MOVIES | IN THEATERS NOW

OMG… IT’S THE MTV MOVIE AWARDS!

By ALI NADERZAD- This Sunday is a very important day in the life of the thriving though ephemeral pop culture. MTV is hosting its Movie Awards. Noone asked them to, but they will, and we must watch because if nothing else, we get to see which new award name they will come up with, like “Best Summer Movie So Far” or “Best on-screen kiss.” In all fairness, however, there is an MTV generation out there and this type of show is better geared towards them than the Academy Awards. It also does something that we at SCREEN COMMENT hold as very important: it helps the movie industry reconnect with its target audience, which as it were is getting younger and younger, and boost theatrical and VoD sales. The MTV Movie Awards help create a movie buzz, so that Summer tent poles can smash last year’s numbers. So although I may have sounded in jest a little at first, there’s some serious work being accomplished here. Just yesterday, I was walking through Chinatown and at every street corner there were older Asian ladies with armloads of bootleg DVDs ready to be had at bargain prices. I wished I could have bought the lot and burnt them in my NYC kitchen sink (obviously, a failing proposition, my Porto Rican super would have been up in my face in a heartbeat and then I would have had to hand over hush money. Boy, the more I think about this little daydream, the more expensive it’s getting. Basta). People who follow the movie industry know that producers and investors are making movies with a young target audience in mind. That helps to explain why a movie like Twilight was so huge and why male lead Robert Pattinson shot to the top of the charts. He is handsome, yes, and a great vampire. But he’s an adequate actor, and to fresh-faced teenaged girls, I guess that’s mostly OK. When MTV hosts their big Barnum & Bailey of a show on Sunday, one of the most-awaited sequence will be an on-screen kiss with Pattinson. All the films up for awards are now familiar to most ears and eyes: the Dark Knight, Iron Man and, Slum…. yes, Slumdog Millionaire! Every year the host will give what’s billed as a ‘breakthrough performance’ and usually, it’s someone with at least one movie to their credit. Adam Samberg (pictured), who owes his celebrity to Youtube, will be hosting this year’s awards. He has no movies to his credits but his regular sketches on Saturday Night Live and youtube videos like the funny “I’m on a boat” are sure to make Bamberg a big draw on Sunday.