Jmunney's Blog

I can keep my dignity with my predicting powers this year, having gone 7 out of 12.  I really overestimated Magic Mike, and I slightly overestimated J-Law.

Here’s a breakdown:
Best Movie – Winner/My Guess: The Avengers
Male Performance – Winner: Bradley Cooper, My Guess: Channing Tatum
Female Performance – Winner/My Guess: Jennifer Lawrence
Scared-as-S**t Performance – Winner: Suraj Sharma, My Guess: Jennifer Lawrence
Breakthrough Performance – Winner/My Guess: Rebel Wilson
On-Screen Duo – Winner/My Guess: Mark Wahlberg and Seth MacFarlane
Shirtless Performance – Winner: Taylor Lautner, My Guess: Channing Tatum
Best Fight – Winner/My Guess: The Avengers
Best Kiss – Winner/My Guess: Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence
WTF Moment – Winner: Jamie Foxx and Samuel L. Jackson, My Guess: Anna Camp
Best Villain – Winner: Tom Hiddleston, My Guess: Leonardo DiCaprio
Best Musical Moment – Winner/My Guess: Pitch Perfect

The 2013 MTV Movie Awards (airing Sunday, April 14) have the most interesting batch of nominations they have had in at least five years, i.e., the last time Twilight wasn’t up for anything.  Apparently MTV brought in a legit nominating crew that picked movies that the MTV crowd likes and that are also actually pretty good.  I can guarantee – incredibly – that Twilight will not win Best Movie this year.  In fact, Breaking Dawn – Part 2 has only one nomination, and it probably won’t even win that one.  Anyway, here’s me guessing the winners and saying who I think deserves it.

Best Movie
The Avengers
The Dark Knight Rises
Django Unchained
Silver Linings Playbook
Ted
Will Win: The Avengers was the highest grossing movie last year, and the only reason that wouldn’t make it the favorite would be if Twilight were nominated, and it isn’t.
Should Win: Silver Linings Playbook was the third best, and nearly first best, movie of the year.

Male Performance
Ben Affleck, Argo
Bradley Cooper, Silver Linings Playbook
Daniel Day-Lewis, Lincoln
Jamie Foxx, Django Unchained
Channing Tatum, Magic Mike
Will Win: Even guys like Channing Tatum these days.
Should Win: SLP may not be your typical MTV Movie Award movie, but it’s close enough, and Bradley Cooper’s a cool dude.

Female Performance
Anne Hathaway, Les Misérables
Mila Kunis, Ted
Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Linings Playbook
Emma Watson, The Perks of Being a Wallflower
Rebel Wilson, Pitch Perfect
Will and Should Win: Jennifer Lawrence should become the first actress since Julia Roberts (Erin Brockovich) to win the Moonman and the Oscar for the same role.

Scared-as-s**it Performance
Jessica Chastain, Zero Dark Thirty
Alexandra Daddario, Texas Chainsaw 3D
Martin Freeman, The Hobbit
Jennifer Lawrence, House at the End of the Street
Suraj Sharma, Life of Pi
Will Win: Jennifer Lawrence is really popular these days.
Should Win: None of these.  Alex and Jen weren’t in very good movies.  Jessica wasn’t scared in ZDT, and Martin and Suraj weren’t primarily scared in their roles.  They could have nominated Jessica for Mama, an actual horror movie.

Breakthrough Performance
Ezra Miller, The Perks of Being a Wallflower
Eddie Redmayne, Les Misérables
Suraj Sharma, Life of Pi
Quvenzhané Wallis, Beasts of the Southern Wild
Rebel Wilson, Pitch Perfect
Will and Should Win: Rebel Wilson’s hosting the show, let’s not let her down.

On-Screen Duo
Robert Downey, Jr. and Mark Ruffalo, The Avengers
Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis, The Campaign
Leonardo DiCaprio and Samuel L. Jackson, Django Unchained
Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper, Silver Linings Playbook
Mark Wahlberg and Seth MacFarlane, Ted
Will Win: J-Law’s overall popularity might be enough to push her and Bradley to the win, but I think Wahlberg and MacFarlane might have the edge, considering they best fit the traditional definition of a duo.
Should Win: It’s a little off-the-wall, but why not the villainous duo of Leo and Sam Jackson?

Shirtless Performance
Christian Bale, The Dark Knight Rises
Daniel Craig, Skyfall
Taylor Lautner, Twilight: Breaking Dawn – Part 2
Seth MacFarlane, Ted
Channing Tatum, Magic Mike
Will Win: Lots of ladies have seen Channing Tatum shirtless, and it’s mostly ladies who vote for this thing.
Should Win: It wasn’t quite at the level of his shirtless performance in Casino Royale, but Daniel Craig was still torso-and-shoulders above the rest of the field.

Best Fight
Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, and Jeremy Renner vs Tom Hiddleston , The Avengers
Christian Bale vs Tom Hardy, The Dark Knight Rises
JamieFoxx vs Candieland Henchmen, Django Unchained
Daniel Craig vs Ola Rapace, Skyfall
Mark Wahlberg vs Seth MacFarlane, Ted
Will Win: The Ted fight really wants it, but The Avengers fight had Hulk Smash.
Should Win: Hulk no like puny humans not picking The Avengers.

Best Kiss
Kerry Washington and Jamie Foxx, Django Unchained
Kara Hayward and Jared Gilman, Moonrise Kingdom
Emma Watson and Logan Lerman, The Perks of Being a Wallflower
Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper, Silver Linings Playbook
Mila Kunis and Mark Wahlberg, Ted
Will and Should Win: Jen and Bradley‘s movie-capping kiss was the most memorable of the year, and it was beautifully shot.

WTF Moment
Jamie Foxx and Samuel L. Jackson, Django Unchained
Denzel Washington, Flight
Anna Camp, Pitch Perfect
Javier Bardem, Skyfall
Seth MacFarlane, Ted
Will and Should Win: Anna Camp in Pitch Perfect was the only one of these that made me react anything like WTF.

Best Villain
Javier Bardem, Skyfall
Marion Cotillard, The Dark Knight Rises
Leonardo DiCaprio, Django Unchained
Tom Hardy, The Dark Knight Rises
Tom Hiddleston, The Avengers
Will and Should Win: Voting could be all over the place here, which might bode well for Leonardo DiCaprio, seeing as he’s the most popular of the nominees.  Good thing he deserves it.

Best Musical Moment
Anne Hathaway, Les Misérables
Channing Tatum, Matt Bomer, Joe Manganiello, Kevin Nash and Adam Rodriguez, Magic Mike
Emma Watson, Logan Lerman and Ezra Miller, The Perks of Being a Wallflower
Anna Kendrick, Rebel Wilson, Anna Camp, Brittany Snow, Alexis Knapp, Ester Dean and Hana Mae Lee, Pitch Perfect
Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Linings Playbook
Will Win: Could J-Law go for 5-for-5?  She could.  This is the hardest category to call.  I’ll just go with the music-centric movie, so congratulations, ladies of Pitch Perfect.
Should Win: It’s Magic Mike time.

I correctly predicted 8 out of the 13 winners.  My successful categories were Male Performance, Female Performance, Comedic Performance, Music, On-Screen Transformation, Gut-Wrenching Performance, Fight, and Hero.  I was off with Movie (I picked Hunger Games over Twilight), Breakthrough Performance (Melissa McCarthy when it was Shailene Woodley), Kiss (Tatum-McAdams ,but alas, KStew-RPatz), Dirtbag (Bryce Dallas Howard, but then Jennifer Aniston), and Cast (Hunger Games did not beat out Harry Potter).  I guess I let Twilight‘s lack of nominations overall lead me astray.  I’m not sure why I didn’t pick Jennifer Aniston.  Harry Potter over Hunger Games?  Well, I guess the Potterphiles found a way to have at least one win.  I’m a bit confused at Shailene beating Melissa, but since that category wasn’t picked by viewers, I’m not sure what way exactly I should be confused.

I will be live tweeting the MTV Movie Awards this Sunday, June 3, at 9/8 central.  If you want to follow, go @jmunneymalone.

You know you love me.
xoxo,
Jmunney

The 2012 MTV Movie Awards are airing on Sunday, June 3, at 9 PM (8 Central!), and guess what?  Twilight ain’t gonna dominate this year.  It’s simple math: even if it wins every category it’s nominated in, that will result in a grand total of two wins.  So, we’ve got a one-year reprieve from the Twilight awards, as this year the moonmen look to be dominated by the new based-on-a-YA-novel-series in town.  Katniss has taken her aim on the MTV generation, so here is a will win/should win breakdown of the 2012 Hunger Games awards.

Best Movie
Bridesmaids
The Hunger Games
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2
The Help
The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1
Will Win: Don’t let Twilight‘s general lack of nominations fool you – Twihards are still insane, so it may yet still pull out four in a row.  But most signs point to the newer and more unanimously beloved Hunger Games.
Should Win: Bridesmaids was seriously funny, and seriously meaningful.

Best Male Performance
Joseph Gordon-Levitt, 50/50
Ryan Gosling, Drive
Josh Hutcherson, The Hunger Games
Daniel Radcliffe, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
Channing Tatum, The Vow
Will Win: Josh Hutcherson – he was in The Hunger Games.
Should Win: An actor like Ryan Gosling only comes around once – if at all – a generation.

Best Female Performance
Jennifer Lawrence, The Hunger Games
Rooney Mara, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Emma Stone, Crazy, Stupid, Love
Emma Watson, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
Kristen Wiig, Bridesmaids
Will Win: Jennifer Lawrence is more beloved than Kristen Stewart ever was.
Should Win: Kristen Wiig wasn’t afraid to go to unflattering places.

Breakthrough Performance
Elle Fanning, Super 8
Melissa McCarthy, Bridesmaids
Rooney Mara, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Liam Hemsworth, The Hunger Games
Shailene Woodley, The Descendants
Will and Should Win: This category is not determined by viewer voting, so the award may just go to the most deserving nom – Melissa McCarthy, the name we couldn’t stop talking about in 2011, after not talking about her very much in 2010 or before.

Best Comedic Performance
Oliver Cooper, Project X
Zach Galifiankis, The Hangover Part II
Jonah Hill, 21 Jump Street
Melissa McCarthy, Bridesmaids
Kristen Wiig, Bridesmaids
Will and Should Win: MTV voters may or may not recognize Melissa McCarthy as the breakout act that she was, but I’m pretty sure they will recognize how funny she was.

Best Music
“Party Rock Anthem” by LMFAO, 21 Jump St
“A Real Hero” by College with Electric Youth, Drive
“The Devil is in the Details” by The Chemical Brothers, Hanna
“IMpossible” by Figurine, Like Crazy
“Pursuit of Happiness” by Kid Cudi (Steve Aoki remix), Project X
Will Win: “Party Rock Anthem” wins by default, as the most popular of these songs, in the most popular of the movies in this category, despite not being featured very prominently.
Should Win: “A Real Hero” – the synth-heavy, atmospheric soundtrack was the best part of Drive.

Best On-Screen Transformation
Elizabeth Banks, The Hunger Games
Johnny Depp, 21 Jump Street
Colin Farrell, Horrible Bosses
Rooney Mara, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Michelle Williams, My Week with Marilyn
Will and Should Win: Elizabeth Banks was hardly recognizable – and she was in The Hunger Games.

Best Gut-Wrenching Performance
Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph, Rose Byrne, Melissa McCarthy, Wendi McLendon-Covey, and Ellie Kemper, Bridesmaids
Ryan Gosling, Drive
Tom Cruise, Mission Impossible – Ghost Protocol
Bryce Dallas Howard, The Help
Jonah Hill and Rob Riggle, 21 Jump Street
Will and Should Win: If voters saw Bridesmaids, that moment was etched upon their memories forever.

Best Kiss
Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone, Crazy, Stupid, Love
Emma Watson and Rupert Grint, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
Jennifer Lawrence and Josh Hutcherson, The Hunger Games
Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1
Channing Tatum and Rachel McAdams, The Vow
Will Win: In any other year, Gosling-Stone would be the easy favorite.  The long-awaited Watson-Grint kiss can’t be counted out either.  Lawrence-Hutcherson must be considered because it’s The Hunger Games and all.  But, of course, RPatz-KStew have won the last three years running.  But I’m going to go a bit out on a limb and say that Tatum-McAdams may pull this one off, having kissed in the love story to end all love stories.
Should Win: Gosling and Stone were very cute together.

Best Fight
Daniel Radcliffe vs. Ralph Fiennes, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2
Jennifer Lawrence and Josh Hutcherson vs. Alexander Ludwig, The Hunger Games
Tom Cruise vs. Michael Nyqvist, Mission Impossible – Ghost Protocol
Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill vs. the Kid Gang, 21 Jump Street
Joel Edgerton vs. Tom Hardy, Warrior
Will Win: The ultimate Harry Potter-Voldemort showdown may have a chance, as I’m not sure The Hunger Games will dominate completely, but let’s stick with the final tributes.
Should Win: You usually don’t feel for both combatants in fighting movies the way you did for Joel Edgerton and Tom Hardy.

Best Cast
Bridesmaids
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2
The Help
The Hunger Games
21 Jump Street
Will Win: No way this doesn’t go to The Hunger Games.
Should Win: 2011 was the year of the woman, and Bridesmaids was no small contributor.

Best On-Screen Dirt Bag
Jennifer Aniston, Horrible Bosses
Oliver Cooper, Project X
Colin Farrell, Horrible Bosses
Jon Hamm, Bridesmaids
Bryce Dallas Howard, The Help
Will Win: Anna Kendrick won Breakthrough Performance a couple years back for Up in the Air, but it was really essentially for Twilight.  Bryce Dallas Howard might benefit from Twihards, but she may have been good enough on her own anyway.
Should Win: Considering the context, Colin Farrell was unbelievably psychotic, and also entertaining.

Best Hero
Chris Evans, Captain America: The First Avenger
Chris Hemsworth, Thor
Jonah Hill, 21 Jump St.
Jennifer Lawrence, The Hunger Games
Daniel Radcliffe, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
Will Win: Voting in this category is done by tweeting.  I can’t tell you how that will affect the results, but I can tell you that Harry Potter currently has nearly twice as many votes as Katniss.
Should Win: Captain America, Thor, Katniss Everdeen, and Harry Potter are all iconic; Jenko – not so much. Chris Hemsworth as Thor gets my vote for being perfect for that role, while the others weren’t quite perfect.

The 2011 MTV Movie Awards are happening this upcoming Sunday, June 5th.  (Jason Sudeikis is the host – he can be funny.)  For those of you who haven’t watched the Golden Popcorn-fest in about ten years, you haven’t missed much.  It isn’t quite as cool as it used it to be in the nineties, back when Jim Carrey dressed as a Foghat-obsessed biker and the film parodies were actually clever and not just filled with as many references as possible.  (Remember Armagedd’N Sync?)  But now, thanks to the fact that people can vote as many times as they want, and considering that teenage girls are the only ones inclined to take seriously MTV awards shows and the only ones inclined to vote 100 times a day, the Movie Awards have been commandeered by the Twilight crowd.  The first two Twilight films won Best Movie the past two years, and odds are that Eclipse will make it three in a row.  Chances are also that it will win every other category in which it is nominated, as the only category in which it was nominated the last two years that it did not also win was Best Song 2 years ago (“The Climb” from Hannah Montana beat out Paramore’s “Decode” – the one instance in which Twilight actually deserved to win).  Here are the categories in which Eclipse has at least one nomination, listed in order from safest bet for Twilight to best chance that something else may actually win:

(For those of you despairing over the current all-Twilight, all the time nature of the show, remember that the Lord of the Rings trilogy won Best Movie three years in a row at the beginning of the century.)

Best Movie
If 2 of the 3 highest grossing (domestic) movies of all time (The Dark Knight, Avatar) couldn’t beat Twilight, then what chance is there for Inception, merely the 41st-highest grossing (domestic) earner of all time?

Best Male Performance
Four of the nominees are the same as last year.  So we can bank on R Pattz finishing ahead of Taylor, Dan Rad, and Zac again.  So is there anyone out there who thinks that Jesse Eisenberg is so much bigger than Channing Tatum in the eyes of the MTV crowd that he can close the gap on R Pattz?  Anyone?

Breakthrough Performance
Robert Pattinson won here two years, before he was allowed to be nominated in the Male Performance category.  Last year Anna Kendrick won forUp in the Air, but as she is also in the Twilight movies, that was essentially a proxy vote for Twilight.  Xavier Samuel has broken through the least of all of this year’s nominees, but he is also the only one from Twilight, and nobody else really sticks out.  Olivia Wilde could win if teenage and twentysomething men were voting, but that group generally doesn’t vote.  I am 23, and I did vote, but I didn’t vote for her.  Chloë Grace Moretz is deserving and was in a role that is MTV-friendly.  And young girls have won the Golden Popcorn in the past (Daveigh Chase for The Ring, Anna Chlumsky for My Girl), but they weren’t up against Twilight.

Best Female Performance
I find it slightly funny that Kristen Stewart has been winning this award lately because I think that Twihards are  more fans of Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner than they are of a girl that some of them are probably jealous of.  But who else are they going to vote for, I guess.  Could they vote for Natalie Portman, though?  She’s won every other award, but that doesn’t really mean anything when it comes to MTV.  (Just for the sake of pointing it out, Tom Hanks, in Philadelphia, is the only person to ever win an Oscar and an MTV Best Male or Female Performance Award for the same role.)

Best Kiss
Thanks to its unapologetically indulgent romance, this should be the the premiere category for Twilight.  So why do I not have this ranked as the safest bet for Eclipse?  Because of the buzzworthiness of its deserving competitor: Natalie and Mila in Black Swan.  MTV voters have a history of awarding same-sex kisses – same-sex kisses that are not merely sensationalistic but that actually have a purpose in the context of the movie.  It’s been four years since the last same-sex winner (Will Ferrell and Sacha Baron Cohen in Talladega Nights) and eleven years since the last girl-on-girl winner (Sarah Michelle Gellar and Selma Blair in Cruel Intentions, not including the three-way winner of Owen Wilson, Amy Smart, and Carmen Electra in Starsky & Hutch).  Since Eclipse is doubly nominated, there could be vote splitting, or Twihards may just vote for both.  But keep in mind that guys won’t be the only ones voting for Black Swan, as the attendance for that ballet pic was driven primarily by women, so ladies slightly older than the Twihard crowd may go the taboo route.

Best Fight
Twilight won here two years ago and then took off last year.  Its primary competition this year is Joseph Gordon-Levitt and the subconscious security’s hotel dance in Inception.  Twilight has already shot down a Christopher Nolan-directed fight (Batman vs. the Joker in The Dark Knight), but this Nolan-directed sequence may just have been the best movie scene of last year.  Again, that may not be enough to overcome the overwhelming nature of Twilight fandom, but awesome action does matter to the MTV crowd, as demonstrated by The Matrix dominating the 2000 MTV Awards.

And believe it or not, there are categories without any Twilight nominees.  Here’s how those might shake down:

Best Villain
Tom Felton won for Harry Potter last year, and he’s the favorite to win again, even though he’s not the primary villain and he only appeared in about ten minutes of this chapter.  Based on the fact that Tom was nominated over Ralph Fiennes, the older nominees (Christoph Waltz, Mickey Rourke, and Ned Beatty) may be too far out of the age bracket, but Leighton Meester may have a chance for an upset.

Best Comedic Performance
Easy A was the only one of the movies represented in this category that was a significant hit relative to expectations, so Emma Stone may just be the first ever female comedic winner.

Best Scared-As-S**t Performance
Inception is the only movie here that was actually a hit, but Ellen Page’s wasn’t exactly a primarily “scared” role.  So this will probably go to someone teenager-y like Minka Kelly in The Roommate (unless it goes to someone exorcism-y like Ashley Bell in The Last Exorcism).

Best Jaw Dropping Moment
There is nothing that stands out this year like a naked Ken Jeong last year.  So, inappropriately enough, this will probably go to Justin Bieber for the same reason that Twilight will win every other category.

Biggest Badass Star
I’m assuming that enough voters will agree that Alex Pettyfer has no business being in this category.  And Joseph Gordon-Levitt is not primarily thought of as a badass.  Though Chloë Grace Moretz may have a chance (I’m pulling for her – I mean, badass/Kick-Ass – hello!), this will likely come down to a battle between the star wattage of Smith vs. Downey.  MTV voters have a knack for rewarding sequel performances when they should have awarded – if anything – the initial chapter’s performance (Neve Campbell in Scream 2, Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible II), so Robert Downey, Jr. is the one to beat.

Best Line from a Movie
I appreciate that Tom Hardy’s quip from Inception was nominated, but it is probably too cheeky for the MTV crowd.  This being a new category, I can’t say for sure how I see it shaking down, but I think – I hope – that the winner will have come from the pen of Aaron Sorkin, and this being MTV, I give the edge to Justin Timberlake (along with Andrew Garfield).

Some of you may have seen an accidental preview of my post on the 2011 MTV Movie Awards, which I inadvertently published when I meant to merely save the draft.  You may have noticed that it looked a tad incomplete.  The finished version will be up soon.