Saturday, January 10, 2015

The 2014 Cosmique Movie Awards

It's time to start planning for the Eleventh Cosmique Movie Awards, honoring the best (and worst) films of 2014.

At the moment, Birdman and Boyhood seem to be bringing in the most nominations from other film awards (like the Golden Globes, Screen Actors Guild Awards, the BAFTAs, and more), followed by The Grand Budapest Hotel, The Imitation Game, Selma, and The Theory of Everything.

Historically, Cosmo voters have often been in fairly close agreement with other awards shows for many of our nominations, but usually with some surprising twists. (Last year's The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug was the Cosmos' top nominated film despite being largely ignored except for technical categories for most other awards.) Will The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies be this year's top nominee? If Ian McKellen and Peter Jackson get nominated again, they will have been nominated for every single film in the Middle Earth series. How will a whole host of superheroes -- mutants, avengers, robots, and more -- fare in our specialty categories against the films already being lauded by more traditional award shows? You get to help decide!

Award Changes


Last year we made a few significant changes that will be continued this year.

  • We increased the total number of potential nominees to six for every award (though we reserve the option to lower it or increase it for specific awards to deal with ties, insufficient nominations, or other unforeseen issues). 
  • The award for Best Young Performer, which was revived in 2012 after being dormant for a decade, was split into separate male and female awards for Best Young Actress and Best Young Actor
  • And the award for Best Science Fiction/Fantasy Film was split into separate awards for Best Fantasy Film and Best Science Fiction Film.

All of those changes are being retained. In addition, this year we're creating another new award to address the popularity of genre films among Cosmo voters: Best Superhero Film. While films that qualify for this award may well also qualify for others, particular Best Fantasy Film or Best Science Fiction Film, we're hoping that adding this one will help us recognize more films in a genre that has always been very popular among Cosmo voters.

The Schedule


As usual, the Cosmo Awards schedule is built to follow the Oscars. Many of our voters use the Academy Awards as a guide for what to see. We therefore open our nomination process on the day the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences announces the Oscar nominees, and we announce our nominees (and start voting for the winners) on the day of the Academy Awards.

Here's our schedule:
  • Thursday, January 15, 2015 - Cosmo nominations open. (Oscar nominations announced.)
  • Friday, February 13, 2015 - Cosmo nomination ballots due.
  • Sunday, February 22, 2015 - Cosmo nominations announced; final voting begins. (Academy Awards are held.)
  • Friday, March 20, 2015 - Final Cosmo ballots due.
  • TBD - Winners announced.

We'll post the nomination ballots on Thursday.

No comments:

Post a Comment