Eminem makes his triumphant return to the stage, before having an awkward encounter with Brüno.
By Gil Kaufman
Taylor Lautner, Kristen Stewart, Kellan Lutz, Cathrine Hardwicke and Robert Pattinson accept the Best Movie award
Photo: Kevin Winter/ Getty Images
It was hard to know who was more jacked up about Sunday night’s (May 31) MTV Movie Awards: Eminem’s supporters or “Twilight” fanatics. Both went home fully satisfied, though, because Slim Shady brought the heat in his first MTV performance in years and “Twilight” ruled the night, picking up five awards during the raucous show, hosted by “Saturday Night Live” funnyman Andy Samberg.
Samberg set the tone early, opening the night from a dingy port-a-potty in Mumbai and diving down into muck while holding up a crumpled snapshot of “Sex in the City” star Sarah Jessica Parker then showing up to partner with none other than Edward Cullen in high school science lab. He was swiftly beamed naked to the Starship Enterprise and ultimately ended up in a limo with pal Justin Timberlake, which was … awkward.
It might have been the only awards show on record where the host began the evening by freestyling a series of audience disses in which he dubbed hottie Megan Fox “ugly” and staged an impromptu intervention for a fellow “SNL” castmate, complete with a Dr. Drew cameo. Oh, and he set up some simple rules early on: It was OK to fart (he was looking at you, Leighton Meester) and no punching (that’s you, Kiefer Sutherland). Otherwise, it was game on.
The night’s first hardware was in the Breakthrough Performance Female category, with “High School Musical 3: Senior Year” star Ashley Tisdale picking up her award while rocking a super-mini gray dress.
“Transformers” star Shia LaBeouf did the honors for Best Fight, which went to Robert Pattinson and Cam Gigandet for their epic battle in “Twilight.” Straining to be heard over the screams of female (and maybe a couple of male) fans, Pattinson admitted, “I should just say that in reality, Cam would have beaten me hands down, so I have to say thank you to my stunt double, who did everything in the fight.”
And then it was time for Eminem to make his long-awaited return to the MTV stage with a high-energy medley of the first two singles from his #1 comeback album, Relapse, which he began by asking the crowd, “You miss me?”
Strolling down the steps surrounded by a brassy New Orleans-style street band, Em bounced and crept across the stage, spitting the rapid-fire smackdown rhymes from “We Made You,” as the lyrics scrolled in huge letters on the DayGlo set. That segued into the slow soul bounce of “Crack a Bottle,” with Em profanely and confidently retaking his mantle as the nimble MC you love to hate. Also performing later in the night were immaculately disheveled Southern family act Kings of Leon, who rocked the stage with their arena-size smoldering hit “Use Somebody.”
Not content to just hand out awards and dis stars in the audience, the show also featured a pulse-pounding look at footage from “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen,” “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” and the sneak everyone was waiting so breathlessly for: “Twilight” sequel “New Moon.”
Samberg kept things moving all night with comedy bits that included a heartland ballad about cool guys in movies who know the importance of not looking backward at explosions, on which he was joined by Neil Diamond (actually Will Ferrell) and J.J. Abrams (”Star Trek”) on synthesizer. Even better was a symphonic medley of his “SNL” digital-short classics “Ji– in My Pants,” “I’m On a Boat” and “Lazy Sunday” by LeAnn Rimes and Chris Isaak, with Academy Award winner Forest Whitaker bringing it all home with an operatic “Di– in a Box.”
Cracking jokes about the manscaping habits of boyfriend Zac Efron, Jonah Hill made Vanessa Hudgens really uncomfortable with his intro to the Breakthrough Performance Male award, which, of course, went to Pattinson. Clearly the man of the night, Pattinson tried to tamp down the squeal factor by admitting, “I don’t know how many more of these awards I can come up for, because I think there’s a little bit coming out of my pants right now.” Well played, Mr. Cullen.
The night also featured an angelic visit from Sacha Baron Cohen’s gay fashionisto Brüno, flying over the crowd in a white gladiator suit with wings and chaps. And, in the second instance of man butt-to-face action of the night, he landed in Eminem’s lap with his exposed rear in the MC’s face. Unlike his Triumph the Insult Comic Dog smackdown from 2002, though, Em kept it relatively cool this time, squirming and growling, “Are you serious. Are you f—ing serious? Get this mother—-er off me.” After Slim Shady’s posse roughed Brüno up a bit, the rapper angrily left the room.
Accepting the award for Best Male Performance for “High School Musical 3: Senior Year,” Efron admitted, “That was really weird,” after Brüno, still dangling above the crowd, announced his win.
Given the nominees, the Best Kiss category was bound to feature man-on-man action, but lo and behold, it was Pattinson once again, waltzing up with co-star Kristen Stewart to accept his third Golden Popcorn statue, spitting out his gum and then waiting patiently with eyes closed as Stewart … dissed him and walked away with the award.
The inaugural Best WTF Moment went to an F-bomb-dropping Amy Poehler for her work in “Baby Mama.” And although she couldn’t be there to accept it, she made sure to thank host Andy Sandwich anyway. Lil Wayne took the opportunity to pump his acting career while presenting the Best Song From a Movie award, which went to Miley Cyrus for “The Climb,” from “Hannah Montana: The Movie,” one of the few “Twilight” upsets of the night.
Well, besides the fake, home-cooked teaser Samberg made for the “New Moon” trailer, featuring Teen Wolf. The host described his clip as a “life lesson,” explaining, “Life isn’t all celebrities and hunky vampires. Sometimes life is slightly less-hunky vampires and Teen Wolves, and that’s OK!”
Ben Stiller was on hand to accept this year’s MTV Generation Award for his work in such iconic films as “Meet the Fockers,” “Tropic Thunder,” “Dodgeball,” “Zoolander” and “There’s Something About Mary,” accepting the honor from Efron, Kiefer Sutherland and Triumph, who, of course, pooped on him, repeatedly calling him a monkey.
“When MTV gave me my first show 18 years ago, I never imaged that someday I’d be up here getting this award,” Stiller said, as Sutherland weepily hugged him, still overcome from his reverence for Stiller’s comedic genius. “It’s every actor’s dream to be honored and have a moment in the spotlight like this.”
Though she was up against such Oscar bait as Angelina Jolie, Kate Winslet, Anne Hathaway and Taraji P. Henson for Best Female Performance, it was “Twilight” time again as Stewart took the prize. “This is really awesome,” she said, paying homage to the series’ author, Stephenie Meyer, and the rabid fans before accidentally dropping the award. The Best Comedic Performance award went to Movie Awards fave Jim Carrey for his work in “Yes Man.” Carrey was so stunned, he lapsed into voice-over as his mind went blank and he fretted about freezing up “in front of my peers, in front of the good-looking kid from ‘Twilight.’ ”
Summoning all his courage, the best he could do was, “There wouldn’t be a swine flu if we treated the pigs better! Thank you.” The Best Villain win went posthumously to the late Heath Ledger for his harrowing work as the Joker in “The Dark Knight.”
And, in the night’s final award, Oscar winner Denzel Washington had the envelope for Best Movie, which pitted “The Dark Knight,” “Slumdog Millionaire,” High School Musical 3: Senior Year” and “Iron Man” against the night’s strongest force, “Twilight.” Director Catherine Hardwicke picked up the gold and thanked the “super-passionate” fans and Meyer as the cast surrounded her and basked in the audience’s love one more time.
If you were as excited as we were about the first “New Moon” trailer on the MTV Movie Awards, show us! Turn on that webcam, tape your reaction and upload it to YouRHere.MTV.com. Tag your upload as “Twilight” so we can find it, then check back here as we post the highlights!
How many trophies did the vampires win? What was the year’s ultimate WTF moment? Check out the winners, fashion and outrageous moments of the 2009 MTV Movie Awards!
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