Jennifer Lawrence, 'Hunger Games,' top winners at MTV Movie Awards

Jennifer Lawrence and Josh Hutcherson took home some of the night's biggest awards. Jennifer Lawrence won best female performance and Josh Hutcherson was voted best male performer.

|
Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP/File
Jennifer Lawrence arrives at the Oscars on March 2, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

"The Hunger Games: Catching Fire" earned the prize for best film at Sunday night's MTV Movie Awards, besting even top Oscar winner "12 Years a Slave."

"Hunger Games" stars also took home some of the night's biggest awards. Jennifer Lawrence won best female performance and Josh Hutcherson was voted best male performer.

Zany categories were also in abundance. Zac Efron earned best shirtless performance, while properly accepting his award, well, shirtless.

Plenty of golden popcorn-shaped prizes were handed out at the 22nd annual MTV Movie Awards, but it was the summer movie teasers — and the stars attached to them — that really had Hollywood excited.

Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone and Jamie Foxx, stars of "The Amazing Spider-Man 2," coming May 2, introduced a brief clip of the film showing Spider-Man (Garfield) and the sparkling blue villain Electro (Foxx) battling in New York's Times Square.

Aaron Taylor-Johnson, the star of "Godzilla," opening May 16, presented Orlando Bloom with the award for best fight for his and Evangeline Lilly's tussle with the Orcs in "The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug."

Ellen Page, one of the stars of the upcoming "X-Men: Days of Future Past," introduced a clip from the film that sees the X-Men joining forces with their younger selves.

In the tease, some X-Men attempt to battle ruthless metal monsters using their special abilities. It's the first appearance for some of the mutants — Blink, Sunspot, Warpath and Bishop.

The MTV Movie Awards have become the ideal platform for the Hollywood studios to promote their summer movies and this year was no exception.

First-look footage from "The Fault in Our Stars," starring Shailene Woodley and Ansel Elgort, showed the beginnings of the onscreen couple's romance in the heartfelt comedy.

Jared Leto presented Mila Kunis with the award for best villain for "Oz the Great and Powerful." ''You just made my 12-year-old self dream come true," said Kunis, looking very pregnant in a short, loose black dress. "And I just realized I'm the only woman nominated and I won."

Receiving this year's trailblazer award was Channing Tatum. The first male to gain the honor after Stone and Emma Watson, Tatum accepted the award from his "Jupiter Ascending" co-star Kunis and his "22 Jump Street" co-star Jonah Hill. Tatum admitted he thought he was being punked when he found out he would get the award.

On-hand to objectify the best male performance nominees were Leslie Mann, Cameron Diaz, Nicki Minaj and Kate Upton. "Matthew McConaugh-heyyy," said Minaj. "I have a pair of bongos you can play." But it was Josh Hutcherson who earned the win.

Jordana Brewster introduced the special tribute to Paul Walker, who died in a car crash last November. "I witnessed the generosity of his heart every day I was with him," she said. "He wanted to make a difference in this world. His charm, wit, spirit and his beautiful smile will live on." Clips from a number of his films and a glimpse of footage of the actor accepting the MTV movie award for breakthrough male performance in 2002 were shown.

"I'm always going to be here for you even when you tell me to go," Vin Diesel said in a video clip. "That's who Paul Walker was."

Mark Wahlberg collected the generation award. "I know what this really means," said Wahlberg, adding that this is the award that signifies "You're done."

"Many people have gotten this award before. Jim Carrey, Adam Sandler, Ben Stiller, Jennifer Aniston...and you know what they all have in common? They're all old. This is the too old to come back award," said Wahlberg. "But it was as great run! I'm a lucky guy to have gone from being incarcerated to having a one-hit rap career to having an underwear modeling career to... I'm about to cry in a minute."

Host Conan O'Brien kicked off the ceremony with a challenge to gain 50 celebrity cameos for his opening segment, a shtick with Will Arnett that merged two categories — best fight and best kiss — and a musical number about hating musical numbers in big awards shows.

Walking out to a track by rapper Rick Ross, O'Brien joked that he was almost injured by the show's flashing pyrotechnics. "Fire, explosions and rap music: all things you associate with Conan O'Brien," he deadpanned.

Earlier in the evening, Amanda Seyfried had trouble reading the teleprompter, blaming it on not wearing her contacts. "So far this is going about as well as the Oscars," said her co-presenter Seth MacFarlane — referencing his 2013 Academy Award hosting gig — before the pair presented Hill with his award for best comedic performance for "The Wolf of Wall Street."

Hill's initial thanks went to all of his friends with whom he used to watch the show back home before making it to the ceremony himself.

In the preshow awards, the prize for best cameo performance went to Rihanna for her appearance in the comedy "This is the End." Later, Rihanna took to the stage with Eminem to perform their hit "The Monster." Performing tacks from the soundtrack of "Divergent," Ellie Goulding sang "Beating Heart," while Zedd took the stage for "Find You."

Best kiss went to Emma Roberts, Jennifer Aniston and Will Poulter.

The MTV awards had some stiff competition from other networks on Sunday night, including the latest installment of HBO's popular "Game of Thrones" and the final season premiere of AMC's "Mad Men."

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Jennifer Lawrence, 'Hunger Games,' top winners at MTV Movie Awards
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/Latest-News-Wires/2014/0414/Jennifer-Lawrence-Hunger-Games-top-winners-at-MTV-Movie-Awards
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe