A Christmas Story 2 | |
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Directed by | Brian Levant |
Written by | Nat Mauldin |
Based on | Characters created by Jean Shepherd |
Produced by | Brian Levant Phillip B. Goldfine |
Starring |
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Narrated by | Nat Mauldin |
Cinematography | Jan Kiesser |
Edited by | Roger Bondelli |
Music by | David Newman |
Production companies | |
Distributed by | Warner Home Video |
Release date |
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Running time | 86 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
A Christmas Story 2 is a 2012 American Christmas comedy film directed by Brian Levant and starring Daniel Stern and Braeden Lemasters. [1] The film is a direct sequel to the 1983 film A Christmas Story and ignores the events of the 1994 film My Summer Story .[ citation needed ] The film, set six years after the original, follows fifteen-year-old Ralphie as he wishes for a 1939 Mercury Eight convertible for Christmas, but crashes the car before he even owns it. Now, Ralphie and his friends, Flick and Schwartz, must find a way to raise enough money to fix the car before Christmas.
Although billed as an "official sequel" in the trailer, the film is not directly based on any of Jean Shepherd's writings nor is he involved due to his death in 1999. Instead, it has an original script by Nat Mauldin, who also narrates in place of the late Shepherd (the subplot of Ralphie and his friends finding jobs and getting fired was originally by Shepherd and had previously been included in Ollie Hopnoodle's Haven of Bliss ).
The film was released straight to DVD on October 30, 2012, to mostly negative reviews. [2] A second direct sequel, which takes place 33 years after the events of the original film with most of its original cast returning, titled A Christmas Story Christmas , was released on November 17, 2022, on HBO Max and received generally better critical reception. [3] [4]
The film takes place in 1946, six years after the events of the original film. Ralphie is now fifteen years old, and all he wants is a used 1939 Mercury Eight convertible for Christmas. He tries testing the car out when he sees it on a display ramp, but he accidentally causes the car to roll back out of the used car lot and gently tap a light pole, causing a plastic reindeer to loosen and fall through the convertible top. Ralphie bands together with Flick and Schwartz to raise enough money to pay the dealer back for fixing it before Christmas so that the car dealer won't have Ralph arrested and presumably thrown in jail. He and his friends get a job and after going through several departments at the Higbee's store and in the end getting into a fight with the store Santa and then each other they all get fired. Ralphie does get his job back after some begging and pleading, but by Christmas Eve he finds he is still $1 short, so he and Flick rob Schwartz of his "lucky buck". While on the way to the dealer, Ralphie decides to donate a chunk for a less fortunate family. He winds up still off the hook with the owner of the dealership. In the end, he does get the car he wants for Christmas and the girlfriend he wants to go with it.
The movie was filmed in New Westminster, British Columbia, Canada. [5] The meat market scene was filmed in the Gastown section of Vancouver, British Columbia. The department store scene was in the city's primary train station.
The film was released straight to DVD on October 30, 2012. [1] [6] [7] [8] [9]
In 2019, the film aired as part of the Best Christmas Ever block on AMC.[ citation needed ]
The film received mostly negative reviews. While being praised for attempts to portray 1940s-era America, much of the criticism was directed at the reliance of slapstick humor and its inferior derivation of the 1983 film. [10] [11] On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes it has only three reviews from critics, all of them negative. [12]
FleshEatingZipper panned the film, writing that the slapstick elements in the film detracted from the movie while praising the attempt to "replicate a 40s-era Midwest". [13] Brian Orndorf of Blu-ray.com wrote: "Shamelessly derivative and plasticized, A Christmas Story 2 will only have you wondering why you're not watching the original picture again". [14]
A Christmas Story is a 1983 Christmas comedy film directed by Bob Clark and based on Jean Shepherd's semi-fictional anecdotes in his 1966 book In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash, with some elements from his 1971 book Wanda Hickey's Night of Golden Memories and Other Disasters. It stars Melinda Dillon, Darren McGavin, and Peter Billingsley, and follows a young boy and his family's misadventures during Christmas time in the 1940s. It is the third installment in the Parker Family Saga.
My Summer Story is a 1994 American comedy film directed by Bob Clark that serves as a sequel to his 1983 film A Christmas Story. Like the previous film, it is based on semi-autobiographical stories by Jean Shepherd, primarily from his book In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash.
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Scott Schwartz is an American actor best known for his roles in the films The Toy (1982), A Christmas Story (1983) and its 2022 sequel A Christmas Story Christmas, and Kidco (1984).
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Braeden Matthew Lemasters is an American actor, musician, and singer. He began his career as a child actor, receiving recognition for his role as Albert Tranelli in the TNT comedy-drama series Men of a Certain Age (2009–2011). He has made guest appearances in several television series such as, Criminal Minds, ER, House, Grey's Anatomy and Amazon Prime Video's The Romanoffs. He is also the lead guitarist and singer for the American alternative rock band Wallows.
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A Christmas Story: The Musical is a stage musical version of the 1983 film A Christmas Story. The musical has music and lyrics written by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul and the book by Joseph Robinette. The musical takes place in the 1940s in Indiana and focuses on a child named Ralphie, who wants a Red Ryder BB Gun for Christmas.
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A Christmas Story Live! is an American television special that was originally broadcast by Fox on December 17, 2017. It was a live, televised musical remake of the 1983 film A Christmas Story, and incorporated the 2012 stage musical version A Christmas Story: The Musical. The live musical was executive produced by Marc Platt and Adam Siegel, directed by Scott Ellis and Alex Rudzinski, and starred Matthew Broderick, Andy Walken, Maya Rudolph, Chris Diamantopoulos, and Jane Krakowski.
The Parker Family Saga, is a collection of American family-comedies based upon the stories of author Jean Shepherd. The stories originated on Shepherd's radio programs and in his books before being adapted into a stage play, two theatrical films, four made-for-TV films, one straight-to-home video film, one unaired pilot episode for a planned television series, one musical adaptation, one live television adaptation of that musical and one made-for-streaming film.
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A Christmas Story Christmas is a 2022 American Christmas comedy film directed by Clay Kaytis with a script he co-wrote with Nick Schenk, from an original story co-written by Schenk and Peter Billingsley. It is a legacy sequel to A Christmas Story (1983) and is the eighth installment in the Parker Family Saga franchise, while ignoring the events of My Summer Story (1994) and A Christmas Story 2 (2012). The film was produced by Billingsley and Vince Vaughn along with Cale Boyter, Jay Ashenfelter, Marc Toberoff and Irwin Zwilling. Billingsley reprises his role as Ralphie Parker alongside Ian Petrella, Scott Schwartz, R. D. Robb, Zack Ward, and Yano Anaya returning as Randy, Flick, Schwartz, Scut Farkus, and Grover Dill respectively. Erinn Hayes, River Drosche, and Julianna Layne play Ralphie's wife and kids, with Julie Hagerty as Mrs. Parker. In the film, after the Old Man dies, Ralphie takes his family to his childhood home, reuniting with his mother and old friends, while being tasked to deliver a memorable Christmas.
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The Star-Crossed Romance of Josephine Cosnowski is an American made-for-television family-comedy film, directed by Fred Barzyk, with a script written by Jean Shepherd. Produced by Olvia Tappan, the film is the fourth installment in the Ralph Parker franchise. Based on Shepherd's book In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash and similar to all the other Parker Family films, the film depicts fictionalized events from his real-life childhood.
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