A Christmas Story 1983
This movie was not that successful at the box office, but really exploded by saturating television at Christmas ever since, including channels that would loop it for 24 hours straight. So I knew I had seen most of the movie on TV, but wasn’t sure I had seen it all the way through. Watching again, if I had missed anything, it wasn’t much. It isn’t easy reviewing a movie this familiar. There isn’t a real strong narrative, just a series of cute or funny stories that Jean Shepherd had written and presented in monlogues over the years, doing the narration for this movie, all based on his childhood. Having seen it a few times, the freshness has definitely worn off, but it is still a fun movie to watch. I always like things taken from a character’s perspective as he imagines his teacher as a witch or overcome with the quality of his writing. It is a nice piece of nostalgia, albeit a little lightweight and sometimes with overly broad comic touches, particularly by Darrin McGavin as the father. It also feels a little low budget, but I think it does a good job of looking like it was made much earlier than 1983. It’s a Wonderful Life looks pretty low budget too, so it may be on purpose in this movie.
Written: 09 Jan 2022