Shine it!

Rating: 10/10 (1 January 2016)

Wow, just took me to January 1st, 2016 to see my only 10 star film of 2015.
This movie is amazing and captivating from the first frame. I was literally that hooked from the second the movie opened. I wanted to know more, see more, learn more. The cast was incredible, believable, real and had wonderful chemistry. In fact, not one moment passed when I didn't feel like I was a part of this real story and sitting alongside all of them.
I could go on and on, and will. The story was fascinating, motivating, deep and intriguing. These warriors, these journalists, weren't just doing their job, they 100% believed in it and wanted to correct their own mistakes as well as the countless other demons within the catholic church.
This story needed to be told back in the early 2000s, as it does need revisiting now. I know the catholic church truly wanted to sweep this under the rug once (or make that for DECADES,) but they also wanted their poor decisions, to put it mildly, to be forgotten in the years following. It shouldn't. Their horrendous crimes and cover-ups should never be removed from our memory. Forever, the church should be remembered for their terrible sins.
Guess it helps I'm not catholic. And I might be getting a little emotional. The movie, about the Boston Globe's small Spotlight investigation team unraveling decades of deceit within the catholic church in which they were hiding/relocating pedophiles, was so great and wonderfully simple on so many levels. From acting to direction to pacingthat alone usually irks me, but not once in the over two hour runtime was I not on the edge of my seat. That says a lot about a movie that has no action or high Hollywood dramatic scenes. (Well, there was one speech by the fantastic Mark Ruffalo and I envisioned that scene being shown at the Oscars for his inevitable nomination, but it didn't feel fake or forced.)
From a cinema lover's viewpoint, this should be seen on how much they got right. From the normal audience's POV, it should be seen to remind us: if the big entity (the church) did it once, watch for it again, if not currently. And from the victim's corner, they should cherish these heroes as the surviving Holocaust members and family viewed Schindler's List.
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Final thoughts: On a personal level, it helps I love actual newspaper/investigating movies. Another one of my favorites also starred the brilliant Michael Keaton: The Paper. I already miss these days when real journalism happened not just 98% of the internet crap. So, that all said, this movie might be slow to most people (hell, they showed the extent of the "inter-net" back in 2001 with a full billboard in the Boston Globe's own parking lot for AOL) but to me, to see real people doing real journalism was and always will be fascinating to me.