![]() Like A Christmas Story, the sequel captures a few shared cultural touchstones perfectly. There’s what feels like genuine camaraderie between Flick, Schwartz, and Ralphie. And though few of them are what you’d call experienced, I appreciate that the rogue’s gallery of grown-up childhood friends and enemies are all played by their original actors. Both Erinn Hayes and Julie Hagerty are so good in their own right that it’s a missed opportunity that they don’t have more to do. This is Ralphie’s story and so wife Sandy is much more of a supporting role, though her interactions with her sweet but occasionally difficult mother-in-law are funny. Every little kid should spend some time on a barstool, learning the adult mysteries of gossip and avoiding one’s spouse. Daughter Julie (Julianna Layne) is a little mastermind and son Mark (River Drosche) visits Flick’s bar, making the kind of memories with his Old Man that would get today’s parents arrested, more’s the pity. Ralphie’s own children are more plot devices than characters, though they’re both good in their own right. It doesn’t work as well as it did when he was a child. Ralphie’s dreamy fantasy sequences are still a thing, as are the moments he breaks the fourth wall and looks directly at the camera. Peter Billingsley takes over narration from long-deceased humorist Jean Shepherd, and also handles the screenplay along with Nick Schenk, writer of Gran Torino and The Mule. A Christmas Story Christmas, by comparison, is a casserole made from the leftovers reminiscent of the original, but without its full charm. It was a heaping helping of holiday comfort food. The bullies, the terrible clothes, wanting a BB gun more than anything else in the whole world. I have a great deal of affection for A Christmas Story. Robb), and childhood bully turned cop Skut Farkus (Zack Ward). Supporting him in his endeavors is his wife Sandy (an underutilized Erinn Hayes) and a cadre of characters from Ralphie’s childhood, including Flick (Scott Schwartz), Schwartz (R.D. It’s an impossible task made more difficult by financial concerns and Ralphie’s inability to sell his first novel. Ralphie returns home to help his mother (Julie Hagerty, taking over for Melinda Dillon) keep the holiday traditions going, and deliver to his own kids the kind of Christmas memories his Old Man left him. It’s December 1973, and Ralphie’s a struggling writer in Chicago when his Old Man (Darren McGavin) unexpectedly passes right before Christmas. That’s where Ralphie Parker (Peter Billingsley) finds himself in A Christmas Story Christmas, a direct sequel to the 1983 holiday classic TBS airs in a 24-hour marathon beginning every Christmas Eve. ![]() His absence is a vacuum that feels impossible to fill, even to a grown man who knows it’s his turn. And when he’s suddenly gone it leaves a physical void in the world. ![]() He could be tough but also sometimes delivered unexpected kindness. He had a weight in the world that went beyond his physical body. The Old Man was a Presence, an authority figure always over your shoulder whether or not he was there. “My Old Man made me stack cordwood until dark.” “Oh yeah? My Old Man made me shovel our driveway and the neighbor’s too.” You could hear the capital letters. “My Old Man.” I remember when that was how every boy described his father, usually right before a complaint.
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