MTV aired its 22nd annual celebration of movies but unlike its predecessors, most of the categories were filled with Oscar caliber films competing with blockbuster movies like Catching Fire, The Hobbit, and We’re the Millers.
The Conan O’Brien hosted telecast opened with the talk show host attempting a challenging task of getting 50 celebrity cameos for his opening segment. His first accomplishment was Andy Samberg, and continued on with the likes of Taylor Swift, Martin Scorsese, and ended with O’Brien as the fiftieth.
O’Brien continued the start of the show by announcing that he had demanded creative control for this years show, even adding a new category that morphed the Best Fight and Best Kiss categories with a clip of him and Will Arnett dueling it out with only kisses as their weapons.
The first award of the night was handed out by Academy award winner, Lupita Nyong’o, and went into the hands of another Oscar winner, Jared Leto. Leto, who rightfully won for Best Onscreen Performance, continued his knack for addressing issues during his speeches by discussing the ongoing battle against AIDS and the prejudice that lives alongside it.
He continued with, “Love who you want to love, live how you wish to live and never let anyone ever stop you from turning your dreams into your reality.”
Jonah Hill accepted the award for best comedic performance for The Wolf of Wall Street. He first thanked the friend he used to watch the award show with and then moved on to thank his costar Leonardo Dicaprio and his “hero” Martin Scorsese. Hill later returned to the stage to honor his 21 and 22 Jump Street costar Channing Tatum, who was the recipient of this year’s Trailblazer award.
Best Kiss went to Will Poulter, Emma Roberts, and Jennifer Anniston for We’re the Millers. Only Poulter was there to accept the award so MTV’s tradition of having the winners kiss was broken, but Poulter managed to joke that the three were dating and that “dating two women is hard” but he was managing.
Best Male and Female performance accolades got picked up by Catching Fire actors Josh Hutcherson and Jennifer Lawrence, respectively. The movie itself won for Movie of the Year, with actors Hutcherson and Sam Clafin accepting and giving a special honoring to the late Philip Seymour Hoffman, who plays gamemaker Plutarch Heavensbee.
Other awards of the three hour show included Mila Kunis for Best Villain in Oz: The Great ad Powerful and was also the only woman nominated. Zac Efron also pulled a win for Best Shirtless Performance, and he then went on to prove his deserving by having his shirt ripped off by Rita Ora.
Musical entertainment for the night was provided by Eminem and Rihana’s “Monster,” which didn’t disappoint those who love fog machines and the use of flashing red and blue lights. The duo, Twenty One Pilots, performed “Car Radio” among a group of fans who donned face masks, and Ellie Goulding was joined by Zedd for “Bleeding Heart” to close out the night.
Despite a few mistakes, like Amanda Seyfried stuttering out her lines from the teleprompter, O’Brien almost being suffocated by smoke when starting the show, and Channing Tatum humbly accepting his Trailblazer award with white reside from the golden popcorn rubbing onto his jacket, the show still livened up the end of the weekend with sneak peeks of upcoming blockbusters X-Men Days of Future Past and The Amazing Spider-Man 2.
