A Christmas Story (HD-DVD)
Picture:
C+ Sound: C+ Extras: B- Film: B-
Just in
time for an amusing and loosely related controversy, here comes Bob Clark’s A Christmas Story (1983) on HD-DVD for
the 2006 holiday, the first holiday period for the HD formats. Originally a film that opened Thanksgiving
1983 and not able to do strong follow-up business that Christmas, the film has
become the biggest classic of the holiday since films went widescreen and TV arrived
in the 1950s.
The
controversy at this time is over a remake of director Clark’s 1974 Horror
classic Black Christmas (reviewed
elsewhere on this site) opening Christmas Day 2006. Some who are trying to hijack the holiday in
the name of “saving” it are complaining and in 99% of these cases do not know
it is a remake or that Clark made A
Christmas Story. If they don’t want
to see the film, just don’t go, especially when they can see A Christmas Story.
In it,
young Ralphie (a young Peter Billingsley in a great performance) is
celebrating the holidays with the obsessive desire to get a Daisy Red Ryder BB
Gun by any means necessary and when his motherly mom (Melinda Dillon in a role
that has eclipsed her work in Spielberg’s Close
Encounters Of The Third Kind as her most famous work) and wacky father
(Darren McGavin of Kolchak: The Night Stalker
fame) keep telling him no, Ralphie keeps saying yes!
Long
before Home Alone, Ralphie had a
wacky Christmas that could take on all the films in that franchise and then
some. The voiceover of Ralphie as adult
by author Jean Shepherd is one of the best, most effective cinema voiceovers
ever. Gag after gag works over and over
again. The film is fun and holds up
remarkably well, maybe even more so as certain circumstances (we will not go
into here) make the idea of true childhood seem to be transmuting for the
worse. Still, many aspects of the story
echo children of all ages and that is why A
Christmas Story will continue to grown in statue deservedly proving
Christmas is for anyone who wants it any way they want it. The holiday is pointless otherwise.
The 1080p
1.85 X 1 digital High Definition image is lacking, but is a tad better than the
standard DVD if not by much. This does
look better than Warner’s HD-DVD of National
Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (reviewed elsewhere on this site) but also not
by much. Still, Clark’s longtime
cinematographer Reginald H. Morris (who shot the original Black Christmas) delivers some of the most memorable images of
Christmas in cinema history. By not
being phony, that is half the battle won.
The Dolby Digital Plus 1.0 Mono is not bad and a solid approximation of
the optical mono theatrical sound in 35mm prints, but why not an upgrade to
even simple stereo? Did composers Paul
Zaza and Carl Zittrer record the music in mono?
Maybe a later anniversary upgrade could include this as well.
Extras
include the original theatrical trailer, original radio readings by author Jean
Shepherd (who co-wrote this screenplay based on her solely authored book In
God We Trust, All Other Pay Cash) of script pages, feature length audio
commentary track by Clark & Billingsley, recent 20th Anniversary
documentary Another Christmas Story from 2003, "Get A Leg Up" and "A
History of The Daisy Red Ryder" featurettes, interactive trivia, decoder
match challenge and even Easter eggs.
Later, a
sequel was actually made with Charles Grodin taking McGavin’s role and Kieran
Culkin (???) as an older version of Billingsley called My Summer Story aka It Runs In The Family, which was
released in 1994. We actually have a
review for it here on the site, which you can access at the following link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/4140/My+Summer+Story
- Nicholas Sheffo
