MTV Movie Awards Prepares to Celebrate Films I Didn’t Know Anyone Actually Saw

Spring is in the air, and everyone in Hollywood knows what that means. The birds begin chirping, the blockbuster marques line the avenue like fluorescent flowers, and lead actors and actresses aren’t the only ones in mating mode. Oh yes, and out from the sunny haze emerges this year’s MTV Movie Award nominees.

That’s right, on June 1, 2008, the main authority on all things pop-culture-related will unleash its fury on the movie industry. The 17th Annual MTV Movie Awards, which will be hosted by Mike Myers of the upcoming comedic deadweight The Love Guru, sets unlikely stars against each other in categories including Best Movie, Breakthrough Performance, Best Comedic Performance, Best Fight and every wistful teen’s favorite, Best Kiss. This year’s MTV Movie Awards also dons the ceremony’s newest category: Best Summer Movie So Far. (Click here for a full list of the nominees.)

Where else can viewers see Topher Grace and Angelina Jolie go head-to-head with fellow Best Villain nominee Javier Bardem? Hell, what other award show this year will even acknowledge the release of Step Up 2 The Street? Yes, the 17th Annual MTV Movie Awards has a little slice of springtime cheer to serve to even the most undeserving of candidates. And, since the show apparently is what producer Mark Burnett calls “the most relevant movie award show in America today,” isn’t that MTV’s civic duty?

Among the nominees, at least one star definitely shines in a deserving light. Michael Cera, who first captured my attention as George Michael on TV’s Arrested Development, is nominated for a slew of awards including Best Male Performance, Best Kiss and Breakthrough Performance. Cera, who had a resounding year with the Blockbuster smashes Superbad and Juno, is the perfect embodiment of a young actor with a promising future. His post-adolescent charm and onscreen awkwardness is delivered in such a way that even those of us seven years out of high school must sit up, take notice and, yes, even swoon a little. (As a bonus to Cera fans, pal Clark Duke of Cera’s brilliant Internet show, Clark and Michael, makes a brief cameo in Superbad.)

One main category that I’m still trying to wrap my mind around is the baffling Best Summer Movie So Far, in which only one of the five candidate films (Iron Man) has even premiered in theaters. Granted, they will have all begun their presumably long theatrical runs by the time this award show airs; however, most movie goers still will not have had the chance to see all of them. And, since these films have all been nominated without being watched in their complete form, I will choose a winner based on having seen none of them. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls, you win with Speed Racer nipping tightly at your middle-aged heels! Congratulations, Harrison Ford! Please enjoy your second, irrelevant gold trophy shaped like a popcorn bucket!

And Jessica Biel, don’t think I’ve forgotten about you! The actress most notable for dating Justin Timberlake (also of this summer’s The Love Guru), is nominated for her role as a psychiatrist in the wild romp through faux homosexuality, I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry. That’s right; this is the film in which she unintentionally seduces Adam Sandler, who is posing as a man in a gay relationship. According to this clip, the seduction starts innocently enough with Biel stripping down to her underwear in front of Sandler and then asking him to grab her breasts to ensure their sheer silicon-less-ness. Yes, this is a scene in which I am intimately familiar. You see, I live with my gay roommate, Robby, and I cannot get him to stop cupping my breasts! Robby, hands down, I’m trying to write.

So, whatever you’re doing this spring, I don’t really care. I know what I’ll be doing: sitting at my computer, repeatedly voting for Jessica Biel’s best actress nod. Lightning, after all, doesn’t strike twice.

Now if you could just cup my left breast a little more lightly, Robby.

Tags: Jessica Biel, Michael Cera, Movie Awards, MTV, Schadenfreude, The Love Guru