Best. Christmas. Movie. Ever.

I'm eating a $8 salad from our friends downstairs with Sodoxho when a random thought got snared in the sticky goo that makes up my subconcious.

Bob Clark's "A Christmas Story" is the best Christmas movie ever. This is not news, per se, as other reviewers recognize its underrated greatness, but I put forth another perspective: this movie was released a mere two years after Clark's previous watershed, the immortal "Porky's."

See, serious cinephiles have waxed poetically over the years at the mad genius of Kubrick, the versatility and style of Scorcese, or the always-devlish winkings of Hitchcock.

However, have any of those directoring luminaries (or others that I may have neglected to list), gone in such a complete different direction in such short a time? I mean seriously, one day Clark is shooting Pee Wee, Meat and the boys peeping in shower stalls (nothing wrong with that, I'll watch every time) or ogling strippers at a redneck roadhouse somewhere in the Everglades, and then the next day he's serving up classic Americana and reliving a holiday season for an entire generation.

Both films have their religious devotees. Both aupport "where were you/how old were you when you first saw it" discussions. What other two films could claim that? There's not one single thing alike in the two films, and yet Clark doesn't get any due. Even PT Anderson has his niche -- all of his characters are flawed and repressed to the point of explosion, regardless if it takes place in Vegas, San Fernando Valley, or the oil fields of Texas.

Thanks for listening.