1) Deli Man

I never reviewed this documentary, cause I saw it on a plane, and I usually don’t review movies I’ve seen on planes.  It was the perfect plane movie, but it was also the perfect movie movie – it was funny, and entertaining, and informative, and it actually made me cry – tears of joy.  It also made me proud to be Jewish, and reminded me what I value most of my Judaism – tradition thru food, and how we must never lose either.  Levy’s Rye said you didn’t have to be Jewish to love their bread, and the same is true of this documentary.  Bless you Ziggy Gruber – you are the Jewish Ziggy Stardust

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there were plenty of other grrrrrrrrrrrrrrreat films in the ’15 of 2000, but instead of ranking them against one another, this year I’m juss gonna lump them together, saying they all grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrreat – in reverse alphabetical order…

Straight Out of Compton

if Paul Giamatti is your movie’s main a$$hole, and your soundtrack is NWA, you have a surefire hit

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Star Wars – The Force Awakens

JJ Abrams may have played it safe, leaning on the past, but that’s what the people wanted, and he gave us stuff we didn’t even know we wanted – a Rey of hope for the future  

George Lucas who?

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Spotlight

it’s the Zodiac of priest abusing children movies!!

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Son of Saul

imagine the intensity of Saving Private Ryan, but strip the patriotism and cheese, set it in and around a concentration camp, and let the horror destroy your senses – yes the würst date movie of 2015 is also one of its best!

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The Search For General Tso

a MUST for anyone who eats Chinese food in America (aka, every American)

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The Martian

who said Ridley Scott needed aliens to make space wonder-full?

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Maps To The Stars

I had to pick one fcuked up movie to make my list, so why not the one that says incest is best/würst!!!

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Mad Max – Fury Road

I mean the guy with the flamethrower guitar was the tamest part of the movie!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Joy

this is the movie American Hustle should have been, but wasn’t, but this is Joy, and Joy was all American, all hustle, and all awesome

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The Intern

schmaltz-o ball soup for the soul.  I SLURPPED IT UP BIG TIME.  can’t wait to watch it on cable for eons to come!!

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The Death of Superman Lives, What Happened?

the (second) greatest doc ever made about the (second) greatest film never made 

(the first was last year’s #1)

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Creed

some things DO get better with age

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Brooklyn

they say they don’t make movies like they used to, but they wrong.  they should say they should make more movies like this

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Black Mass

Deep as Whitey gave me a bulger in my pants

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The Big Short

finally, a movie about the economic collapse that doesn’t make you want to take a coll-nap

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Amy

too bad the title Trainwreck was wasted on another movie

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and now for the…

Honor Blackmanable Mentions

Vacation / While We’re Young / Tomorrowland / Steve Jobs / Rosenwald / Room / Pitch Perfect 2 / Kingsman: The Secret Service / It Follows / Iris / Furious 7 / Ex Machina / The Danish Girl

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our annual anal movie awards – The Thighsmans – drops the week of the Oscars 

until then, here’s the bestest films of yesterhere

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

Spotlight
All The Priests’ Children
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
R | 127 min

Every great newspaper deserves its own great movie.  The Washington Post got All The President’s Men, The San Francisco Chronicle got Zodiac, and (although I haven’t seen it) The New York Times got the doc Page One: Inside The New York Times.  There are a lot of other great great newspaper films, but they are all fictional (or fiction guised as something sorta based in reality, ala Citizen Kane).  It’s actually kinda weird that there aren’t more films about big time stories published by big time newspapers.  Anywho – Spotlight shines a bright light on The Boston Globe – and the lid they blew off the priestly-pedophiled sexual scandals that plagued the highly Catholic Boston area for eons

Thomas McCarthy‘s cinematic journey of this investigative journalism triumph is a triumph itself.  The outcome is obvious (any doubt that the paper wouldn’t win the day by getting the word out), but getting from point A to point B was an absolute thrill – even if it mainly consisted of phone calls, interviews, trips to the library, repeat, repeat, repeat.  The movie never skips a beat, and is pulse-pounding from the get go, to the get stop.  Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams, John Slattery, Stanley Tucci, Brian d’Arcy James (and his MUSTache), Liev Schreiber, and Billy Crudup are ALL fantastic.  Raping children is not fantastic, but this movie is ALL fantastic.  It is a muss see for anyone who has eyes, and even for people who don’t

Verdictgo: Breast In Show

Spotlight shines bright currently at a theater near jews

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…