A Christmas Story (1983)

If when I die and I'm sent to hell, I imagine my punishment would have me reliving high school years for eternity. If I'm somehow allowed into heaven, then I hope that up (or out) there, God has a movie screening room playing "A Christmas Story" repeatedly and forever. Just because He loves us.

I adore this holiday classic, which focuses not so much on one boy's (Peter Billingsley) most-memorable Christmas circa 1940, but an adult's rose-tinted memories of his favorite Christmas circa 1940. As with "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," every time I watch this film, and I've seen it dozens of times, my favorite scene changes, or a new detail just strikes me as Best Moment Ever. A new favorite: The mocking deliveryman who really doesn't know what's in the package.

If you don't know the main plot of a boy and his desire for an air rifle, you've been either lobotomized, need to be lobotomized, or you're Amish, in which case you wouldn't be reading this. "A Christmas Story" is simply pure magic and joy, but it's not all whitewash -- the film nails the fear that seemingly every child has of Santa, and has its children being ornery, rude, dumb, mean, disgusting and lovable. Not overly cute Muppets or little cherubs like in "Home Alone" or crap like "Stepmom" from years back.

Putting Christmas aside, every adult has experienced something from this "Story" during their own childhood that they can relate to. I laugh every time Melinda Dillon's gung-ho mom shoves, yanks, pushes, pulls and forces a small boy into his snowsuit ... just so he can walk to school. And the father's profanity, well, let's say, I know well. Billingsley as Ralph is one of the best child performances ever.

Everyone involved -- writer Jean Shepherd, director Bob Clark -- in this film ought to get (or have received for the dearly departed) a free pass to the pearly gates. As far as films go, it is the perfect gift they have given us. A+