A Christmas Story
Melinda Dillon, Star of A Christmas Story and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Dead at 83
The Oscar nominee also had roles in Slap Shot, Harry and the Hendersons, and Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia. Melinda Dillon, Star of A Christmas Story and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Dead at 83 Wren Graves
Why We’re So Obsessed With A Christmas Story 28 Years Later
Suppose you’re a red-blooded American growing up anywhere near a television for the last thirty years. In that case, chances are A Christmas Story is at least a tangential part of your holiday memories. Regardless of your thoughts on the film itself — I think it’s perfectly fine, if exceedingly overplayed — there’s no mistake that it’s wormed its way into the American lexicon by sheer dint of its omnipresence on TV screens during the holidays. But how did such a small, independent holiday film — one with a decidedly jaundiced (and BB-pelted) eye towards the nostalgia of the 1940s — turn from a theatrical shrug into an unlikely American treasure? Let alone one that would spawn multiple sequels, with the latest, A Christmas Story Christmas, coming to VOD and HBO Max on November 17th. Let’s t...
What Ever Happened to the Kids from A Christmas Story?
Each month, Clint Worthington’s What Ever Happened To… catches us up with some of our favorite faces from our pop-culture past. It was updated in November 2022. We’ve all seen 1983’s A Christmas Story. The Bob Clark-directed holiday tale of little Ralphie and the many misadventures surrounding his ninth Christmas started out as darkly comic counterprogramming to the sunniness of traditional Christmas movies, only to become an annual tradition for most yuletide households. No one born after 1997 has ever had to seek out A Christmas Story; just walk past any random TV playing TNT on the day itself, and you’ll catch a glimpse of Ralphie shooting his eye out with a Red Ryder BB gun or Darren McGavin marveling at his leg lamp. As you read this, some TV somewhere is probably playing A Chri...
Ralphie’s Back for the Holidays in First Trailer for A Christmas Story Christmas: Watch
A beloved holiday classic reckons with the passage of time in the new trailer for A Christmas Story Christmas. The sequel to 1983’s A Christmas Story begins streaming November 17th on HBO Max. Peter Billingsley returns as Ralphie Parker, still bespectacled but now closer to the end of his life than the beginning. After the death of his Old Man, he returns to his old Cleveland neighborhood to share Christmas with his kids and help his mother (Julie Hagerty, taking over the part from now-retired actress Melinda Dillon). “Ralphie,” she says in the trailer, “Promise me we’re gonna make this a wonderful Christmas. That would make your father so happy.” Ralphie of course promises, but Billingsley’s narration screams, “What had I done? And now it was all up to me?” A...
