Cinelinx's Summer Movie Awards Nominations (2014)!

It seems like just yesterday we were posting our Summer movie preview guides to help get you ready for the Summer Movie Season, and now here we are with it pretty much wrapped up.  While this season has finished, there’s plenty of exciting looking films on the horizon this Fall.  To wrap up our Summer, the staff here at Cinelinx is once again happy to present our Summer Movie Awards Nominations, which you, our readers, will get to vote on.  The best part is, when you vote on your winners, you’ll be entered to win a free movie!  Come inside for the nominations and all the details.

Below, you’ll find the nominations we as a team picked in various categories for the 2014 Summer Movie Season.  All you have to do to enter the giveaway is vote on your picks in the comments below (must be picked from the nominations provided), or email your votes to jordan@cinelinx.com.  That’s it!  Then you'll be entered in a contest to win a free movie of your choice from the Summer Season.  Basically we're buying you your favorite film from the Summer on blu-ray!  Voting will last from now until September 26th (Friday).  We'll post up the Summer Movie Award winners on the 29th and pick a winner at random from the approved entries!  

Now, let's look at the nomiees: 

Best Cameo Appearance: Sometimes the highlight of a film, or some of the more memorable scenes come not from the main characters, but from the cameo appearances. They could be in the form of fan service with special characters (not a particular actor), a specific actor, or just a moment of awesomeness. Many films feature cameos, but these are the nominees for who we felt were the best the Summer had to offer!

1) Stan Lee in The Amazing Spider-Man 2
2) Howard the Duck in Guardians of the Galaxy
3) Kelsey Grammer in Expendables 3
4) Famke Janssen in X-Men: Days of Future Past

Best Action Sequence: Summer blockbusters are typically packed with action, and 2012 was no different. Several films provided some interesting set pieces and that's what we're here to highlight. We're not talking overall action in a film, but particular scenes that just made you go 'wow'.

1) Captain America vs. Winter Soldier Street Fight - Captain America: The Winter Soldier
2) Apes vs. Humans Battle - Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
3) Quicksilver Scene - X-Men: Days of Future Past
4) Godzilla’s Final Battle with MUTOs - Godzilla 2014
5) Beach Landing - Edge of Tomorrow

Standout Actor Performances: Some actors are just amazing in whatever role they take on and really stand out in the film. Even if the film itself wasn't any good, we don't feel it's proper to punish an actor's performance for it. So the nominations for this category included any actor that went above and beyond in their performance, regardless of the quality of film.

1) Toby Kebbell as Koba (Dawn of the Planet of the Apes)
2) Chris Pratt as Peter Quill (Guardians of the Galaxy) 
3) Angelina Jolie as Maleficent (Maleficent)
4) Andrew Garfield as Peter Parker/Spider-Man (The Amazing Spider-Man 2) 
5) Shailene Woodley as Hazel Lancaster (The Fault in Our Stars)

Best Visual Effects: Visual effects are fairly commonplace these days in films (whether they're practical or computer enhanced) and many Summer blockbusters are known for the amazing visuals they provide. Sometimes the visuals may be the only thing good about a movie! For this category we chose nominees reflecting both overall visuals as well as specific scenes with incredible visuals.

1) Guardians of the Galaxy
2) Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
3) Godzilla
4) Into the Storm
5) X-Men: Days of Future Past

Most Mindless: Movies are designed to be entertaining. Sometimes they manage to be entertaining while presenting a memorable story and characters at the same time. Other times, however, a film is just pure mindless fun. You won't find much deep meaning behind these nominees, and possibly not even a desire to see them again, but they all provided some mindless entertainment.

1) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
2) Hercules
3) Transformers: Age of Extinction

Most Disappointing: Many people lump their worst films with the most disappointing films, but we feel there is a key difference here. Maybe it was a film we had high expectations for and they fell short, or it just wasn't the film we hoped it would be. That doesn't necessarily make them terrible films, or the worst thing we saw over the Summer (sometimes it was though), but they just didn't make the grade.

1) The Expendables 3
2) The Giver
3) Transformers: Age of Extinction
4) A Million Ways to Die in the West

Most Surprising: There are times when the marketing for a film just doesn't do it justice, and it looks like it'll end up being a real stinker. Then when you get in the theater to watch it, you're pleasantly surprised to find a good and entertaining film. This category is dedicated to those films we all thought wouldn't be any good, but turned out to be decent, if not amazing.

1) The Purge: Anarchy
2) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
3) Amazing Spider-Man 2
4) Edge of Tomorrow
5) Neighbors

Best Film of Summer: This one is pretty self-explanatory. This category is for the hands down best movie of the Summer. These films all managed to tell a good story, powerful characters, and an overall experience that was just plain fun. I also think it's pretty damn telling of how far the genre has come that 3 of the films nominated are comic book movies.

1) Guardians of the Galaxy
2) Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
3) How to Train Your Dragon 2
4) Boyhood 
5) Snowpiercer

Worst Film of Summer: Unfortunately this Summer did present us with some real stinkers, both critically and in the box office.  So here are the nominees for the worst film this Summer gave us. 

1) Into the Storm
2) Lucy
3) Sex Tape
4) Blended
5) Let’s Be Cops

Now that you've seen our nominations, it's time to make your voice heard and vote for your picks in each category.  For the contest, any prizes must be from a film that released during the Summer season (from May to September 1st).  If it hasn't been released yet, we'll pre-order the movie for you so that it will arrive on your door the day it releases.  Standard blu-rays only (sorry, no collector's sets).  

-The Cinelinx Team!