn't mention the death of his dad at all, and only decides to try and come home to visit his mother when Ralphie guilts him by saying their mom isn't doing so well. Of course the reality it, the movie doesn't work with Randy there, too -- there would be nothing for him to do other than be a third wheel to Ralphie's family's adventure, so from a writing standpoint it makes sense to keep him out of the plot -- but the way they did it felt forced and unrealistic. What guy in his 30s has zero interest in returning home after his father dies? The film makes it seem like Randy wouldn't have even come home for the funeral if Ralphie hadn't guilt tripped him into returning home. None of this is presented with any sort of avoidance due to sadness on Randy's part -- he's just "you know, I'm kind of having a good time in India, yo."

At least a dozen times in this movie, characters do completely unrealistic things solely because the plot needs them to, which makes the film seem less like a movie and more like a series of cartoon sketches. In the original film when Flick gets his tongue stuck to the frozen flag pole, I felt like that was something that could have happened. In this movie, Flick (now 40 years old) gets goaded into sliding down a giant wooden jump ramp on a sled by having another adult "triple-dog dare" him. This ramp is designed to launch people into the air with no chance of them landing safely on anything. And you know it's going to happen because, gosh, who can turn down a triple-dog dare? But maybe when you're 40, you should.

[Tdarcos]

What invariably happens, more so in movies than novels, is that for multiple reasons -- could be because it's a sequel, could be due to an advertiser or product placement deal, whatever -- you end up with scenes that "have" to be there.

What comes to mind is a brilliantly done product placement segment in 2001: A Space Odyssey where Heywood Floyd arrives in the space station, where the entrance to the Hilton hotel appears behind him at the meeting in the corridor, and later, he places a video call over 10,000 miles to talk to his 4-year-old daughter, using AT&T, of course, and at the end, for his 2-minute call, he will be billed $1.22 by AT&T. This is one example where the product placement was done so slickly, you don't even realize it.

[pinback]

Hey, worked for Pan-Am.