The MTV Movie Awards Rundown
By Aaron 6/4/2007

While my roommate watched “The History of Star Wars” on the History channel, I squeezed in the MTV Movie Awards before the “Entourage” finale. If you watched the show, maybe my comments will amuse you and if you didn’t watch the show, I think I covered all the good parts.

Sarah Silverman came out swinging with her usual crude humor, without holding anything back (this surprised me considering the show seemed to be targeted to kids). Her swearing song that followed was not funny, and was kind of evident of how she would do the whole night – hit or miss.

Most of the jokes seemed pretty flat. Sarah made this big deal about how instead of the “nice orchestra music” to signal that a speech was too long, they had a naked fat man (like in “Borat”) who would chase you off the stage. It seemed forced and when you thought about it, it was pretty unfunny, although the guy did chase off Gerard Butler who was even lamer.

I did think Sarah’s movie spoofs, where she walked into different scenes in the big movies, looking for another presenter was pretty funny.

Some tried to be funny in their presentation, but most failed – the Kevin James-Adam Sandler bit about first kisses and fake drama was not that funny and just made me hate Kevin James more.

Also, Robin William’s Spanish accent bit sucked – he tried to announce an award with this drawn out accent – maybe I’ve just outgrown his humor – but if they guy isn’t dressed as an old woman or being animated as a blue genie, this guy is just about always run on empty.

The one bright spot the MTV writers showed was the “Boratitis” joke where different celebs talked about how they had become consumed by trying to do Borat impressions – and thinking they were right on. Not only was the skit right on, but it was hysterical, and true.

Similar to the jokes, the acceptance speeches were pretty uneventful too. Jack Nicholson won the first award for best villain and it was pretty likely the water bottle he put down slowly after winning was filled with booze. He spoke for awhile and didn’t really say much.

When Sacha won the second of his two award he gave a sort of half hearted spiel about Borat that was moderately humorous, peaking when he mentioned that Borat “got so drunk he went on a talk show and made pro-Jewish remarks.”

Mike Meyers showed mild staying power with an entrance that seemed well rehearsed and followed it up with a pretty funny speech that included him making a Pontiac plug.

When “Transformers” won, what surprised me was how Michael Bay seemed pretty chill (too bad he makes shitty movies). Unfortunately Shia followed him and he was a little bitch. Then that black guy from the Fast and the Furious 2 (I think) was annoying as hell. The guy was even there when “Transformers” won again and then when he presented one of the last awards he was even more annoying.

Johnny Depp’s speech after winning best actor was a tad disappointing – kind of flat.  When Depp had a second chance, he was borderline awkward (that’s being generous) when he tried to thank people.

Luckily, Sacha Baren Cohen and Will Ferrell were pretty funny (they clearly planned this), continuing with their characters (kind of) from “Taladega.” However, their victory over Marky Mark and Elizabeth Banks for “Best Kiss” was a little disappointing to me.

More to come…including my rundown on the user created spoofs, the questions the show raised, and a final conclusion…



The spoofs submitted by viewers were pretty good – I liked the first spoof – “Little Miss Squirtgun” which successfully parodied “Little Miss Sunshine,” “Grindhouse,” “300,” and a few others, including mocking some celebrity personalities.  The second parody was atrocious – a weak attempt to parody “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” by just substituting some dialogue. The last one, “United 300,” combining “United 93” and “300” – real shocker there I bet – was kinda funny but not as good as the first. Samuel L. Jackson was pretty funny presenting the award to the wrong winner (Andy Signore for United 300). Honestly, the movie was borderline offensive and Signore’s speech was stupid.  The guy was fat and spoke for too long, why didn’t the fat guy chase him off? Why did he get to chill with Samuel L. Jackson? As a side note, one of the reasons I watched the awards was because of all the talk about the great spoofs in the past, and these amateur spoofs were pretty disappointing in light of all that hype.

While I’ve already said much about the awards, the awards also raised a lot of questions that I’m not sure I have the answer to.

Was Dane Cook a host too? He’s not nearly as hot as Sarah Silverman.

Was the dirty mouth award real? It seemed like a lame commercial all the way through.

What is our society’s weird obsession with homosexuality? It seems like the gay kiss always wins. Or a lesbian one (“Cruel Intentions”?).

How sweet was the Stardust preview? And how lame did the “Evan Almighty” trailer make that movie seem?

Why did Bruce Willis present two things? He looked REALLY old in both.

Am I the only one who thinks that Kaya show might be okay? At the same time its advertising prompts a greater question, what’s a “scripted drama”? Show looks like a cross between “Love Monkey” and “Entourage” with a hot female lead instead of thin white boys.

What was up with the weird background songs during scenes for the nominees? I liked them playing “Snow” for Johnny Depp and I liked Gwen’s song getting some play.

The preview for Hot Rod made me ask, how did this movie get made? No big name actors and no built in audience (a la “American Pie”); but I guess Andy Sandberg is in it, but he’s no big deal, right?

Here are some random thoughts – the “Best summer movie you haven’t seen yet?” category seems arbitrary – who decides? The viewers? How do you know if it’s the best if you haven’t seen it yet? Personally I wanted Hairspray to win so I could have some hope of convincing my friends to see it. Also, I am so over Jennifer Hudson – take your freebie trophy and go home – you’re not attractive, your voice isn’t that good and you are not a great actress. Pirates 2 won Best Movie? I didn’t know Bruckheimer was that motivated to vote a bajillion times? Seriously, the movie was weak at best. But overall, they kept it short and sweet and it was a decent show.

Could “Avatar” Win Best Picture?

By Brett Hogan

 

Last week, the trailer for James Cameron’s sci-fi experiment “Avatar” debuted. While initially unimpressed with the teaser, I began to wonder: Could this film win best picture? 

 

Buzz has been generating for this movie for years. Years. The technology to make this movie didn’t exist when Cameron conceived it, so he invented it. When is the last time you heard of a director spearheading the invention of anything? The casting started in 2005. Most movies these days, even epics, are done in half that time. I could go on. 

 

The most important thing to take away from all of this is that people are saying this will be the future of movies. Now, I don’t agree with the idea that CGI will become more prevalent than it already is. But I do believe that this will set the bar miles higher for sci-fi. I mean, that is what Titanic did. And that won some awards if memory serves.

 

I’ll bet you’re asking yourself, how can you even suggest that a film like this will win Best Picture when the initial trailer was nothing better than visual stimulation? Well, there are a couple of reasons. First, the Academy has expanded Best Picture to ten films. This doesn’t guarantee anything other than improved chances for most films on the cusp.

 

Second, after last year’s Oscars debacle, which saw the best film of the year, “The Dark Knight,” not only get shafted in awards but nominations as well, the Academy is pulling out all the stops to appease those with the loudest voices in the film industry, the fanboys. Now, the Academy probably didn’t lose anything because of that other than some viewers of the award show. Perhaps if people are again outraged with the winners or nominees, the heads of the Academy would lose their jobs. So this is all about the Academy protecting itself, which is not so outrageous.  

 

 

Third, there is an economic motive here. I’ve heard this film will cost $190 million, not counting the R&D costs associated with Cameron’s inventions or the cost of getting 3-D cameras into every theater in the country. The Academy will do everything in its power to get people into the seats and make this the next “Titanic” or “The Dark Knight.” But the Academy doesn’t have much power, besides nominating and awarding, so they will slap the “Nominated for Best Picture” moniker onto every commercial and print ad to get the people who didn’t believe the critics to relent and see this movie.

 

Of course, all of this is pure conjecture, and no revolutionary film (Terminator 2, Jurassic Park, etc.) has ever won the Best Picture category because it changed the game. Except maybe Titanic. But still, could this movie actually win? My answer is no but a nomination is certain and who knows what could happen from there. We’ll know more come February 2010.