While we're on the subject of inadequately appreciated memory-masterpieces, A Christmas Story, directed with amazing feeling and taste by Bob (Porky's) Clark from Jean Shepherd's novel In God We Trust All Others Pay Cash, is the best Christmas qua Christmas entertainment I've seen in years and years. This inexplicably neglected 1983 release is sparked by extraordinarily creative performances from Melinda Dillon and Darren McGavin as the parents and Peter Billingsley as the bespectacled boy who wants a Red Ryder rifle for Christmas. And, oh yes, I cried, but my tears were well-earned by devastating shafts of satire hurled at the commercialization of Christmas already well-advanced in the snowy days of Shepherd's Midwestern childhood, a period he narrates with a wickedly modernist knowingness. It will be playing through the season on both HBO and Showtime.