There are a billion holiday comedies out there. Almost all are heavy on the sap, and light on the hardy-har-har. I would just blame the whole mess on that wussball Chris Columbus, but it seems this horrible trend dates back many decades. Home Alone was certainly not the first shitty movie to pull at the collective heartstrings of America's emotional retards. George Bailey was really just following the literary footsteps of that sissy Ebenezer Scrooge, now wasn’t he?

However, in the long line of these dismal crap movies, there is one glorious, brilliant film. A movie that reaches deep into the heart of the Middle American Christmas experience. I speak of none other than 1983's A Christmas Story. In this epic tale of a boy, his lust for a magnificant BB Gun, and the Christmas spirit, which is clearly revealed to be both terrible and fantastic.

Now, I first saw this movie when I was a very young lad. Probably no older than Ralphie's kid brother. I was stunned at how it captured family life so well: the overprotective mother, the angry, insane, profanity shouting, but ultimately decent father, the idiot classmates, and the imaginative internal world of young Ralfie. It superbly melded the twisted and the normal, all with the delightful narration of the story's original author, Jean Shepherd.

And any movie about an 11 year old that contains the line, "Only one thing in the world could've dragged me away from the soft glow of electric sex gleaming in the window" or the Chinese restaurant Christmas carol, really can't be all that bad, now can it?

So there you have it. A Christmas Story, a family classic that even your average misanthrope (i.e. me) can enjoy.