MTV Movie Awards Preview!

by Garrett Hargrove

Its that time again!  Its the 32nd most anticipated film awards ceremony of the year!  The MTV Movie Awards! This year’s slogan: Making the People’s Choice awards look prestigious.  Let’s break down the categories and speculate on winners (After the Break):

Best Movie

• The Dark Knight  (Note: 2nd highest grossing movie EVER)
• Iron Man  (93% Positive Reviews - per RottenTomatoes.com)
• Slumdog Millionaire  (Oscar Winner - Best Picture)
• Twilight  (Based on NY Times Best Selling Book, Twilight)
• High School Musical 3: Senior Year  (Sequel to a sequel of a made for TV Disney movie)

High School Musical 3 Up for Best Picture against Slumdog Millionaire.  They have drastically redefined what the word “Best” means.  Currently holding a 3.6 rating (out of 10) on imdb, High School Musical 3: Senior Year is the favorite, having an astounding 5 nominations and considering the fact that the awards are voted on by 12 year old girls.

Twilight, best known as the disappointing adaptation of the wildly popular Twilight book, really pushed the envelope and found a way to make vampires really, really lame.

It is sad though that The MTV Movie Awards could get the Dark Knight Best Picture nomination right and the Oscars couldn’t.

Projected Winner: High School Musical 3: Senior Year.  The crowd erupts in cheers!  Teen age girls faint in the aisles.  Zac Efron accepts the award and announces High School Musical 4: The College Years!

Best Male Performance

• Christian Bale - The Dark Knight
• Vin Diesel - Fast & Furious
• Robert Downey, Jr. - Iron Man
• Zac Efron - High School Musical 3: Senior Year
• Shia LeBeaouf - Eagle Eye (Or any other movie he’s been in since it was the same performance)

When I think Best Actor… I think Vin Diesel.

And Shia LeBeaouf.  (And you know what  I don’t even care if I’m misspelling his last name.  I’m not gonna look it up.)

Come on!  Do they even watch movies or just pick random names out of a hat?  On the heels of the Prop 8 stuff, they didn’t even throw in Sean Penn for a modicum of legitimacy?

Projected Winner: Zac Efron - High School Musical 3: Senior Year.  Because acting ability is not a requirement to get an MTV Best Actor award.  (See 1992 Arnold Schwarzeneggar award Best Actor).

Best Female Performance

• Anne Hathaway - Bride Wars
• Taraji P. Henderson - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
• Angelina Jolie - Wanted
• Kristen Stewart - Twilight
• Kate Winslet - The Reader

Behind the scenes of the nominations process:

OMG!  I was trying to watch the O.C., but my parents refused and insisted on watching that boring movie awards show.  Did you see that the girl from Princess Diaries and Princess Diaries 2 was nominated for an Oscar!

We should SO do the same thing!  I LOVED her in Princess Diaries!  Let’s TOTALLY nominate her!  What movie was she in?

Hello!  Bride Wars!  We saw it like 17 times!

Ironically enough, this was the same conversation that allowed Obama to choose Judge Sotomayor for the Supreme Court.

(In case you didn’t get the joke, Anne Hathaway was nominated for Rachel Getting Married, not Bride Wars.  Bride Wars looked like your average Jerry Springer episode.)

My wife describing the chick from Twilight: “The book frustrates me because there’s this vampire who’s live for like hundreds of years, seen thousands of women and he falls for the most bland one he’s ever come across?”  And for her portrayal as the most bland literary heroine ever, Kristen Stewart gets a nomination.

Projected Winner: Vanessa Hudgens - High School Musical 3: Senior Year.  Because it was such a travesty that she wasn’t nominated for Best Actress.  I mean, Best Supporting Actress?  Hello.  She was opposite Zac Efron and he was Best Actor, not Best Supporting.  I trust the academy will set this straight.

Breakthrough Performance - Male

• Ben Barnes - The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian
• Taylor Lautner - Twilight
• Dev Patel - Slumdog Millionaire
• Robert Pattinson - Twilight
• Bobb’e J. Thompson - Role Models

An award with Nostradamus-like foresight, this award predicted the stardom of such legends like Shawn Ashmore, Jon Heder, Sean Patrick Thomas, Haley Joel Osment, James Van Der Beek and Edward Furlong.  Who will get the Breakout Star Award Golden Touch this year…?

Projected Winner: That kid with the poofy hair - High School Musical 3: Senior Year.  I don’t even know if he was in that movie.  I couldn’t look at the imdb page for HSM3 any more after reading fascinating tidbits like “Unlike in Parts 1 and 2, in Part3, most of the songs were cut short.  But they appear in their full length on the Soundtrack!”

Breakthrough Performance - Female

• Miley Cyrus - Hannah Montana: The Movie
• Kat Dennings - Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist
• Vanessa Hudgens - High School Musical 3: Senior Year
• Freida Pinto - Slumdog Millionaire
• Amanda Seyfried - Mamma Mia!
• Ashley Tisdale - High School Musical 3: Senior Year

I really need to get this question off my chest… HOW IS IT A BREAKTHOGUH PERFORMANCE IF YOU’RE DOING THE SAME THING YOU’VE BEEN DOING FOR HALF A DECADE?!?!  Breakthrough performance in the real world means a new venture that shows your range and talent and will help you reach a new plateau in your professional career.  How do the kids doing the third film in the High School Musical series or Miley Cyrus doing ANOTHER Hannah Montana piece of garbage help them break through to anything?!?!  “They sang and danced and looked plastic-y cute for two movies, but this time… this is the one where we finally take notice and cast them in the next Scorsese film!”

I never saw it, so someone tell me… was the secret of Nick and Norah’s infinite playlist that they put the playlist on “Repeat”?

Projected Winner: Ashley Tisdale, daugher of the late NBA Great Wayman Tisdale, picks up the award here for, surprise, HSM3SY.

Best Comedic Performance

• Steve Carell - Get Smart
• Jim Carrey - Yes Man
• Anna Farris - House Bunny
• James Franco - Pineapple Express
• Amy Poehler - Baby Mama

Can I get an official stance on Anna Farris?  Do we hate her?  Like her?  Did she go down and rebound?  Is she super annoying or is that her quirk that makes her likable?  How did her “should have been direct to DVD” film House Bunny beat out Tom Cruise’s performance in Tropic Thunder?  He may have totally resurrected his career on that 30 minute performance alone.

I know I’m in the minority, but Amy Poehler… not funny.  She plays crass and stupid.  That’s 93% of college students.

Projected Winner: Robert Downey, Jr. - Tropic Thunder.  Come on!  He gave the 2nd most memorable performance of last year!  He’s got to walk away with something!

Best Villain

• Luke Goss - Hellboy II: The Golden Army
• Dwayne Johnson - Get Smart
• Heath Ledger - The Dark Knight
• Derek Mears - Friday the 13th
• Johnathon Schaech - Prom Night

Projected Winner: Was there a villain in HSM3?  If not, then this will be the one touching moment.  Heath Ledger.  Crying.  Applause.  Hey!  How come his parents didn’t come to these awards like they did for the Oscars?!?!?

Best Fight

• Bride Wars: Anne Hathaway, Kate Hudson
• The Dark Knight: Christian Bale, Heath Ledger
• Hellboy II: The Golden Army: Luke Goss, Ron Pearlman
• Pineapple Express: Seth Rogen, James Franco, Danny McBride
• Twilight: Robert Pattinson, Cam Gigandet

If I’d have actually watched Twilight, I might have more commentary on it.  But there’s just so many times that someone can groan at the mention of a film before you just have no desire to see it.

And how did that fight scene from Pineapple Express beat out where James Franco kicked Rosie Perez in the cooch?

Projected Winner: High School Musical 3: Senior Year - For the internal struggle of Zac Efron whether to sing or not to sing.
Timely Political Answer: Prop 8.  Bale and Ledger got nothing on that one.

Best Kiss

• High School Musical 3: Senior Year: Zac Efron, Vanessa Hudgens
• I Love You, Man: Paul Rudd, Thomas Lennon
• Milk: James Franco, Sean Penn
• Slumdog Millionaire: Dev Patel, Freida Pinto
• Twilight: Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart
• Wanted: James McAvoy, Angelina Jolie

Just none of these do it for me.  I think I’ve been Jaded since Wild Things in 1998.  “Look, a ten minute kiss between two poor Indian kids!”  “Eh. Still not as great or shocking as Never Campbell and Denise Richards.”  “Oh!  Spicoli is kissing Harry Osborn!”  “Eh.”  “Look!  ALL of the Laker Cheerleaders are mugging down with each other.”  “Not bad, but still a runner up to Wild Things.”

Projected Winner: Milk and HSM3 share the award.  Because they want to show their disdain for Prop 8.  And because they have this crazy fixation with HSM3 that normal people over the age of 13 can’t relate to.

Best WTF Moment

• Baby Mama: Amy Poehler Peeing in the sink
• Forgetting Sarah Marshall: Naked breakup
• Slumdog Millionaire: Jump in the poop shed
• Tropic Thunder: Tasting decapitated head
• Wanted: Curved Bullet Kill

I saw all of these and none of them made me say “What the Fuck”, or even cry out the three letters WTF.  The Pencil Trick in Dark Knight made me do that.  But it didn’t involve poop, pee or unnecessary wang.  The other two I wouldn’t even consider adding them to a WTF Moment list.

The Wang scene in Forgetting Sarah Marshall was OK, but not as shocking as Kevin Bacon wang in Wild Things.  I think that movie was just made with these awards in mind.  Best Fight… Never Campbell vs. Denise Richards.  Best Kiss… duh.  Best WTF… Kevin Bacon Wang.  Best Villain… everybody in the friggin movie.

On a side note, Was Forgetting Sarah Marshall really only last year?  Feels like it was released in like 2003.

Projected Winner: High School Musical 3 - For getting a theatrical release after the first two went straight to TV.

Best Song From A Movie

• Hannah Montana: The Movie - The Climb by Miley Cyrus
• Slumdog Millionaire - Jai Ho by A. R. Rahman
• Twilight - Paramore by Decode
• The Wrestler - The Wrestler by Bruce Springsteen

Projected Winner: High School Musical 3: Senior Year - “Yeah its Senior Year (This movie is a little queer)” by Zac Efron and a bunch of future has-beens.

That is the Annual Zaz Report MTV Movie Awards Preview!  I couldn’t for the life of me tell you when its on.  But if you miss it the first time around, they’ll show it fifteen times after its initial airing.  Or just catch the one interesting part on youtube later.