To print this page, select "Print" from the File menu of your browser salon.com > Arts & Entertainment June 10, 1999 URL: http://www.salon.com/ent/feature/1999/06/10/mtv_awards "Dawson's" freak James Van Der Beek is the unofficial winner of the biggest head award at MTV's not so very irreverent Movie Awards. - - - - - - - - - - - - By Carina Chocano The MTV Movie Awards! So laid-back! So irreverent! So Gen-X! (Oh, wait, no, what is it now, Gen-Y?) Anyway, they spoof big movies! They mock big awards shows! They give out weird-looking trophies in cute categories like best kiss and best villain and best fight! Maybe they should just go all out and drop best movie and best performance in favor of categories like best inconsistent British accent or best agent or best teeth. Matt Dillon, Matt Damon -- lots of good movie teeth in 1998. Puffy the dog in "There's Something About Mary." Geoffrey Rush in "Shakespeare in Love." I don't know, just an idea. It could be the future of awards shows. It could be punk rock. You'll probably see the show, you tell me. I just sat freezing in the press tent, "no party access" boldly emblazoned across my reportorial chest, trying to pay attention to the monitor. That was hard, though. They kept trotting in celebrities and turning off the sound so we could find out what they thought of "Star Wars." Apparently, Hollywood's irreverent up-and-coming talent draws the line at saying anything not-so-nice about George Lucas. Perhaps the most damning review came from Stephen Dorff, co-winner (with Matt Dillon) of the best villain award for his performance in "Blade," who drawled "Yeah, yeah, I liked it, you know, for what it was, you know, I liked it." That took courage, right? For a few harrowing moments just before celebrity arrivals, it seemed only media with stars on their passes were going to be allowed access to the red carpet. The five of us not sporting stars took the news badly, and responded by sulking rather aggressively. Luckily, it was a false alarm. There was plenty of room. The whole evening was kind of quiet, sleepy almost. I secured a prime spot along the barrier where I was flanked by a large group of Taiwanese reporters and a two-man Latin American TV crew. The Taiwanese reporters had a woman on the inside. She periodically ran back to the group to announce the next arrival and disseminate false (but often titillating) information like, "Jennifer Love Wet! I Know Who Did Last Summer!" Reporters lined up across the carpet from the fan stands, where we waited for the procession to commence. PR girls trolled the carpet like dope dealers, muttering, "I've got Sean Hatosy from 'The Faculty'? Sean Hatosy?" and "Kevin Smith? Director of small independent films?" Kevin Smith had no takers, quite possibly due to his honest but ill-advised choice of denim bermuda shorts for evening. A reporter next to me jumped at the chance to pose a breakfast-related question to Sean Hatosy, though. "I like eggs," he confided. The fans were happy to see Rebecca Romijn Stamos, celebrity celebrity greeter, in a fringed leotard. One of the biggest perks of her job must be all the teenage boys lobbing clever getting-to-know-you lines at her, like "Rebecca, I want to shag you!" and "You forgot your pants!" That must be cool. Some other things you may need to know: Puffy the dog looks just as surly in real life. Keri Russell's butt comes to a point, no lie. Katie Holmes (breakthrough performance winner, for "Disturbing Behavior") is reminiscent of a young bassett hound, but is taller than you'd think. James Van Der Beek's head looks like a breadbox. Jackie Chan, in long hair, straw hat and red bandanna, was going for cowboy but stopped just short at Andean busker. Hugh Grant looked concerned. The members of Dru Hill wore suits made out of cow. Catherine Zeta-Jones, who escaped the clutches of her publicist to run back to the stands and high-five her fans, is truly the movie star of the people. Ricky Martin and Jennifer Lopez drew the biggest cheers from the crowd, prompting wild, saliva-incontinent on-camera enthusiasms by the Latin American correspondent -- who was then cruelly snubbed by both. Jackie Chan enjoyed a lengthy exchange with Taiwanese reporters. He said something about Puffy. Then back inside the press tent to watch TV. Courtney Love and Van Der Beek presented the award for best on-screen duo (Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker for "Rush Hour"), and I noted that James' incomparable cranial form was not lost on Courtney either. "My crush on you is consuming me," she giggled, "so you should just present 'cause I'm gonna jump on your head!" Will Smith rode onstage on a horse, where he was joined by Dru Hill and then, oddly, by Stevie Wonder. Obligatory shot of a delighted Jada Pinkett in the audience. Jada's so supportive. Televised displays of marital bliss can be measured in terms of how far forward the spouse sits in his or her seat and swivels, and she did good. Adam Sandler won best comedic performance for "The Waterboy," and gave the second best acceptance speech of the night. I only caught bits of it, as Jackie Chan was, at that moment, singing, "I'm back to the saddle again!" in the tent. Sandler thanked the makers of Paul Masson Chablis for their affordable product, Vivian the hairdresser for teasing his mother's hair into a fabulous bouffant, the Brooklyn Heights pharmacist who recommended lambskin condoms to his father for neglecting to mention their 96 percent reliability factor, the makers of the '65 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme for their spacious backseat and, finally, his parents, for never treating him like a mistake. Another highlight: Jim Carrey accepted the award for best male performance in full long-haired hippie drag ("Would it kill you to play Foghat once in a while?") while smoking a cigarette and punctuating his speech with the chorus from "Let It Flow." He thanked his new biker friends, and "all the young ladies for dressing up so fine. There's a lot of fine-looking pussy in here tonight!" Neither Carrey nor Sandler made it to the tent, though, so that's all we got. But Courtney did, and, still aglow from her recent proximity to the Head, continued her paean to Dawson. "I'm getting written into 'Dawson's Creek!'" she chirped, "I'll be the hot drama teacher!" Later, Van Der Beek laughed at the suggestion. "I've always said Dawson needs an older woman." I've always said Dawson needs an enema. Gwyneth Paltrow and Cameron Diaz, winners of best kiss and best female performance, respectively, were unable to attend and sent their thanks via video. I'm not sure if it was because they were both nominated for both awards and Cameron walked away with the juicier one, but the award for most gracious acceptance speech definitely did not go to Gwynnie, who nasally claimed to be "quite pleased with her big bucket of popcorn." She neglected to thank her daddy, sit up straight or weep. Maybe she'd already seen Cameron's giddy acceptance tape and taken it personally. "This is my first, and I got it not for the best hand job, or best kiss, but for best performance!" We like her better. Rose McGowan, nominated for best villain, was a Gothic princess in a red vintage dress. Unlike many of her coevals, she was the picture of snide-free aplomb, and seemed not at all baffled by all these huddled people asking her questions. Asked by a weary reporter how she felt about her award, she deadpanned, "I didn't win, but I'm glad because a victory over Chucky would have been hollow, for me." And so on. Talent trotted in, reporters asked about their clothes, their hair products, their movie influences. (The latter really stumped Van Der Beek, who managed to mumble "Well ... 'Star Wars,' of course ... and ... uh ..." -- long silence during which you could almost hear the gears grinding to a halt somewhere deep inside his extraordinarily large -- "The Shawshank Redemption!") Someone asked Rachel Leigh Cook about all the films being made about young people. "Oh, that's changing," she said. "You're going to see a lot of films next year about older people -- people going to college, getting their first apartments, stuff like that." Older person Jon Stewart made a funny about his outfit ("I'm wearing relaxed fit jeans from the Gap. Is that still in?") then mercilessly toyed with the sincere queries of an ABC News reporter. ("What was that about? He says he's working on a news show, I ask about the news show. Then he says it's a comedy show. Jon Stewart being flippy, what am I supposed to do with that?" she asked me later. I didn't know.) I was vaguely aware of host Lisa Kudrow doing Lisa Kudrow all night, and I'm not sure I get it. Is she angry? Sick of it all? Fed up with humanity and its foibles? She certainly was scornful of a reporter who asked that she say hello to the fans back in Argentina. After a long, blank, nostrilly stare: "Oh. Hello. To the fans. In Argen-tin-a." Later, as the haggard reporters piled into the shuttle van and began taking out their many frustrations on the poor little nose-ringed driver girl, I tried to make some sense of the tragedy. It wasn't that the show, as far as I as could tell, was boring -- the film spoofs alone were probably worth the time. It's just that a lot of these kids winning awards today, they're so cautious, they're so grown up, they're so blissfully unaware of their built-in obsolescence. And some of them have very large, very square heads. salon.com | June 10, 1999