Christmas movies make the screen glow like a fireplace, and Arkansas plays a part in these classics, available for gift-giving on home video:
• A Christmas Story (1983). Hope native Melinda Dillon plays mom to young Ralphie, the boy who wants a Red Ryder BB rifle for Christmas.
• It Runs in the Family (also titled My Summer Story, 1994). North Little Rock native Mary Steenburgen takes over as Ralphie's mom in this lesser-known follow-up to A Christmas Story.
Steenburgen also stars in the Disney movie, One Magic Christmas (1985), as a tragedy-stricken mom who must learn what the day really means.
• Mr. Christmas (2005). Camden native Beth Brickell directed this PBS movie, filmed in Eureka Springs, about a family's Christmas experience during the Great Depression.
• Bad Santa (2003). Malvern native Billy Bob Thornton wears the scraggly beard in this black-as-coal comedy about a seedy department-store Santa and his sidekick, a crooked elf.
-- Ron Wolfe
Style on 11/29/2015