Rating: 
Summary: Hilarious Holiday flick!
Review: This is one of the best Holiday movies of all time! Contains great lessons for any rambunctious youngsters contemplating sticking their tongues to flagpoles in the dead of winter or playing around with BB guns . This one has become an annual classic in our household, with the film's hill-billy next door neighbors 'The Bumpuses' becoming a household name.
Rating:
Summary: One of the best Christmas movies ever!
Review: "It's a Wonderful Life", the 1947 version of "Miracle on 34th Street", and one version or another of Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" are splendid Christmas classics, with magical storylines involving angels, ghosts, or even Kris Kringle himself. To this list of time-honored motion pictures, we should add the 1983 comedy "A Christmas Story". Based on excerpts from humorist Jean Shepherd's book "In God We Trust - All Others Pay Cash", our story revolves around Ralph Parker, a regular boy growing up in northern Indiana during the 1940s. One Christmas season, young Ralphie (played by Peter Billingsley) can think of nothing else but that one special gift he so intensely desires: a Red Ryder BB rifle. While facing his many detractors who warn him that such a gift would shoot his eye out, life goes on for our bespectacled hero in the form of school, the neighborhood bully, the "Little Orphan Annie" radio show, and everyday manic in the Parker household. Veteran actor Darren McGavin steals the show as Ralph's gruff but likable Old Man whose favorite winter hobby appears to be fighting the house furnace. As quite a contrast to the Old Man, Ralph's mother (Melinda Dillon) may play the role of the quintessential 1940s housewife, but she shows smarts and stands her own as a peacemaker and authority in the house (it seems Mrs. Parker's nightly dinner menu always consists of meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and red cabbage). Completing the family cast is Ian Petrella as Ralphie's whiny younger brother Randy. Directed by Bob Clark, "A Christmas Story" effectively brings out the world through the eyes of a child, especially the heady, anxiety-ridden days of the Christmas season. Shepherd himself co-wrote the screenplay and narrates the picture as an adult Ralph. Without compromising on its overall hilarity, the picture is nostalgic and sentimental as well (important qualities for a Christmas movie); practically every scene is a true gem. In our yearly Christmas potpourri of live-action and animated pictures, "A Christmas Story" is an essential ingredient. END
Rating:
Summary: One of the great holiday classics
Review: "A Christmas Story" belongs right up there with "It's a Wonderful Life," "Miracle on 34th Street" and "A Christmas Carol" (choose your favorite version) in the canon of great, indispensable Christmas movies. Though set in the 1940s, it's story is timeless, taking us back to when we were kids and so desperately wanted that one special gift under the tree on Christmas morning. The movie brilliantly captures the obsession of young Ralphie and his quest to ask Santa for a Red Ryder BB gun, relaying perfectly the magic and thrill of Christmas through a child's eyes. Intermingled with this are wonderful, hilarious snippets of the absurdities of everyday life, from poor Flick getting his tongue frozen to a lamppost, to the perpetually smoking coal furnace, to Ralphie getting his mouth washed out with soap for saying "fudge" (though he actually said something else other than "fudge"), to the family's hapless introduction to "Chinese turkey." This is one of those rare movies that I can watch again and again. In fact, Christmas isn't complete without at least one viewing. This DVD is worthy of anyone's collection; in fact, if you have a VHS version, you've probably worn it out.
Rating: 
Summary: "Oh, I hate the smell of tapioca."
Review: Bob Clark's "A Christmas Story" is a cinematic slice of Americana. It chronicles an era long since gone when a BB gun was the dream present of every young child and when saying the wrong word would set up a meeting between your mouth and a bar of soap. Young Ralphie Parker (Peter Billingsley) longs for a Daisy Red Ryder 200-shot Carbine Action BB Gun and makes no secret that he wants one for Christmas. However, everyone in his northern Indiana town warns him that he will shoot his eye out if his wish is granted. Ralphie stubbornly refuses to waver and hopes against hope that his wish will be granted while navigating around the other problems in his life - a school bully, a brother who has outgrown his snowsuit, an aunt who thinks he's a girl, a hazardous visit to Santa Claus at the department store, a tongue stuck on a frozen lamp post, and a decoder ring that decodes an uninspiring message. There really is nothing that distinguishes "A Christmas Story" from your run-of-the-mill seasonal made-for-television Christmas production. The feeling of nostalgia that the film generates basically is its only notable aspect. The jokes are routine and the characters are the typical generic stock figures you would find in any modern Christmas tale. Darren McGavin and Melinda Dillon are amusing as Ralphie's parents and Billingsley has a short of charm as young Ralphie, but the performances aren't special enough to elevate the material. "A Christmas Story" does a wonderful job of recreating a certain place and time. However, it does not accomplish much more than that. In the realm of big-screen Christmas features, "A Christmas Story" places somewhere in the middle of the pack.
Rating:
Summary: SIMPLY THE BEST!!!!
Review: This is the BEST holiday movie to date...
It has everything...laughs, drama, and it's heartwarming just the same...brings back alot of memories....LOVED IT!!
Rating:
Summary: A christmas classic
Review: This movie is a holiday favorite. Its been a family tradition to watch it on christmas eve every year. I love it because it is something the whole family can watch and every one can relate to the story. Its funny, heartwarming, and teaches everyone how great family is.
Rating:
Summary: As good as a Red Ryder 200-shot range model air rifle!
Review: I'm 13 now, and I have watched "A Christmas Story" at least once every year as far back as I can remember. In fact, I used to know the whole script. It is one of the funniest movies ever to deal with a specific holiday, correction, THE funniest holiday movie ever. This is taken from a section of the late Jean Shepard's satire "In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash." I read a lot of this book, and I can tell you that Shepard was, and still is, a genius. Now the synopsis for those unfortunate souls who haven't seen this masterpiece.
Set in Northern Indiana (which is where I happen to come from), my guess is around Hammond, since that is what the book claimed, 9-year-old Ralph Parker is yearning for a Red Ryder BB gun, but his mother resists, giving the world-famous quote: "You'll shoot your eye out!" The only one who could take this matter up was the man: Santa. There are too many memorable scenes that if I told you them all, it would spoil it all. Buy it, rent it, watch it on one of the Turner stations, just do something to watch this!
Rating: 
Summary: I Don't Get It
Review:
Why has this become a classic holiday movie? I'm no big fan of schmaltz, but A CHRISTMAS STORY is utterly devoid of warmth. Its characters are unlikable, everything looks grimy and cheap, and Jean Shepherd's Lake Woebegonish narration is grating.
Next Christmas, skip TBS' 24-hour marathon and watch LORD OF THE RINGS, PLANES TRAINS AND AUTOMOBILES, SOME LIKE IT HOT, heck, ANYTHING but this.
Rating:
Summary: Everyone's story
Review: I never get tired of this movie! The humor is so insane and yet so funny because it's true. How many of us can laugh knowingly at Randy not being able to put his arms down? Or at the kids screaming in terror when they're placed on Santa's lap, though they waited ages just to see him? And who hasn't pulled out all the stops in order to get that one amazing Christmas gift?
This film combines so many fun little anecdotes with a heaping splash of nostalgia. Who isn't warmed every time they see it?
I bought this DVD and I watch it even in the summer! It's a great little investment.
Rating:
Summary: WONDERFUL!!!
Review: I love this movie, i have watched it every christmas since i was about 3. I have not purchased the DVD but the actual movie is GENUIS!!! a boy grows up and each year he wants a red rider BB gun. all the adults tell him, no, you could shoot your eye out! anyways they have very funny scenes in this movie. I love it!
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