The Root house was all aflutter this week with activity that made it impossible to go anywhere. Our children moved out of the house and moved on with their lives, which was a 72-hour mixture of painful lifting, babysitting the grandson and cleaning everything. Next week, the wife and I have to get back to the drive-in for our sanity. But this week, it is a classic review of one of my favorite movies of all-time.

Since I was not publishing movie reviews last year when A Christmas Story turned 30 years old, I decided to do it now. Why? Because I find that Christmas classics do not come along very often. Plenty of studios make Christmas movies, but very few are actually classics. Christmas with the Kranks is not a classic Christmas movie. On the other hand, A Christmas Story is and always will be a classic Christmas film.

In the movie review business, you have to be careful as to what movies made after the year 1960 you consider to be a classic. Some people in the movie biz want a movie to ferment for 50 years or so before considering it a classic. I consider myself to be a fairly qualified critic and I am calling it right now – A Christmas Story is a classic film. It will be watched for generations and it the 24 Hours of A Christmas Story marathon every Christmas eve and day will remain a highly-rated piece of programming for a long time.

What makes A Christmas Story a classic? Each and every scene has significance and, for the most part, is very funny. Each time the movie fades to black and fades back in, something of significance of the story is about to happen. There are no wasted scenes in this movie. If you miss any of the scenes in this movie, then you miss a great laugh and you also miss one more important piece to the puzzle.

This movie is so packed with great stuff that, the first time I ever saw this movie, I completely forgot about the official Red Ryder, carbine action, two-hundred shot range model air rifle until the Old Man pointed it out to Ralphie over there, behind the desk. By the time the movie gets to it climatic finish, you have already been through a dozen or so important plot elements that get raised and resolved in a scene or two. The movie makes its own climax anti-climatic by delivering so much beforehand that we completely forget about the gun until Ralphie opens that red wrapping paper and reveals his blue steel beauty.

A Christmas Story is filled with so many quotable scenes that it has become part of the American Christmas culture. If you ask for a BB gun for Christmas, you will get told that you will shoot your eye out. If you start singing Jingle Bells with a slightly racist twist to it, you will find a few people to fill out your choir and finish it with you.

The power of a movie is in its ability to grab and audience and take that audience for a ride it will never forget. A Christmas Story is a roller coaster of laughs, hesitations and inside jokes that everyone gets. I have seen this movie so many times that I could write out the script from memory, but I still remember the first time I saw this film and the emotional ups and downs that come with it. By the time it was over, I was in pain from laughing, nostalgic from the memories it brought up of my own childhood and hooked on the movie for the rest of my life. That is the power of a good movie and it is the kind of power that A Christmas Story wields with such responsible care.

Maybe you are sick of A Christmas Story after seeing it so many times, but most people are not. The way the movie was filmed and its clever script make it a movie that people can, and do, watch over and over again.

If you have never seen A Christmas Story, then at least give it one try. If you are not laughing at the Old Man’s battle with the Bumpus hounds, then you will wonder where all of that Christmas wonder kids enjoyed in the 1940s went. The great thing about A Christmas Story is that you can enhance your own memories with it and make it an important part of your Christmas experience. That is the sign of a Christmas classic and A Christmas Story more than qualifies.

George N Root III is a movie addict and did damn-near shoot his eye out when he was a kid. He recommends that every parent reward their children with a trip to the drive-in this weekend because it won’t be long before the drive-ins are closed for the season.

---

Get the daily East Niagara Post email update.
Send an email to news@eastniagarapost.com with "email update" in the subject line.