Tomb

Why isn't there an Academy Award category for Best Topless Scene? Or for Most Obnoxious Child Performer, or Best Performance by a Wrestler? Fortunately, these categories are well represented elsewhere, amongst the plethora of ironic, humorous or just plain strange award ceremonies celebrating achievements in the field of film and video that the Oscars tend to overlook. Some of these awards are sincere, some sarcastic and some lack any kind of physical statuette or ceremony, existing only on paper. Nevertheless, they serve as a fun, idiosyncratic alternative to the kind of pompous, self-congratulatory awards shows we've grown accustomed to.

All of these awards are "real," at least in the sense that I'm not the one who made them up. Time to open the envelope.

• The Golden Turkey Awards

As a child, I was utterly fascinated by this 1980 book by film critic Michael Medved and his brother Harry. The concept of recognizing movies for their poor quality and ridiculous concepts was entirely new to me, and I marvelled at the existence of such cinematic oddities as The Terror of Tiny Town (the World's first all-midget western) and The Thing with Two Heads, starring Ray Milland and Rosey Grier as a double-headed monstrosity. Films were recognized for such achievements as Most Ridiculous Movie Monster, Most Ludicrous Racial Impersonations and Most Unerotic Concept in Pornography. Home video was just beginning to catch on, allowing the Medveds to make much more informed choices about awful movies than what had appeared in their previous book, The Fifty Worst Films of All Time (1978), but the award for Worst Film was entrusted to a readers’ poll. Plan 9 From Outer Space (1959) was the winner, and the film's writer-director Edward D. Wood Jr. was awarded Worst Director.

Times change. With the spread of home video, we can now see films that make many of the entries in the Medved books look like masterpieces. However, the book has made a lasting contribution to society by causing viewers to seek out Plan 9 from Outer Space, which remains a delightfully surreal viewing experience.

• The Drive-In Academy Awards (a.k.a. The Hubbies)

Texas-born drive-in film critic Joe Bob Briggs (real name: John Bloom) has a long and colourful history of celebrating lowbrow cinema in his Joe Bob Goes to the Drive-In column. His Hubbie awards (made from hubcaps spraypainted gold) are handed out to genuinely entertaining films that get overlooked by mainstream critics, such as The Evil Dead (1981) and Basket Case (1982). He also includes such brazen award categories as Best Gross-Out Scene and Breast Actress, the latter recognizing significant contributions in the field of topless acting. Joe Bob lends a refreshingly cheerful and unsophisticated air to his award ceremonies, and is always careful to keep track of breasts, blood, beasts, motor vehicle chases and kung fu in each film he reviews. As Joe Bob himself would say; check it out.

• The Golden Raspberry Awards (a.k.a. The Razzies)

(Dis)honouring the worst in acting, directing, screenwriting and overall film production, The Razzies take place one day before the Oscars. The awards have steadily gained in popularity since their introduction in 1981 and serve as a nicely subversive flipside to the Academy Awards. Statuettes are actually handed out, but it's rare for recipients to collect them in person. Exceptions include Bill Cosby (who posed for photos with his award for Leonard Part 6 (1987)) and Tom Green, who showed up to accept his award for Freddy Got Fingered (2001) and remained onstage for what many attendees thought was longer than necessary. The most famous recent example of a (Dis)honouree accepting a Razzie in person has got to be Oscar winner Halle Berry, who won Worst Actress for Catwoman (2004). She showed up at the ceremony looking absolutely gorgeous and gamely repeated her "Oh my God!" acceptance speech, still clutching her Oscar, and telling a heckler "No, I won't give (the Oscar) back, it's got my name on it!" Berry offered up a hilarious parody of the Academy Awards' typical tearful acceptance speeches, even thanking and summoning to the stage her Catwoman co-star and fellow good sport Alex Borstein.

• The Phantom's annual DVD B-Wards (a.k.a. The Ro-Mans)

The Phantom of the Movies' VIDEOSCOPE is one of my favourite movie magazines, and should be considered essential reading for all afficionados of unusual film and video. Each year, the spring issue of this quarterly mag contains the B-Wards (as opposed to A-wards) recognizing outstanding achievement in such categories as Best Vintage DVD Debut, Best Animal Performance, Worst Animal Performance (awarded to Steven Seagal every single year), Best Outlaw Video"(honouring zero-budget movies) and the Ed Wood Jr. Glen or Glenda? Memorial Award for Best Drag Performance. The Phantom of the Movies (real name: Joe Kane) recognizes and acknowledges genuinely good films, while simultaneously giving bad ones some good-natured ribbing.

• The Bad Bondage Hall of Shame (a.k.a. The Loosies)

Put together by a gang of BDSM (Bondage-Dominance-Sadomasochism) enthusiasts, The Loosies Hall of Shame is a list of mainstream films in which Damsels in Distress (DiDs) seem to pretend to be held fast by restraints that could easily be slipped out of. Y'see, when you or I see a movie in which the heroine's wrists are gently hammocked in wide-open rope loops, we don't really care, but apparently this kind of thing really drives bondage freaks up the wall. Films are called out for such Bad Bondage crimes as overly long manacles, single strands of rope around the midsection, unrestrained feet, or mouth gags that would have no hope of silencing people in real life. Anything that might cause an S&M leather daddy to exclaim "She could totally get out of that!" is roundly chastised by The Loosies. The Hall of Shame webpage has been removed from the web, but it made for fascinatingly peculiar reading for the movie buffs who accidentally stumbled across it. The page was also remarkably "clean" considering the subject matter, although readers were advised not to click on any of the links if they were surfing at work.