Bryce Moore's Blog, page 39

3D Printing: Commonplace?

Now that I’ve been working with 3D printing for as long as I have (and seen what Tomas was able to get done with it before he left), I’m getting to the point that it’s becoming more difficult to impress me with different makes. I was at a meeting the other day where an item was presented that had been 3D printed, and I’d actually just been looking at that item on Thingiverse a few weeks earlier. True, it takes some knowhow to calibrate a 3D printer and to arrange things so that the prints are clean, but more and more, it’s to the point that 3D printing something is about as difficult as laser printing something. I commented to a friend that no one congratulates me when I print off an agenda from online, but that’s typically more complicated than printing something 3D. I wrote the agenda myself, after all.

That said, if you’re out there making your own 3D models, then I am still more than a little impressed.

By making this observation, I’m not meaning to put down the people who continue to be wowed by the technology involved in makerspaces. If you’ve never seen what they can do, or (better yet) used one yourself, then printing off a file can seem like a creative, involved endeavor. It’s just that I feel sheepish when people are impressed with something that basic. As if I’m taking credit for something difficult that wasn’t hard at all.

The same thing happens for me when I help people with computer issues. They’ll be struggling with something for a long time, and then I step in and get it done with a few key clicks. On the one hand, I’m happy I could help them out. On the other, I feel bad that they spent so long trying to get something done that should have only taken a minute or two.

Not that I’m immune from the phenomenon. After all. I regularly take my car in for routine things like oil changes, and I happily pay them good money to do something that I know (in theory) isn’t that hard to do myself. A good YouTube video would probably show me everything I need to do. But I’ve never done it, and so it continues to be something I don’t really understand.

When 3D printing first came out, I wasn’t sure if it was something that would ever be anything more than a gimmick. Now, I view it as something that will inevitably become as commonplace as laser printers. Things like basic tools and components will be easier and easier to come by. If you need a part to fix something in your house, chances are you’ll be able to get it without any shipping involved.

The more people can get accustomed to what’s out there, the better for them. It’s not magic, and it’s not even very difficult. But I can see why it may seem that way. The sooner we can get people to understand it, the better.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking this DON’T GO TO SLEEP Amazon link. It will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

Tomas Update: Week 7 in Žilina

Hey everyone! Another week, another email. Not too crazy this week, but still a solid week.

We had a baptism technically in our branch this week! The subsection, or group, that meets in Banská Bystrica has another member and we got to go. It was so great to see how happy she was and everyone there was so excited. The work may move slow here but it moves.

Also at that baptism, I had my second politically charged discussion with a random Slovak man. As missionaries we are not supposed to talk about politics or stuff like that, but I swear all the old people are just looking for a reason to bring it up. It was definitely a very interesting conversation though and I’m sure it won’t be the last. 

This pday we also went for a hit of a hike. It was very wet, dark, and cold and we definitely hiked a little too far but we took some funny pictures because we brought our suits up so that was kinda nice I guess. The view from near the top of Malý Kriváň was pretty terrible with all the fog. Also the hike was like very steep in some parts and kind of snowy as well. But it was worth it, I think. Hopefully you all think the pictures are as funny as I do. On the way back we met Babka at the train station and she gave us some cookies (fire as usual, cannot go wrong with vanilkové rožky). It was good to see her. Also she made us some fire Book of Mormon covers, pictures in the album. 

We also got to see one of our MTC teachers, she came and visited all the missionaries since she’s taught all of them. It was cool to see her and also the person we taught practice lessons to just as normal people and they also brought us some sweet American food and plastic dinosaurs (I got the rest of the bag instead of 1 so now I have 51 glow in the dark dinosaurs). Shout out to Sister Likes and Amanda.

Okay, besides that I think that’s about it this week. This coming Friday we didn’t hit our goal for teaching lessons ins the street so we have to eat insanely spicy ramen, expect an update on that next week. Other than that, here’s the album as usual

https://photos.app.goo.gl/qYoYaKPmkqFZHoVM7

Love you all, 

Starší Cundick

Television Review: Wednesday

It’s been a bit since I finished watching the first season of Wednesday, but I’m just catching up with a lot of things now that we’re in the new year, and this show was good enough that I wanted to be sure to point it out to people, even if it seems to me like everyone and their brother has already heard about it. (Often things I take for granted end up being very wrong. You can feel like everyone’s seen or done something, only to find out a lot of people haven’t.)

The latest adaptation of the Addams Family franchise is on Netflix and focuses on Wednesday Addams and her time off at a magical school for the gifted. Yes, it has strong Harry Potter vibes, but that’s to be expected any time you’ve got “magic” and “school” in the same sentence. The show is significantly different than the Potter franchise, even if some of the same elements are shared.

I loved the whole season, up until the last episode, at which point I just really liked it. More on that in a moment, because I don’t want to get into spoilers just yet.

Wednesday carries the show. She’s a delightful character to root for, and she’s played perfectly by Jenna Ortega. The whole style of the show is strong throughout: the settings, costumes, makeup, etc all come together to give it a wonderfully creepy vibe. But time and time again, I enjoyed watching Wednesday be cool and confident in even the worst of circumstances. She didn’t get scared. She didn’t panic. She just was extremely capable. (In that way, she almost reminded me of James Bond. She knew what she could do, and she did it. Bravo.)

The effects are great as well. Thing is delightfully disturbing, and the callbacks to the original show are always welcome and a lot of fun. True, there’s also a fair bit of “teenage television show” running throughout the series, but . . . it’s a show about a teenager, on television? To me, that’s like complaining my mint chocolate chip ice cream has chocolate chips in it.

In the end, I gave it a 9/10, and I’m eagerly awaiting the next season. (It’s already been renewed, thankfully.) It’s creepy, and not for young kids, but teens on up should all have a lot of fun with it.

With that all out of the way, I want to address some of my gripes with the last episode. These will contain spoilers, so I’m giving you fair warning.

S

P

O

I

L

E

R

S

Still with me? Great. As I said in my review, I loved how capable Wednesday was throughout the show. But then we get to the last episode, and everything changed. She stopped being capable. She ended up messing up again and again, and she had to rely on other people to step in to fix things. The Big Bad guy shows up (and starts using evil magic so he can . . . destroy all the evil magic he doesn’t like???), and Wednesday doesn’t do anything special to beat him. She even fails in her sword fight with him. For a show with a teen protagonist, having her not actually be the real hero just felt very, very wrong. Especially when she’s been giving off the “I can do anything” vibe all along.

I get it. She was up against a real big problem. But as a creator, you need to take the time to figure out how your main character can defeat that problem without relying on a whole slew of lucky breaks.

I still loved the show, and I still look forward to the next season, but I’m hoping they back Wednesday up better next time. Show us why she’s so confident, and why she’s right to be that way. Here’s hoping . . .

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking this DON’T GO TO SLEEP Amazon link. It will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

Movie Marathon: Mission Impossible

It took me a while to figure out which movie series we should binge this holiday season. We’d done Lord of the Rings (and the Hobbit) twice, and Star Wars once, and those had all gone swimmingly. Harry Potter was a fiasco, mainly because the movies just get worse and worse after about the fourth. My family has never really gotten into Star Trek, so that seemed a bit of a stretch. What else was there?

It had been a while since I’d seen any of the Mission Impossible movies, so I thought that might be a good option. We dove in, and it’s gone well for the most part. The movies do a great job with action pieces, and they’re certainly thrilling. However, one thing that we’ve noticed as we’ve been working our way through them is that they’re pretty much awful when it comes to story. It’s not that the plots themselves are bad. They make sense for the most part (or for as much as they need to). But we’ve now watched five of the six movies in the past two weeks, and I can’t for the life of me remember what happens in which movie.

Tom Cruise gets in trouble. He needs a team to get out of it. There are gadgets and double crosses. Face swaps aplenty. He’s got a girlfriend, then a wife, then no wife, then just kidding actually a wife, then no wife that we mention. So that turns into the James Bond revolving door of women, more or less. Which naturally leads to the realization that the MI movies are just James Bond with a team.

Is that a problem?

Not really, though it’s not the best for a movie marathon. One of the great things about the Lord of the Rings movies is that they build on each other, so that by the time you’re done with all of them, you really feel like you’ve been on a journey. In that way, they’re almost more like longform television than they are like movies. You would think Harry Potter would do the same thing, but those movies are just too episodic to really work (even if they’d been done better). If they’re a TV show, they’re a flavor of the week show, more like the Mission Impossible movies. (Which makes sense, since those started as flavor of the week TV shows.)

Let’s just say that I’m not adding “Fast and the Furious” to my list of potential future marathons.

All told, it’s been better than HP, but nowhere near LOTR. Next year I’m going to have to come up with something different. I’ve been thinking about ditching movies for a bit and picking a television show.

Any suggestions out there for future marathons?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking this DON’T GO TO SLEEP Amazon link. It will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

Tomas Update: Week 6 in Žilina

Ahojte!

Not a ton happened this week honestly, we’ve been kinda sick so a lot of inside work. I’ll see what I can say though!

First off, we made it onto the radio! The video is on the Google photos, it’s 5 minutes long and we caught most of it. That was pretty cool to hear, hopefully you guys enjoy listening to that too. It was a quick few questions about Christmas as a foreigner in žilina, and then what our favorite Christmas song was. There was a possibility they wouldn’t use all the recording but they did end up using everything so that was great!

Besides that, we had some people moving around at midtransfers so they could get home in time for school. Now there are just two of us here in žilina, me and Elder Noftle. Elder frost has gone home. There was a lot of train craziness trying to get everyone to their new areas which was exciting but also kinda too bad because so many people are leaving.

New years was good though! We bought some sparkling cider or whatever that was minion themed and the cap popped off as soon as we opened it basically. People went kinda crazy for fireworks here and we had a lot of stuff going on right next to our apartment which made for an interesting night. Also I have a guitar now since elder frost left his, hopefully I can pick it up. I’ll be passing it on before I leave too, it’s been in the mission for a while. 

Finally, I have some really great pictures from a brief hike we did with some other elders here temporarily while they waited for their train. We found some lookout tower, then bushwhacked to cut a half hour off the hike. It was really foggy that day but once we got above it the valley was full of the fog and looked super cool. I’m excited to see how my film camera pictures turned out. 

As usual, here is the photos link:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/qYoYaKPmkqFZHoVM7

I made it so that the newest ones are at the top now so that should fix the album looking the same every time. 

Okay, I think that’s about it. I’ll see you all next week and hopefully I have some more to tell you.

Love you all, 

Starší Cundick

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking this DON’T GO TO SLEEP Amazon link. It will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.



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Tomas Update: Week 5 in Žilina

Ahojte! It’s been a really good week. We’ve done a lot of stuff and my first Christmas away from home was way better than I could have ever expected!

I’ll start with Christmas first. Earlier this week, the lady we met with about the radio wanted to have us and the senior missionaries, who she is friends with, over for dinner! She’s not a member or anything, just super nice. So we went over and she cooked us this super good dinner, and I had the biggest piece of salmon I’ve ever seen (also my first time having salmon, but I guess fish isn’t too bad – the taste reminded me of the air in one of the coastal towns like Rockport or whatever)! Then we played some music for her and talked for a while. It was wonderful to be a part of her Christmas this year, and we will be in the radio on the 29th so I’ll send out that link probably.

Besides that, we have had dinner with the Ottos, the senior couple here in Žilina for both Christmas eve and Christmas day. That’s been super good, and it’s been nice to be a part of their Christmas as well since we are all somewhere else this year. We love the Ottos and the food is always amazing, and they are way better at card games than they let on…

Christmas day was also really great! We actually went to church twice that day – ours in the morning, and Banská Bystrica, about an hour away by car and technically still our branch but a different group, in the afternoon. We played a lot of music for special Christmas programs that day l and in the morning the Banská missionaries came to help us with ours too. It was crazy – we had like 24 people at church which never happens here. Some Russian refugees we invited showed up, an entire family from English class, and a few other people from around. Granted, 10 of those people were missionaries but it was so cool to see people staying after to talk, the chapel being close to kind of looking full, and the general energy there was so cool. I hope we can get to that point consistently.

Finally, today we had an exchange with the Nitra elders, elder Spangler and elder Konushin. I went out with elder Konushin for a little bit at night to try and find some people (fun fact – his mom knows mine from them both living in Germany for a little bit) and we actually had some super cool experiences. There was a couple that I met a few days ago that refused a Book of Mormon saying they would take it but someone else could use it more, but I found them again today and they took it, although a little skeptical that it was definitely free and not a trick or something like that. It was so cool to be given a second chance with them, and hopefully they call us. Finally, the crazy title to this email – we walked past a cop car parked on the street, got maybe 10 yards past and we both felt like we had to talk to those cops in the car. Normally neither of us would ever but it felt like it needed to be done. We got their attention and the first thing they said was asking for our passports, so I definitely thought I was goibg to be arrested for a hot second. He actually got out of the car and said he’d read the Book of Mormon before and asked why we were here. It was a strange conversation, and he definitely had some hard feelings towards us but said that usually when he sees our church it’s two Americans walking around and was a little surprised to see my Slovak passport and elder Konushin’s Czech passport. I don’t know what effect we had on that man or possibly his colleague, but everything turned out okay so it’s all good.

As always, here’s the photos link: https://photos.app.goo.gl/qYoYaKPmkqFZHoVM7

Okay, that’s about all I have for this week. It’s been such a cool experience being out here and I’m so grateful that I can. Thank you everyone for taking the time to read these! I miss everyone but I’m doing just fine out here.

Love you all, 

Starší Cundick

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking this DON’T GO TO SLEEP Amazon link. It will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

Tomas Update: Week 4 in Žilina

Ahojte everyone! Back at it again with the email. It’s been a really good week! I am really starting to get used to living here and like weekly shopping and all that. This week we had exchanges with the Trenčín and Banská Bystrica elders, which were super fun and we got a lot of good work done. I haven’t done a lot of work on street contacting so far so we just went out and did it. What a great experience to just be out there talking to people, working on my Slovak and bringing others closer to Christ.

Speaking of that, last night me and my old MTC companion, elder Millett, went out for a few hours. We felt like there was really someone we needed to find that day and that we would be guided to them. After about an hour of walking the streets, it was already pretty dark and very cold and everyone was either not wanting to hear anything or actually upset with us. We were feeling a little down and were super far from the city center at this point, but still felt like there was someone out there for us. We pulled off to the side and said a prayer together, and I felt very confirmed that we would find someone – no specifics on what that meant but I knew something was going to happen. We decided to make our way back to the apartment and try and find them on our way back, and we made a turn down a street we had already been on. There was one man walking with a shopping bag. We asked him if he believed in God and he said he did, so we started talking to him about the Book of Mormon and he said he already had one, but hadn’t read it yet. We asked if he wanted to meet with us and he goes “now?” and we ended up walking with him 20min to his house and we taught him a lesson and answered his questions, and also got his number and Facebook so we could go back later! He’s a train conductor which is super cool. He was definitely also who we were supposed to find – that almost never happens here. And to top it all, me and Elder Millett have both only been here four weeks, so it just goes to show that God can work through literally anyone. I’m so thankful that I kept at it even if I was a bit discouraged because I was able to see that blessing.

Besides that, not a ton else that I can think of has happened. I got a cool sweater the other day and we had a Christmas party with the Banska branch where 7 nonmembers showed up which was super good. We also ran over a something on the road and there was a lot of blood over some of the wheel well, I won’t put that picture in the album but it was pretty crazy.

As always here’s the link: https://photos.app.goo.gl/qYoYaKPmkqFZHoVM7

Hope you’re all doing well, even with all that heavy snow. I’ll be missing skiing this year so go hit the slopes hard for me!

Love you all, 

Starší Cundick

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking this DON’T GO TO SLEEP Amazon link. It will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

Tomas Update: Week 3 in Žilina

Ahojte everyone! This week’s email is on a Wednesday because we had zone conference Monday – all the missionaries in Slovakia made the trip out east to Košice to gather together and have some trainings and meetings. As a plus though we also all went to see the Nutcracker live at the theater right in the middle of the Košice main street! I’ve never seen live ballet before and Pointe dancing is so impressive. And also scary – I don’t think a human should be able to do that. Also the rat guy or whatever was there and he had three heads so I’d call that a plus.

Besides that, we’ve still been here in Žilina. We have one very consistent man that we are teaching and our lesson with him today was very good, and his prayer at the end was actually such a void reminder that prayer really can be just a simple conversation with God and sometimes we overcomplicate it ourselves. What truly matters is what’s in our hearts, and we can be open and simple and genuine with God – I know he knows us completely.

We’ve also been working harder on the language this week. That involved trying to play a game of scrabble with the English letters in Slovak, which was way harder than I thought it would be since the letter distributions are all off. I have a picture, we also pretended things had accents if they needed them since we don’t have any in English. Along with that, today I bought The Fellowship of the Ring in Slovak and reading it is really fun so far but I have to remember to slow down because sometimes I try to do it like with an English book and I realize that I’m understanding nothing at all at that speed.

It’s been snowing here too! We got like maybe 2 inches and then another today over the day and it’s been great to see snow again and have the nice cold. That also means the apartment walk from the námestie (town square) is super icy since it’s a hill but we’ve been having fun sliding down that so far. Everything here is much prettier, and the trhy (Christmas markets) look really nice with all the snow.

Well, I think that’s about all of note this week. I hear Maine is one for a lot of snow this weekend so I hope it actually  snows and stays so you all can ski. Things are good here, and I’m so thankful for this crazy opportunity that I have to just live here in Slovakia and meet so many people. Hope you’re all doing well at home! Here’s the link again, I’ve added more pictures: https://photos.app.goo.gl/qYoYaKPmkqFZHoVM7

Love you all,

Starší Cundick

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking this DON’T GO TO SLEEP Amazon link. It will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

Movie Review: Spirited

I didn’t want to let the holidays go by without at least giving you a good Christmas movie recommendation. A Christmas Story Christmas didn’t pan out for me, so I was a little gun shy of the other well publicized online offering this year: Spirited. Ryan Reynolds and Will Ferrell in a meta-esque adaptation of A Christmas Carol? And it’s a musical? Despite the fact that it had worse reviews on IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes, and Metacritic, I decided to give it a shot, because any meta adaptation is at least worth the time to watch it.

And I loved it. It was a ton of fun from start to finish, with great musical numbers, good laughs, and a plot that’s a tad predictable, but still entertaining. Did they have to use autotune to let the actors keep up with the music? Yes, alas, they did. So if autotune is a big turnoff for you, this is going to rub you the wrong way. Then again, the music is by the same duo that wrote the songs for Dear Evan Hansen, The Greatest Showman, and La La Land, so it’s not like some hack job. I really enjoyed them.

The plot is fairly straightforward. What if the same thing that happened to Scrooge way back when happens once a year to someone else? A big team of ghosts work together to try to change the life of one person at a time. Will Ferrell leads up the team, and Ryan Reynolds is their latest project. But as soon as Reynolds sees the first ghost, he recognizes it as being a Christmas Carol trope, and the wheels fall off from there.

I’ve seen many (many) Christmas Carol adaptations, so to see one that’s unique like this was a great surprise. It’s a great spin on the classic. My only real gripe would be the PG-13 rating, as it was close enough to being PG that I thought they could have backed off in a few areas and had it be more family friendly for kiddos. But if you’ve got teens in your house, I think they’ll have a good time as well.

In the end, I gave it an 8/10. It’s one I might rewatch, and there aren’t a whole slew of Christmas movies that I’m willing to do that with. That says a fair bit right there. If you’ve got Apple TV+, give it a shot.

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

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Movie Review: A Christmas Story Christmas

On paper, it should be a lot of fun. Get the gang back from the original classic, A Christmas Story, and have them reprise their roles, with the move taking place thirty or forty years later. And when you see just how much Peter Billingsley still looks like himself (as Ralphie), it’s hard not to think right away that this could really work. And thus, A Christmas Story Christmas was born.

I’ll admit to being skeptical heading into the film. Sure, it seemed like there was a chance it could work, but there was also a big chance it would be nothing but a stinker. But it had a 7 on IMDB (at the time) and a 78% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Surely that meant the movie was actually good.

Having watched it now, I can solve the debate. It’s not good. It’s not terrible, and there are a few genuinely funny scenes, but overall it’s a movie that tries too hard to be too many things. First and foremost, they’re very fond of beating us over the head with THIS IS JUST LIKE CHRISTMAS STORY scenes. Worried we might miss the references, they even stick in audio snippets from the original. And they went through several contortions to cram in as many references as they could.

Maybe if they’d stuck to that, it would have still been okay. But they also decided to ram FEEL GOOD HOLIDAY HEART-WARMER down our throats. That’s a move I don’t really understand. The original has some feel good moments in it, but it’s good because it’s so true to life so often, finding humor in the everyday. This one just feels like it has to have A Theme, and the movie isn’t strong enough to support it.

(Side gripe: there’s a big plot thread around Ralphie trying to get published, and it went wrong for me on many different levels. He keeps talking about wanting a call from “his manager,” because . . . aspiring authors have managers? He takes his writing around to “every publisher in Chicago,” which . . . maybe he’d have been better off going to New York City, where publishers are generally in more abundance? There are other issues I have with the plot arc, but they’d give spoilers away, and some of you might watch the movie.)

That said, I enjoyed watching Billingsley again, so the movie wasn’t a complete wash. If I’d had lower expectations, maybe I would have enjoyed it more. As it is, I walked away disappointed. 5/10, and I don’t think I’ll ever watch it again. (If you’re looking for a movie in the same vein as the original, I’d recommend 8 Bit Christmas. Not as good as Christmas Story, but a fun 80s take on the same theme. I gave that one a 7.5)

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking this DON’T GO TO SLEEP Amazon link. It will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.