Smoke but no fire at MTV movie awards
UNIVERSAL CITY, Calif. -- There was smoke -- but no mention of fire -- at the MTV Movie Awards on Sunday night.
Presenters Seth Rogan and James Franco, stars of the upcoming stoner comedy "Pineapple Express," pretended to smoke marijuana -- were they really pretending? -- before presenting the new category of best summer movie so far. But there was no mention of a disastrous fire that ripped through the adjacent Universal Studios lot earlier in the day.
"Kids, don't really smoke fake weed like this," Rogan told the crowd at the Gibson Amphitheatre, affecting a degree of sarcasm to suggest that the only fake thing was the idea that it was fake. The awkward moment made some in the audience laugh, but left the award's acceptor -- "Iron Man" star Robert Downey Jr. -- with a puzzled look.
The MTV Movie Awards format allowed viewers to vote online for categories such as best kiss and best villain.
This year, presenters were threatened to keep their speeches short by a man resembling Javier Bardem's character from "No Country for Old Men" -- complete with the bob hairdo and pneumatic cattle gun. Best female performance winner Ellen Paige from "Juno" escaped unscathed but best fight winners Sean Faris and Cam Gigandet were ushered off stage by the menacing lookalike.
Host Mike Myers kicked off the live ceremony with a dance-off between singer Chris Brown at the Gibson Amphitheatre. Toward the middle of the show, he was joined by Dana Carvey for a reprisal of their early '90s TV and movie characters Wayne and Garth of "Wayne's World."
Best comedic performance went to Johnny Depp, who was on hand to accept the award, getting the biggest screams of the night from the audience as he accepted (with fellow nominee Rogan shaking his fist in jest as he stepped up to the microphone during the long ovation.
"I'm not a very funny person," Depp said. "That's very sweet."
During the ceremony, Adam Sandler was set to receive the Generation Award, the show's highest honor. Coldplay performed its new single, and the Pussycat Dolls were also scheduled to perform.
Nominees for best movie included "Juno," ''Transformers," ''Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End," ''I Am Legend," ''National Treasure: Book of Secrets" and "Superbad," which led the pack this year with five nominations.
Smoke from the Universal Studios fire, which broke out early Sunday and damaged several sets only a couple of hundred yards downhill from the awards show venue, was still visible from backstage.