Oscars, Shmoscars! This Purim We've Got the Silver Gragger Movie Awards

(Happy Purim to all of our Jewish Humor Central readers.  We hope you enjoy this special Purim spoof from the Purim 2010 issue of The Kustanowitz Kronikle.  You can download the PDF by clicking HERE.  Print it and share it at your Purim Seudah.)

There are the Golden Globes and the Academy Awards (Oscars).  But who needs them when the best awards of all are the Silver Graggers.  Jewish Humor Central is only a few months old, but we have been giving movie awards in The Kustanowitz Kronikle since 1990, with the Silver Graggers making their first appearance in 2004.

The Silver Graggers are different from the Golden Globes and the Oscars in that there are multiple winners for Best Picture, the only award we give.

This year the Kustanowitz kids have been hard at work, deliberating which films released in 2009 merited consideration for this prestigious award.  Today we are proud to announce the winners of the competition.  Here are the best films of 2009, with a brief description of each one.

WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE:  A nanny bites off more than she can chew when she takes a job caring for a Charedi couple’s 17 children.

UP IN THE AIR:  A California transplant can't decide when to travel back east for her parents' seders.

UP:  An ingenious ba'al hagbah brings helium balloons to shul to help him get the job of lifting the Torah done.

AWAY WE GO:  A synagogue in an upscale neighborhood closes its doors when all of its members head for Israel, Florida, Arizona, and Puerto Rico for the Passover holiday.

AN EDUCATION:   The wacky adventures of a young couple attempting to make Pesach for the first time.

THE PROPOSAL:  A religious young man breaks his family’s all-time shidduch speed record when he shouts “Will you marry me?” on his way over to the table where his blind date awaits.

IT'S COMPLICATED:  A Conservadox man meets the woman of his dreams, but she’s egalitarian Modern Orthodox. Pressed to describe the difference between the two streams, the couple is rendered speechless.

CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS:  A family wakes to overcast skies, trying to decide whether to make the trip to shul for a catered bar mitzvah kiddush.

THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG: In this retelling of the book of Exodus, Pharaoh's daughter becomes romantically attached to the leader of the second of the Ten Plagues.

THE BLIND SIDE:  The women belonging to a local synagogue revolt when their mechitzah is raised an additional ten feet.

THE HANGOVER:  A seder goes terribly wrong when a new yeshiva student tells his parents that there are four plagues and ten cups of wine.

THE TAKING OF PELHAM 123:  After outgrowing their communities in Williamsburg and Kiryas Joel, the Satmars take over the Young Israel synagogue and buy up all of the homes in the Bronx neighborhood of Pelham Parkway in the course of three days.

PUBLIC ENEMIES:  A community is shocked and appalled when the local rabbi decides tuition has gotten out of control and enrolls his son in public school.

ADAM and CHAVATAR:  A 3D-ChaiMAX retelling of the Garden of Eden story like you've never seen it before, with CGI special effects.  The first man and first woman feel very blue after they eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.

DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE MORGANS?: Rumors spread in a Reform temple in Greenwich that the newest member family had moved in from Boro Park and changed their name from Morganstein.

PRECIOUS:  A feminist scholar deconstructs the poem Eishet Chayil (A Woman of Valor) to identify the components of rabbinic-era attraction.

NINE:  An angst-ridden musical about the nine men who show up for the morning minyan and exert frantic efforts to recruit a tenth so they can get to work on time.

THE MEN WHO STARE AT GOATS:   Which goat will be slaughtered and which will be driven off a cliff to symbolize the sins of Israel?  Go behind the scenes for an intimate reality-style portrait of the high priests who make these tough decisions.

THE LOVELY BONES:  A new kosher supermarket opens a week before Pesach and advertises an opening special on shankbones for the seder plate.