Two years ago I wrote that the popularity of the MTV Movie Awards (which airs this evening) “derives from its blatant goof-off attitude and being 100% opposed to the idea of movie theatres as churches. Movies are celebrated instead as things you might watch on your iPhone or iPad while farting and belching during a McDonalds break.”
Forget the communion aspect, the notion that movies at their best are about shared uplift and transportation — a chance for everyone to hold hands and occasionally feel who and what we really are deep down. No awards show is better at expressing glitzy 20something quarter-of-an-inch-deep Eloi values. Tonight Hollywood’s empty Coke bottles will get all trussed up and renew once again their balls-out determination to banalicize an art form. The worst people in the film industry, all gathered together in a single room.