Our family loves Christmas time. And like many families, we have our favorite holiday traditions. Among them is watching Christmas movies. Promptly starting the Friday after Thanksgiving, we kick off our Christmas movie watching season. Of course we have our favorites, from silly yuletide romps like “Elf” and “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacatiom” to perennial classics like “Miracle on 34th Street” and “It’s a Wonderful Life”. We adore them.

But we always save one of our very favorites to last. A movie we’ve seen too many times to count. One that’s infinitely quotable and hilarious from start to finish. One with so many terrific characters who you learn and love by name, and just as many endearing moments that make the movie memorable. I’m talking about Bob Clark’s delightful 1983 treasure, “A Christmas Story”. Loaded with charm, humor, heart, and tons of holiday cheer, “A Christmas Story” has only grown in popularity over the years. And now, nearly 40 years later, the movie is getting a proper follow-up.

My immediate reaction to the news of a sequel was “Gulp”. Is this something we really need? Do we really want them tinkering with something many of us love so much? As it turns out, “A Christmas Story Christmas” (not the easiest title to recite) is its own little treat. Is it as good as the 1983 film? Of course not, nowhere close. But that’s an unfair comparison. It’s not aiming to equal its predecessor. Instead, director and co-writer Clay Kaytis sets out to honor “A Christmas Story” by tapping into the characters, style, and tone which made that film great.

Without question “A Christmas Story Christmas” is made for fans of the original film, and you can tell it from the very start, as the old classic Warner Bros. logo fades away and we’re greeted by the familiar chimes of “We Wish You a Merry Christmas“. There’s the exact same opening credits fonts, and of course that signature narration (a different voice of course, but later it’ll make sense why). Fans will immediately recognize these callbacks, and there will be countless others in the forms of locations, lines of dialogue, and of course the characters. One of the biggest treats is seeing nearly all of the original cast return to their roles.

The story is set in December of 1973. When we last saw Ralphie Parker he was a bespectacled young boy from Hohman, Indiana who had just received the greatest Christmas gift he would ever receive – “an official Red Ryder Carbine Action 200-shot Range Model air rifle”. Years later, Ralph (a returning Peter Billingsley) lives in Chicago with his wife Sandy (Erinn Hayes), son Mark (River Drosche), and daughter Julie (Julianna Layne). He’s spent the last year writing what he believes is “the next great American novel”, but he’s set himself a deadline. He made a deal with Sandy that he has to be published by the end of the year or he would pack up his dream and re-enter the rat race.

Unfortunately things aren’t looking good for Ralph. He has sent his 2,000-page manuscript (yes, you read that right) to 16 publishers and 15 have said “no thanks”. But his writing takes a backseat after he gets a phone call no one wants to receive. It’s his mother who tells him his father (unforgettably played in the 1983 film by the late Darren McGavin) has passed away. Ralph is crushed. So he and his family load up in their ’66 Plymouth and head for Hohman. Upon arriving they’re greeted by the warm welcome of Ralph’s mom (Julie Hagerty, taking over for Melinda Dillon who retired from acting 15 years ago).

Ralphie expects to help his mother make funeral arrangements, but she has something else in mind. Reminding him how much his father loved Christmas, she decides to delay his funeral until after the holiday. She tasks Ralph with making sure this is the best Christmas ever – a most fitting way for them to honor his Old Man. Here’s the thing, he only has five days to pull it off. But ever the daydreamer, Ralph finds inspiration and is determined to give his family the kind of Christmas that would make his dad proud.

As the story scoots along we’re reintroduced to several familiar faces. Of course there’s Ralph’s kid brother Randy (Ian Petrella) who’s a traveling businessman and a bit of a flake. And who can forget his best buddies, Flick (Scott Schwartz), who now runs a bar passed down from his dad, and Schwartz (R.D. Robb), who still lives with his mom and spends most of his time running up its tab at Flick’s Tavern. We even get some moments with those pesky hillbilly neighbors the Bumpass family. So many other things bring fun memories gushing back, such as the familiar details of Ralph’s old Cleveland Street house and the “tinkling display of mechanized, electronic joy” in the window at Higbie’s Department Store.

But what makes the movie more than a simple nostalgia trip is how it repeatedly returns to its emotional core. Namely, the loss of a beloved father and a son trying to cope. This really comes to light after Ralph’s mom asks him to write his father’s obituary. Yes, Kaytis and company unashamedly taps into what people love about “A Christmas Story”. But it also has a heart of its own. It makes for a truly enjoyable mix. And if people will avoid the temptation to needlessly compare the two, they’ll find this to be a pretty irresistible sequel and quite the “Christmas Story” companion piece. “A Christmas Story Christmas” premieres November 17th on HBO MAX.

VERDICT – 4 STARS

(CLICK HERE to read my full review in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette)

One of the biggest satisfactions from James Gray’s new coming-of-age drama “Armageddon Time” is unpacking it afterwards – peeling back the layers and sorting through the various memories the filmmaker attempts to explore. If only watching the movie carried the same sense of fulfillment. Despite being a deeply personal film for Gray, it doesn’t always feel like it. Some scenes unquestionably bear the filmmaker’s mark. Others have an overly familiar studio product feel. Still, it does have its saving graces.

“Armageddon Time” is heavily influenced from Gray’s childhood growing up in Queens, and he does a good job recreating that time and place. Opening in 1980, this memoir of sorts begins in a public classroom on the first day of school. Paul Graff (Banks Repeta), an 11-year-old aspiring artist and class clown, meets and befriends his new classmate Johnny (Jaylin Webb), a fellow disruptor working on his second year in sixth grade.

The two boys have an interesting dynamic. Paul is Jewish-American and comes from a fairly stable working class family. Johnny is one of the few Black kids in the school and lives with his ailing grandmother. The roots of their mischievousness is dramatically different, yet both find a partner in crime in each other. But that doesn’t mean they’re good together which leads to a nagging conflict within the movie.

Gray has a hard time balancing our sympathy with the boys’ delinquency. We feel for them whenever we’re shown the harsher side of their upbringing. But their blatant disrespect and troublemaking (which steadily worsens whenever they’re together) doesn’t exactly have the effect Gray is shooting for. The most compelling aspect of their relationship is in how differently the two are treated for their misbehavior, whether it’s by their teacher, Mr. Turkeltaub (Andrew Polk) or the cops. This is where the film’s sometimes shaky racial politics is its most effective.

The scenes at Paul’s home play like a tapestry of memories that Gray has passionately stitched together. Paul’s family are proud but insular Jewish liberals who happily take snide shots at Ronald Reagan every time he pops up on the television, yet are blind to their own racism that surfaces whenever they talk about “the blacks.” His uptight mother, Esther (Anne Hathaway) is the president of the PTA and absorbed in her desire to run for the school board. His hard-shelled father, Irving (Jeremy Strong) is a repairman with a notable bad temper but who may be a good guy underneath (It’s hard to tell. He’s haphazardly written and more of a sketch than a portrait). Then there’s Paul’s one-note jerk of an older brother Ted (Ryan Sell) who attends a private high school and does nothing more than antagonize.

While Paul is cold to his mother (something vaguely explained but not in a satisfying way) and fearful of his father (which is realized through one particularly harrowing scene), the lone family member he’s closest to is his grandfather, Aaron (Anthony Hopkins). Paul is honest and open with his grandpa. And much like the boy, we light up whenever Hopkins shows up on screen. The film’s most tender and heartfelt moments feature Hopkins and his signature blend of charisma and warmth. And Aaron may be the movie’s most interesting character, with wisdom and perspective shaped by his family’s history with the Holocaust.

The film’s flaws are more pronounced in the second half as Johnny’s story fades to the background, and Gray ventures off into other thematic weeds. A chunk of it follows Paul as he’s sent to the uppity Kew-Forest prep-school, where businessman Fred Trump (John Diehl) sent his children, future president Donald and US Appellate Judge Maryanne (played briefly by Jessica Chastain). Gray uses these scenes to highlight the era’s class and race clash, attempting to connect it to the Reagan years and more lazily the Trump presidency. But it’s more vague assertions than thoughtful consideration.

It culminates in an unfortunate final scene that’s well-intended but ends up making Johnny’s entire story a means to give Paul (and perhaps Gray himself) this big moment of self-congratulatory clarity. It’s a sour note to end on, and one that leaves you reconsidering some of the weightier stuff that came before it, particularly in its dealings with race.

In the end, Gray simply has too much on his mind and gets trapped in between reflecting on his childhood and offering a politically-charged critique. There’s some material there for each, but not enough to juggle both. It’s hard to stay connected emotionally, despite another sterling and impactful performance from Anthony Hopkins. And in terms of its messaging, “Armageddon Time” remains surprisingly inert, and no amount of shallow sermonizing and self-implication can give it the heft it’s so desperately after. “Armageddon Time” is now showing in select theaters.

VERDICT – 2 STARS