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FOURTH ANNUAL POLISHED APPLE AWARDS

18 FILMS TAKE HOME POLLIES

The Pollies aren’t a popularity contest. That was clearly evident as PollyStaffle.com gave David Mackenzie’s “Mister Foe” its top award and honored 17 other films ignored by the Academy Awards with the announcement of the fourth annual Polished Apple Awards. Best movie winner “Mister Foe” is a coming of age story about a teenager named Hallam that has a habit of watching people from a distance.

“It’s not a creepy peeping tom film,” PollyStaffle.com senior editor Chad Freeman said. “It could have been, but it isn’t. Instead it’s a touching character study about love lost.”

The movie based on Peter Jinks’ novel “Hallam Foe,” stars Jamie Bell (“Dear Wendy,” “Undertow”), who Freeman calls a “wonderfully underrated actor,” Claire Forlani and Sophia Myles.

PollyStaffle.com is an entertainment website that celebrates individuality, diversity, creativity and empowerment. Their Polished Apple Awards, also known as The Pollies, coincide each year with the Academy Awards. This is the fourth year for The Pollies. Previous top winners were the gems “300,” “Hard Candy” and “Mysterious Skin.”

Other films receiving Pollies this year were “The Quiet Room” (Best Direction), “Juncture” (Best Writing), “The Tracey Fragments” (Best Editing), “Hounddog” (Best Acting, Ensemble - Dakota Fanning, Piper Laurie, David Morse & Robin Wright Penn) “Chapter 27” (Best Acting, Individual - Jared Leto), “Max Payne” (Coolest Looking Movie), “Quarantine” (Scariest Movie), “Brutal Massacre” (Funniest Movie), “Sukiyaki Western Django” (Most Action-Packed Movie), “Paranoid Park” (Best Use of Music), “Man, Woman and the Wall” (Best Use of Sex/Nudity),” “The Killing Gene” (Best Use of Violence/Gore), “We Own the Night” (Best Depiction of Drug Use), “Suspension” (Best Concept, Gimmick, Hook), “Zombie Girl: The Movie” (Best Documentary), “Mongol: The Rise of Genghis Khan” (Best Foreign Language Movie) and “Hellboy II: The Golden Army” (Best Remake, Sequel, etc.)

To be eligible for The Pollies a film must have been released on DVD during the current award cycle, which starts the month of the previous year’s awards and ends the month of the current year’s Oscars. PollyStaffle.com considers all films for its awards. As the site puts it, this includes “the movie you made with your mom in your backyard.”

PollyStaffle.com also announced its pinup of the year and inducted three new members into their entertainment hall of fame. Scream Queen Rachel Grubb (“Unholy Reunion,” “Tales of the Dead,” “Cave Women On Mars”) was named Pinup of the Year, while pinup Jeanne Carmen, filmmaker Andy Sidaris and poet E.E. Cummings were named to the Polly Staffle Hall of Fame. Grubb was crowned based on a “combination of looks, creativity, sense of humor, ambition and intelligence.” Sidaris, Cummings and Carmen were inducted because of their contributions to the world of entertainment in the form of filmmaking, writing and modeling. They join previous inductees Herschell Gordon Lewis, Doris Wishman, Ray Harryhausen, Edgar Allan Poe, H.G. Wells, Bruce Lee, Jayne Mansfield, Bettie Page and Marilyn Monroe.

-- February 2009