I’m never getting around to seeing Fences or Lion, so here’s…

Dwelve Into These Twelve
of 2016

1) Tower

A real life tragic event gets Waking Lifed, and it’s not only scary and horrific, but hopeful AND inspiring!

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2) I Am Not Your Negro

What it’s like to be an African-American in America (when you’re white and have no clue what it’s like).  It raises all sorts of important questions that no one is really asking, or sadly, bothering to answer

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3) Patriots Day

An event I didn’t plan on reliving ended up making me feel proud to be an American… in a time I’m ashamed to be an American

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4) 20th Century Women

It’s like listening to The Talking Heads for the very first time – WOAH!

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5) The Founder

Sometimes it takes some awful in humans to make greatness, and greasiness for us all!

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6) The Light Between Oceans

Perhaps the year’s most overlooked movie that had ‘Oscar bait’ written all over it.  You no longer have to take the bait to something that no longer is baiting you, and it’s time for you to no longer overlook this film!

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7) Bleed For This

if Miles Teller bleeds – I will come!

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8) Embrace of the Serpent

I apparently never reviewed Serpent, but you need to Embrace this film – which puts the ‘lonely’ in ‘coLONELYialism’!

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9) Streit’s: Matzo and the American Dream

All things must pass – even the Lower East Side’s last remaining matzah factory, and with it, a part of Jewish culture and identity in America :( 

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10) Hell or High Water

Why choose when you can have BOTH hell AND high water!!!

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11) Sully

Dude is mad fly!

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12) Raiders!: The Story of the Greatest Fan Film Ever Made

These guys lived out their childhood dreams, in childhood, and finished them in their adulthood!  Fedora hats off forever to these dudes!!

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and now for the…

Honor Blackmanable Mentions

Elstree 1976 / Snowden / Rouge One / Love & Friendship / The Witch / Jackie / La La Land / Toni Erdmann / Jheronimus Bosch, Touched by the Devil / Doctor Strange / the first 2/3rds of Moonlight / Indignation / The Lobster / Me Before You / Bridget Jones’s Baby / My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2

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our annual anal movie awards – The Thighsmans – drops the Friday before the Oscars.  stay pooned!

until then, here’s the bestest films of yesterhere

2015
2014
2013
2012
2011
2010
2009
2008
2007
2006
2005
2004
2003
& 2002

Raiders!: The Story of the Greatest Fan Film Ever Made
Whip Smart
Website | Trailers & Mo
Not Rated | 104 min

Sometimes there is actual truth in advertising – as is such when a documentary called Raiders!: The Story of the Greatest Fan Film Ever Made documents the past, present and future of Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation – which is, without a doubt, the greatest fan film ever made.  If you’ve never seen it – you need to.  You really do!  I had the good fortune of seeing the film 5 years ago and it blew my childish mind, and met the (now) adult guys who made their childhood dreams by remaking their favorite film, starting in 1982… and never really finishing it

The filmmakers and stars - Chris Strompolos, Eric Zala, Jayson Lamb and their friends – did as much as they could on their small allowances, availble resources, and summers off from school – but never completed the airplane scene (you know, with the explosions and shirtless Nazi brute getting his head chopped off).  Time passed, relationships fizzled, the boys became men, married – with children, but the itch was still there – to finish the Adaptation once and for all, and so the boys did a Kickstarter – raised funds, completed the airplane scene – and finished the film.  BOOOM!  Sounds like a walk in the park, right?  Well, to get from the start to this finish was not only a labor of love, it was a laborious love with MANY a skipped and stop heartbeats

All of this, AND MORE, is covered in the fun fun fun documentary (that I actually saw 5 years to the very day that I saw the Adaptation!!!!!!), based on Alan Eisenstock’s book of the same name, and all of this AND that continues to blow my childish mind.  What these kids did, and what these adults have done continue to endlessly inspire me and inspire endless awe in my eyes, mind, heart and soul, endlessly – WITHOUT END!!!!!  They lived out their childhood dreams, while children!!!  Something most of us have never done.  BLESS THESE BOYS (men)!!!

The original film they made sometimes plays in theaters, but is now finally available on DVD and digital download [disclosure – I actually helped to put the disc together for them in my day job], and if you buy it, you help to support these guys who deserve your support (because I said so!).  Maybe they’ll take the money and remake Zardoz.  MAYBE!!!

Verdictgo: Breast In Show

Raiders! is found ark art currently in limited release, and the fellas are touring with the doc, so see them in your city!

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…