The Point Game: MTV Movie Awards Edition

Here’s a riddle for you: When is an awards show not an awards show?
Answer: When it’s the MTV Movie Awards.

Last night MTV televised its 15th annual Movie Awards. I say televised because the actual show was taped last Sunday night. This means you could find out about the winners days before the broadcast. What other awards show would get away with that? The truth is no one cares about the actual awards. The winners are informed ahead of time that they’ve won a Golden Popcorn just to ensure they attend. Like its sister show, the MTV Video Music Awards, this event is about celebrity gawking, over the top musical performances, and a bunch of, hopefully funny, skits and sketches. The VMAs still cling to some awards show legitimacy by placing some value on the actual awards but the Movie Awards throw it all out the window and you know what, that’s just fine by me. Every year these “awards’ are entertaining, so in honor of the show, here’s the Point Game: MTV Movie Awards edition. (In case you missed the show, don’t worry I’m guessing it’s on at least 3 times this weekend.)

+3: The Categories. One of the fun things about the show are the categories. If you suspend the belief that this is a true awards show then you can enjoy things like Best Kiss, Best Hero, and Best Onscreen Team. Plus the Movie Awards are the rare occasion where men and women regularly compete against each other.

+4: Gnarls Barkley, AFI, and X-tina: As per usual MTV provided us with a cornucopia of musical acts that were all solid. Barkley stole the show for me though with their Star Wars themed performance.

-6: Jimmy Fallon and Andy Dick. Does MTV have a lifetime contract with these guys? Seriously enough is enough. The DaVinci Code sketch was overwritten and unfunny except for the ending which was salvaged by the incomparable Gary Cole.

+1: Jessica Alba. Who would have guessed she had the balls to pull this off? She was trapped in some pretty bad sketches such as the one mentioned above and still managed to show some great comic chops. Her actual standing and talking abilities could use a little polish though.

-4: For the lack of celebrity supercouples. No Vaughniston. No Brangelina. No Bennifer Version 2.0. Not even an appearance from Filliam H Muffman.

-2: Christian Bale. Apparently no one told the Dark Knight which award show he was at, as he proceeded with an acceptance speech that would be more at home on Oscar night.

+2: Steve Carrell for his acceptance speech. I don’t know if his intoxicating wife Nancy wrote this one like she did the Golden Globes, but we must continue giving Carrell awards if only to hear the speeches.

-3: Will Ferrell. His Ricky Bobby act was not up to par last night and actually soured me a little on the movie. It didn’t help that the camera cut to him every 30 seconds.

+3: Will Ferrell. Once Will got out of costume to introduce Jim Carey for some kind of lifetime achievement award, we got the Will we know and love as he proceeded to give a venomous intro to Carey.

+ 32: Sam Jackson. Speaking of venom, how about the love that Sam has for his film Snakes on a Plane? Note only was he sporting a sweet SoaP shirt but the man genuinely seems pumped about the flick. I’m looking forward to a SoaP sweep at next year’s show.