MTV Movie Awards

Oh the MTV Movie Awards, were art thou ever cool?  I seem to remember back in my youth they were kind of neat, even a tad bit relevant in sorting out prizes in pop culture deemed too risque or cool or hip for the old-hat Academy.  Well, years of pandering to the Twilight crowd, and shilling endless airtime to the next wannabe blockbuster and the infuriating "the movies you've seen" plea made in the ubiquitous advertisements have all kind of killed that I assume.  The strangeness comes in the winners-- a scattered checklist of "hip" things.  Marvel's The Avengers was king (not a surprise for the biggest box office champ of last year), but Silver Linings Playbook cleaned up too, an odd fit...no?

MOVIE OF THE YEAR: Marvel's The Avengers
BEST MALE PERFORMANCE: Bradley Cooper, Silver Linings Playbook
BEST FEMALE PERFORMANCE: Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Linings Playbook
BREAKTHROUGH PERFORMANCE: Rebel Wilson, Pitch Perfect 
BEST ON-SCREEN DUO: Mark Wahlberg & Seth MacFarlane, Ted
BEST SCARED AS S**T PERFORMANCE: Suraj Sharma, Life of Pi
BEST SHIRTLESS PERFORMANCE: Taylor Lautner, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2
BEST KISS: Bradley Cooper & Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Linings Playbook
BEST FIGHT: The Avengers vs. Loki, Marvel's The Avengers
BEST VILLAIN: Tom Hiddleston, Marvel's The Avengers
BEST MUSICAL MOMENT: Pitch Perfect- The Bellas
BEST HERO: Bilbo Baggins, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
BEST WTF MOMENT: Django Unchained- Jamie Foxx & Samuel L. Jackson
--In an excruciating sequence, Foxx's Django blasts servile head-servant Stephen, played by Jackson, and sets the Candieland mansion ablaze with the strike of a match

GENERATION AWARD: Jamie Foxx
TRAILBLAZER AWARD: Emma Watson
COMEDIC GENIUS: Will Ferrell

A tip of the hat to the Best Shirtless Performance winner in Taylor Lautner, who showed up on the stage with a padded belly exclaiming that his recent legality has produced a lot of drinking, and that this award was his Oscar.  Totally staged, and the line readings were a bit flat, but the first sign of a sense of humor in the young actor makes this speech his single best performance to date.  Surprising that this was the only win of the night for The Twilight Saga's swan song.  Stranger so was that he managed to beat stiff shirtless competition from the likes of Channing Tatum and Daniel Craig.  Seriously, how could one have resisted the beefcake display of Magic Mike?!?!?

Opening This Week

The big draw this coming weekend is Moneyball, starring Brad Pitt, Jonah Hill and Philip Seymour Hoffman.  It was directed by Bennett Miller, his second feature as his Oscar-nominated Capote (2005), and written by screenwriting demigods Steven Zailian and Aaron Sorkin.  The film, based on the book of the same name by Michael Lewis, tells the true tale of how the underdog Oakland "A"s reinvigorated the sport of baseball.  The film received nice notices upon it's debut at the Toronto Film Festival, and looks primed as a possible Oscar contender-- much of the praise has been pointed at Pitt, who is having quite the great, auteur-driven year (Terrance Malick's The Tree of Life might still have some awards fate left in it), but also and more surprisingly Jonah Hill has been signaled out, which is jarring-- I personally, may not be quite ready for Oscar-nominated Jonah Hill; and I pride myself on being progressive.  The film has a checked history, for Steven Soderbergh tried valiantly for year to get the movie made and it never happened for a number of the old Hollywood reasons-- I'm thinking dollar signs.  But so far, things point out this one might be a good one.  A baseball movie that's about all about math; sounds spectacular!

Also opening:

• Abduction- Trying to position itself as a tweener Bourne Identity, Taylor Lautner breaks out of Team Jacob (perhaps not expressively-- the 0% current rating on Rotten Tomatoes is telling) for John Singleton's teen thriller that inexplicably co-stars Maria Bello and Sigourney Weaver.
• Dolphin Tale- Family tale involving an injured dolphin-- I'm not going anywhere near this.  I'm totally okay with cinematic mayhem taken out on people, but not animals...sad face.
• Killer Elite- Action thriller headlined by Jason Statham, Robert De Niro and Clive Owen...
• Machine Gun Preacher- Gerard Butler stars in this true story of badass who helps Sudanese children in Marc Forster's latest drama (in limited release.)
• Puncture- Captain America stars as a troubled lawyer (in limited release.)
• Weekend- Festival favorite from Britain about a short term relationship between two gay men that's earning terrific reviews (in limited release.)