Forget about the Oscars, the Emmys, the Grammys, and even those cheesy trophies handed out by the Nobel committee every year. The big question on everyone’s mind right now is: who will be the big winner at this year’s Manos Awards?

You say you’re not familiar with the Manos Awards? You might have missed hearing about them because they are not televised. A ceremony is held every year in the banquet room of a Denny’s Restaurant. If the banquet room is already being used, the Board of Governors of the Manos Awards Committee will ask the waitress if a booth is available. If not, the ceremony is held at the counter, although the policy of free coffee refills is discontinued for the remainder of the proceedings.

I bring up the Manos Awards because there’s been a lot of buzz that the movie in our latest Cinematic Titanic offering, “Doomsday Machine,” is a ripe candidate for a Manos Award. Yes, the general consensus seems to be that it is indeed that bad! It would be quite a coup for “Doomsday Machine” to win, because in past years, the Manos Award has been consistently won by “Manos: The Hands Of Fate.” This is not as weird as it might sound. For instance, every year the Eisner Awards are given to celebrate excellence in the field of comic books and graphic novels. On more than one occasion the Eisner was won by Will Eisner, the comic book pioneer whose revered name inspired the award in the first place. And while Emmy Lou Harris has never won an Emmy, Oscar Hammerstein II did indeed win an Oscar, although we should never forget the egregious case of baseball legend Cy Young, who, as great as he was, never once won a Cy Young Award.

Anyway, we at Cinematic Titanic believe that “Doomsday Machine” is so bad it could very well sweep the Manos Awards this year. And what’s doubly remarkable about “Doomsday Machine” is that even though it was photographed by Stanley Cortez, a truly great cinematographer who filmed “The Night Of The Hunter,” and “The Magnificent Ambersons,” two all time movie classics, and even though “Doomsday Machine” as a result of Cortez’s involvement has above-average cinematography for such a low budget film (at least the parts that actually are “Doomsday Machine,” and not the two other movies that were somehow spliced into it), every other element of “Doomsday Machine” is so God-awful that it is still a front runner for the Manos Award, despite the highly professional work of Stanley Cortez, whose career, it would seem, hit a few rough patches.

There’s also been some talk (admittedly just random speculation) that the last ten minutes of “Doomsday Machine” may be given a special award for meritorious excellence in the field of things that involve absolutely no meritorious excellence. There have even been whispers that the person who filmed those excruciating last ten minutes might receive the Manos version of the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, the prestigious Torgo Inhumanity To Man Award.

Not just any bad movie can qualify for a Manos Award. For instance, all of the movies done on Mystery Science Theater 3000 were certainly bad but not all of them are Manos-worthy. “Red Zone Cuba,” “The Creeping Terror,” and “Attack Of the Eye Creatures?” All prime fodder for a Manos. But “Rocket Ship XM,” “The Magic Sword,” and “Marooned?” Not so much. Sure, those last three pictures are bad, but Manos-bad? I say no, but maybe you disagree.

Anyway, we here at Cinematic Titanic are very excited about “Doomsday Machine,” because if it is nominated for a Manos Award, we might get to attend the ceremony, if we can find out which Denny’s it’s being held at this year, and then which Arbys we need to go to for the Vanity Fair after-party. There’s no denying that “Doomsday Machine” is truly one of the worst movies ever and thus we’ve all come down with a rabid case of Manos Awards Fever!

Very few movies have the distinction of winning a Manos Award, but for many filmmakers, it’s an honor just to not be nominated.