May 09, 2007

MTV Movie Awards To Get Rocked By Jay-Z, Rihanna, Amy Winehouse

By Larry Carroll (MTV.com)

Pop-culture superstars and newbies alike will come together at the 2007 MTV Movie Awards on June 3, bringing to the big-screen lovefest such big names as Jay-Z, Jessica Alba, Rihanna, Samuel L. Jackson and Amy Winehouse. But that won't be all -- the diverse names are just the first wave of presenters and performers, released Tuesday (May 8) as the buildup continues for Hollywood's most irreverent annual awards show.

Shia LaBeouf, John Travolta, Josh Duhamel, Amanda Bynes and Chris Tucker are also among the high-wattage celebrants host Sarah Silverman will be welcoming to the Movie Awards stage. Undoubtedly, many of the stars will be drooling over the Golden Popcorn trophies they'll hope to snag next year for their own movies -- such highly anticipated summer flicks as Transformers, Rush Hour 3, Hairspray, Knocked Up and Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer will have their major stars in attendance.

But while the Sunday event -- to be broadcast live for the first time ever in the States, at 8pm ET -- might appear to be mad about movies, it wouldn't be an MTV show without a few musical moments to steal the spotlight. Hoping to follow in the footsteps of instantly classic performances like the one Gnarls Barkley gave last year and Eminem and D12 did in 2004, chart-toppers Rihanna and Jay-Z will take the stage together to perform the single "Umbrella" from her upcoming album Good Girl Gone Bad.

Also competing for the most water-cooler-worthy performance will be soulful British singer/songwriter Winehouse, set to play her international hit "Rehab." Winehouse isn't only a record-maker but a record-setter, recently becoming the highest-debuting British female artist in the history of the Billboard albums chart.

But as any movie fan knows, up-and-comers (as well as references to rehab) aren't limited exclusively to the music world. Appropriately, then, the MTV Movie Awards will also boast Seth Rogen and Katherine Heigl, the mismatched couple stuck with a pregnancy in next month's Knocked Up. The buzzed-about flick already has some expecting them to be the big breakout stars of the summer, and it seems only appropriate that they'd swing in to Universal City, California's Gibson Amphitheatre, since Heigl filmed a scene from the flick on last year's awards red carpet.

In addition to the Hairspray high-steppers (Travolta and Bynes), the Transformers titans (LaBeouf and Tyrese Gibson), and the Fantastic Four filmmakers (Ioan Gruffudd, Chris Evans, Michael Chiklis and last year's host, Alba), additional guests include High School Musical heartthrob Zac Efron, Rush Hour 3 funnyman Tucker and another former Movie Awards host in Samuel L. Jackson.

Previously announced nominations for the coveted Golden Popcorn trophy include 300 (leading the charge with five nominations) and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (four nominations). Also aiming to make it a big night are such crowd favorites as Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, Blades of Glory and The Devil Wears Prada, with three nominations each. Also, for the first time ever, MTV will celebrate the user-generated category Best Movie Spoof, in which viewers have the opportunity to submit their own original movie shorts parodying films from the past year via Yahoo! Movies. Finally, another new category called Best Summer Movie You Haven't Seen Yet is sure to spice things up while giving a nod to upcoming blockbusters.

June 3 seemed like it was going to be a big night already -- now, with names like these, it seems likely that the golden popcorn won't be the only thing shining on Sunday night.