Here’s a truly original Award called the Golden Groundhog Awards, it’s tied in with the recent William Shatner Video Club and only gives one award to the best underground movie of the year (hence the Groundhog).
Shatner himself is presenting the award, with many healthy plugs to his rental site, on the 2nd of February. The Award is described as…
a new cinema tradition, established to recognize genuinely outstanding films from the previous year that lacked the distribution and marketing support needed to propel them into the public consciousness. To be eligible for a Golden Groundhog, a film must meet three criteria: the film must have been released during the previous year, grossed less than $1 million at the U.S. box office, and received rave reviews from the limited audiences who watched the film.
A worthy and noble award indeed, although specifying that it must have failed to gross more than $1 million is unfairly limiting…can an underground hit not earn money?
The nominees are…
Green Street Hooligans, Mirrormask, Nine Lives, Sunnyvale
Surely Mirrormask has an unfair advantage out of the gate, especially up against a movie like Sunnyvalle? However, the nominees can be checked out at the official site. I’m quite unsure as to how the winner is decided, however we’ll keep you posted.
