Why we don't love the MTV Movie Award nominations

With the Oscars behind us, you may have assumed that the film awards season was over and done. You'd be wrong.

The MTV Movie Awards, which will air April 12 with host Amy Schumer, announced their full list of nominees Wednesday. Unlike the more prestigious ceremonies, MTV's version of the Academy Awards features not just categories like movie of the year and best female and male performances, but also "best shirtless performance," "best scared-as-(expletive) performance" and "best fight," naturally.

OK, so, stipulated: These are totally ridiculous categories. And yet even operating under the MTV worldview, some of these Golden Popcorn nominees are completely bizarre.

• Best shirtless performance: Ansel Elgort, "The Fault in Our Stars"; Channing Tatum, "Foxcatcher"; Chris Pratt, "Guardians of the Galaxy"; Kate Upton, "The Other Woman"; Zac Efron, "Neighbors"

While it's no surprise to see Efron on the list (he won last year for his pectoral performance in "That Awkward Moment" and stripped onstage while accepting), Channing Tatum's inclusion is just absurd. No one is denying Tatum's rock-hard abs - shown so beautifully in "Magic Mike" and "Step Up" - but to include him for "Foxcatcher," a based-on-a-true-story psychological drama about a murderous billionaire seems wrong. Sure, Tatum is often shirtless in the film, but he plays a wrestler! To put a sexual spin on it seems to ignore the subject matterl altogether. (And while we're at, referring to Kate Upton's turn in "The Other Woman" as "shirtless" is misleading. She wears a bikini in one scene and is fully clothed in every other. Way to give millions of fans false hope, MTV.)

• Best on-screen transformation: Eddie Redmayne, "The Theory of Everything"; Elizabeth Banks, "The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1"; Steve Carell, "Foxcatcher"; Zoe Saldana, "Guardians of the Galaxy"; Ellar Coltrane, "Boyhood"

An actor evoking a crippling disease, another undergoing an extraordinary makeunder, one wearing a prosthetic nose, another in green skin - these are all legitimate transformations, thanks to wonderful performances, talented make-up artists and special-effects crews. But the transformation in "Boyhood"? That's called "puberty." While Ellar Coltrane certainly changed over the 12 years it took to film the movie, there wasn't a lot of heavy lifting involved in the transformation part. It just happened.

• Best scared-as-(expletive) performance: Annabelle Wallis, "Annabelle"; Dylan O'Brien, "The Maze Runner"; Jennifer Lopez, "The Boy Next Door"; Rosamund Pike, "Gone Girl"; Zach Gilford, "The Purge: Anarchy"

Starring in a scary movie requires an arsenal of alarmed gasps and widened eyes, attributes that don't even scrape the surface of Rosamund Pike's performance in "Gone Girl." Her nomination for the "best villian" category is much more fitting. The scene MTV used as their basis for the nod - when character Amy is essentially mugged and attacked for her money - shows the character's scrappy side, if anything; at no point does she seem all that scared. She's mostly annoyed. Spoiler alert: It's hard to make anyone feel empathy for a cold-blooded murderer and manipulator. She's scary enough on her own.

• Breakthrough performance: Ansel Elgort, "The Fault in Our Stars"; David Oyelowo, "Selma"; Dylan O'Brien, "The Maze Runner"; Ellar Coltrane, "Boyhood"; Rosamund Pike, "Gone Girl"

Listen, just because you haven't heard of someone doesn't mean no one else has. Oyelowo has been a working actor since 1998, and though you may not remember his films from that time, he has been in "Rise of The Planet of The Apes," "Red Tails," "The Paperboy," "Lincoln," "Lee Daniels' The Butler," "A Most Violent Year" and "Interstellar" - and that's just since 2011. As for Rosamund Pike? She was a Bond girl, for goodness sake. Can you really refer to a vixen from 2002 s "Die Another Day" as a new entity in 2014? (Coincidentally, Pike and Oyelowo were both in 2012's "Jack Reacher." That movie wasn't so great for Tom Cruise, but clearly it launched a "breakthrough.")