Oh Fudge!

Leg lamps are back: Ralphie still has his eye on a new Christmas Story in aHannah Montana world

Peter Billingsley (glasses) in one of the more famous Christmas Story scenes.
John Hoffman and Peter Billingsley (right) today.
Nate Wells brought out the bunny.

It’s a modern day classic. If you haven’t seen A Christmas Story, A) get cable, and B) why are you reading this? On Tuesday night, Alamo Drafthouse West Oaks hosted a ruckus screening of the 1983 holiday stalwart with a special appearance by Peter “Ralphie Parker” Billingsley, a rarity for the child actor-turned-director and producer.

The setting was surreal, with a Red Rider BB Gun signed by Billingsley auctioned off for nearly a grand by a large, bearded man in a bunny suit. The audience was game, hollering out lines (Oh Fudge!) and hooting catcalls at appropriate moments — Ralphie beating up Scut Farkus, the leg lamp, the Ovaltine commercial, the pink bunny suit, etc. (Think the midnight showing of Rocky Horror Picture Show without the fishnets and hyper-sexuality.)

It’s an easy film to watch in a large group. The story is universal with enough cynicism to transcend the saccharine trappings of the holiday genre, and it provides a fun peak into the unpolished realness of Jean Shepherd’s nostalgic Golden Age America.

In true Alamo Drafthouse fashion, the experience was enhanced by plenty of grub and suds. Highlights included the aptly named Farkus Eye Soup (an appropriately yellow-orange butternut squash slurry) and the Oh Fudge! mint chocolate mousse dessert. The beer pairings from Alamo’s beer guru Jason Murphy featured four mini pints, one of which was Saint Arnold’s Altered Amber, a revelation for those who prefer their beers Belgian.

Billingsley, whose brother Neil owns the Houston theater, appeared after the film to answer questions from an amorous sold-out crowd. He’s come a long way since schlepping Hershey’s Chocolate syrup in TV commercials as “Messy Marvin” back in the late ‘70s, but before the screening, Ralphie sat down with CultureMap for an exclusive interview:

CultureMap: You've had a remarkably long and successful career in show business — first as a child star and now as a director and producer — while avoiding the trappings that seem to hound so many of today's young stars (meth addiction, sexy Twitpics, etc.). What do you think it would be like if you were 9 years old and playing Ralphie in 2010?

Peter Billingsley: It is honestly a different business, because it is a business now post-Macauley Culkin. He was a game changer. There used to be kid salaries and adult salaries. Now there are just salaries.

Isn’t Hannah Montana the highest paid person on television?

CM: A Christmas Story was not a huge commercial success upon its initial release, but has since grown into a cultural signpost. What is it about A Christmas Story that resonates so well with audiences?

PB: I believe that good comedy is the over commitment to the absurd. I think this movie is the over commitment to the mundane and the contrite, but most importantly the relatable. Dad’s profanity; fighting the furnace for warmth. He’s fighting at Gettysburg.

Anything that’s important to you can mean the world. People said Seinfeld was about nothing. It’s a good lesson in movie making. If you give importance to something as a moviemaker, it will be important to the audience.

CM: What was the inspiration for the stage musical version of A Christmas Story that you're currently executive-producing in Seattle? Any chance we'll see it here in Houston?

PB: This movie lends itself very well as a musical. If you think about Ralphie’s point of view, he’s a dreamer, which lends itself well to songs.

There is a leg lamp kick-line in the musical. It can take you places where the movie had to stop because of the format. You can sing about something — wanting the BB gun for example — and it’s a thing of beauty. That would require so much context in a movie. It’s a fun show. It really is. It has the nostalgia of the film.

Will it show in Houston? I really hope so. We did it in Seattle and are planning to do it regionally. The numbers have been excellent, so I hope it goes national.

CM: A buddy of mine dumped his girlfriend because she didn't like A Christmas Story. His rationale was that she had no soul. Is he right?

PB: He’s a good man.

CM: Given the glut of remakes these days, are we in any danger of an A Christmas Story remake? If it were to happen, who would you like to see play The Old Man?

PB: They say in Hollywood you’re supposed to remake the bad movies, not the good ones. I hope we’re in no danger of seeing it, and I don’t think anyone could top the performance of Darren McGavin as The Old Man.

CM: You worked with frequent collaborator Jon Favreau as executive producer on Iron Man, a big-budget film based on a pre-existing intellectual property that was hugely successful by any measurement. You've also dipped your toes into rom-com territory with The Break Up and Couples Retreat, each boasting a cast of A-listers.

Given the movement toward big-budget spectacles, what would a 2010 version of A Christmas Story need to get the green light in today's Hollywood?

PB: I can’t imagine you could get the movie made. You’re pitching a movie about a kid who wants a gun for Christmas. Not a good Idea.

You’d have to call it A Holiday Story because “Christmas” is a dirty word nowadays. I’m glad we did it in ’83.

CM: So are we, Peter. So are we.

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Movie Review

Camp Miasma puts a comedic twist on the classic slasher movie

Photo courtesy of MUBI

Hannah Einbinder and Gillian Anderson in Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma.

The horror genre really ramped up in the 1970s and ‘80s, bringing the slasher subgenre that gave audiences new visuals of gore, but also a reliance on sexism and homophobia that would come to define the era. The new film Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma wrestles with that legacy in ways that are funny, thought-provoking, and downright strange.

Kris (Hannah Einbinder) is a queer filmmaker who has been hired to reboot the moldy IP that is the Camp Miasma franchise, one that was fresh in the 1970s but which numerous shlocky sequels have rendered irrelevant. In an attempt to get to know the property better, Kris has scored a meeting with the reclusive Billy (Gillian Anderson), the star of the original film who has shunned the public eye for decades.

Turns out that Billy lives deep in the woods at Camp Rivoli, which served as the location for the first film. As Kris tries to get to know Billy and convince her to be a part of the new film, she starts to fall under Billy’s spell and the lore of the franchise as a whole. That includes believing that the movie’s villain, Little Death — a transgender person who has an air conditioning vent as a head/mask — may not just be a character created for the movies.

Written and directed by Jane Schoenbrun (I Saw the TV Glow), the film at first feels like it’s going to go the straight-up comedy route, with comic explosions of blood, a strange fascination with candy brands, and a production design that does nothing to hide that the two main actors are on a movie set with painted backdrops. This is backed up by Kris’ phone conversations with her girlfriend, Mari (Jasmine Savoy Brown) and her agent (Sarah Sherman), as well as numerous other details.

But the film starts to go down the surreal route the longer Kris stays at the camp with Billy, especially when they sit down to watch the original Camp Miasma. An extended sequence shows a good amount of that film-within-the-film, demonstrating why Kris and Billy have a love/hate relationship with the property. For Kris, though, the lines between the film and the real world start to blur, and Schoenbrun uses a variety of out-there elements to drive the point home.

The final act of the film can barely be described as Kris goes deeper down the rabbit hole, with Schoenbrun using her film to comment on the horror genre as a whole, its treatment of women and LGBT people, the movie industry, and more. All the while the “camp” of Camp Miasma maintains a presence, with candy wrappers showing up everywhere and the tongue-in-cheek references to Little Death (the French term La petite mort, which means “the little death,” is a euphemism for orgasm).

Einbinder, an Emmy winner for Hacks, is the perfect person to inhabit her role. Her established real-life and fictional personas color everything she does in the film, with her enthusiasm and curiosity shining through. Anderson leans heavily into another reference — Norma Desmond from Sunset Boulevard — to create a character that is as mysterious as she is alluring. Supporting actors like Brown, Sherman, Patrick Fischler, Dylan Baker, and Eva Victor keep the movie at the right pitch all the way through.

While other films have made fun of horror movie tropes before, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma finds a wholly unique way of doing so. It’s a funny and daring trip into the psyches of two women who may be victims of their own obsessions, and of the movies that made them that way.

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Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is now playing in select theaters

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