NEWS
December 24, 2008
1 Hawaiian punchless: It's mediocrity at its finest, as Hawaii (7-6) hosts Notre Dame (6-6) in the Hawaii Bowl (8 p.m., ESPN). The Irish are looking to end a nine-game bowl skid. 2 Getting ready: for Jags: Learn about the Ravens' preparations for Sunday's crucial game against the Jacksonville Jaguars on Ravens Report (7 p.m., MASN). 3 It's in the hole!: It's not exactly It's a Wonderful Life, but Caddyshack is worthwhile viewing anytime, even on Christmas Eve (7 p.m., Versus). 4 It's better to give: Take the money you were saving for that Mark Teixeira Orioles jersey and buy the wife something nice for Christmas.
NEWS
By LAURA VOZZELLA | December 24, 2008
L inda Campagna and her husband, Thomas Streib, two retired Army first sergeants who've always lived on a budget, are splurging $5,250 on a quick Christmas getaway. Their exotic destination: Cleveland. They could have stayed home on the couch and, without shelling out a dime, had a visit of sorts to the house where they'll lodge. But watching A Christmas Story on TV isn't quite as much fun as actually sleeping in Ralphie's bed. "We're spending Christmas Eve in the Christmas Story house," Campagna said.
NEWS
By William Hyder | December 18, 2008
The Virgin Mary as a fiery women's libber? Joseph as an insecure, self-doubting man? The angel Gabriel as an inexperienced, error-prone teenage boy? William Gibson's quirky, colorful and spectacular take on the Christmas story - The Butterfingers Angel, Mary & Joseph, Herod the Nut & the Slaughter of 12 Hit Carols in a Pear Tree - is at Rep Stage through Jan. 4. The compendious title recalls the names given to Christmas pantomimes in Victorian England, such as Harlequin and the Old Man of the Sea, the Emperor, the Ogre, the Good Fairy, and the Princess.
NEWS
By CANDUS THOMSON | September 21, 2008
As a 2004 Olympian and national sailing champion, Carol Cronin knows a thing or two about wind. The Bethesda native was named for the Category 3 storm that rearranged part of the East Coast landscape from North Carolina to Maine in 1954. But that's not how she came to write her first book, Oliver's Surprise, about a young boy and the Great Hurricane of 1938. The story was a Christmas gift last year for her 11-year-old nephew that downsized to become a paperback. More about that later.
NEWS
By Rob Hiaasen | December 22, 2007
It's a wonderful leg. On mild-mannered Cottonwood Drive in Severna Park, Raymond Murphy's "leg lamp" shows off its fishnet stocking and black stiletto heel in the front window of his home. Shaded by black fringe, the thigh is lit for almost all to admire. "I can't tell you what my wife called me," Murphy says. But it was said in love - just not love for the leg lamp, which has become a highly personal gift for fans of A Christmas Story. The 1983 holiday cult classic again airs for 24 hours on TBS beginning at 8 p.m. Christmas Eve. Although It's a Wonderful Life and A Charlie Brown Christmas probably get more attention this time of year, A Christmas Story has cultivated its own following.
NEWS
By Chris Kaltenbach | December 21, 2007
It's not exactly in keeping with the holiday sprit, but ... A double feature of locally produced horror films is set for tonight at the Hamilton Arts Collective, 5440 Harford Road. Jamie Nash and David Thomas Sckrabulis' Two Front Teeth features a zombie Santa Claus, a dangerous flying creature with a glowing nose and a conspiracy-obsessed tabloid writer. Chris LaMartina's Book of Lore, named best horror feature at September's ShockerFest International Film Festival, focuses on a dead girlfriend, the ensuing murder mystery and a town's sordid past.
NEWS
By Brad Schleicher | July 9, 2007
In a scene from the 1983 film A Christmas Story, little Ralphie Parker watches as his father opens a box marked "Fragile" to reveal a lamp in the shape of a go-go dancer's leg. "Fragilay," says Mr. Parker. "It must be Italian." On TV The 2007 World Series of Pop Culture airs on VH1 at 9 tonight.
NEWS
April 7, 2007
ROBERT CLARK, 67 `Christmas Story' director Film director Robert Clark, best known for the beloved holiday classic A Christmas Story, was killed with his son in a car wreck Wednesday in Pacific Palisades, Calif., the filmmaker's assistant and police said. Mr. Clark specialized in horror movies and thrillers early in his career, directing such 1970s films as Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things. His breakout success came with 1981's sex farce Porky's. In 1983, A Christmas Story marked a career high for Mr. Clark.
NEWS
By Susan Reimer | December 24, 2006
I HAVE TO CONFESS, IT WAS my daughter who introduced me to A Christmas Story, the movie about Ralphie Parker's quest for the BB gun even Santa thinks is a bad idea: "You'll shoot your eye out, kid." She asked for a copy several Christmases ago and, for a while, I thought she had had a conversion experience and was asking for a dramatization of the Nativity. My feelings were kind of hurt. I'd prided myself in my comprehensive management of the cultural literacy in the house - we had covered the classics from Sleeping Beauty to West Side Story - and here was a phenomenon that had gotten right by me. Now, thanks to TBS' annual 24-hour Christmas Story marathon that has begun each Christmas Eve for more than a decade, the movie is as much a fixture of our holiday as the ham after Mass and my husband's late-night gift-wrapping frenzy.
NEWS
By Robert Lloyd | December 11, 2006
Christmas is a time for television; it's television that tells us it's Christmas. It's the electric hearth that unites the family and comforts the lonely. It fills the house with pictures of snow and skaters and charming re-created scenes from Victorian or New England life. There are two Christmases - the one with Jesus in it, and the one run by Santa Claus. And though they intersect, they also go their own way - Santa being a secular, adaptable brand available for product endorsements and personal appearances.