Justin Timberlake will be Awarded the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award (Lifetime Achievement Award) at the VMAs Sunday

Beyond Stephen Colbert was anyone who is not obsessed with award shows talking about the VMAs happening this Sunday? I did not hear much chatter, but then again I am moving out of target demo for this network.  Then, the announcement, N'Sync would be getting back together to perform on the show.  Then Lance Bass denied, but not technically, that the group would be performing.  Suddenly the  kudos fest is all anyone can talk about, well played MTV.  Leave it to Justin Timberlake and his former band members to help bring excitement to music again.

Not only are these men supposedly reuniting, but Justin Timberlake is receiving the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award, the Lifetime Achievement Award for this award show.  Past winners have included:

1984-David Bowie, The Beatles
1986-Madonna
1987-Peter Gabriel
1988-Michael Jackson
1989-George Michael
1990-Janet Jackson
1991-Bon Jovi (the year the award was renamed from Video Vanguard to its current name)
1992-Guns N' Roses
1993-Tom Petty, The Rolling Stones
1998-LL Cool J
2000 Red Hot Chili Peppers
2001-U2
2003-Duran Duran
2011-Britney Spears

This award was not given out every year, but the artists who have won this lifetime achievement have had an impact on music videos in a tremendous way.  The way award is named after the "King of Pop," Michael Jackson whose Thriller video changed the face of music videos,  and has created a benchmark for greatness.

Over the years as part of N'Sync, or solo Timberlake has created some incredibly memorable music videos.  As a part of N'Sync there were numerous like the dancing puppetry in "Bye Bye Bye" the wonderfully edited "Pop" and even the hilariously cheesy "I Drive Myself Crazy" where they are all in straight jackets.  As a solo artist Just has appeared to move beyond the bubble gum pop, and with videos like for "Cry Me a River" "Sexyback" and this years "Mirror" Timberlake enters the pantheon of great music video artists.  I will now watch Sunday to see this man honored, and hopefully see a fun reunion with his former group mates.

Katy Perry, Rihanna, and Drake Dominate this Year's VMA Nominations

Katy Perry has returned to be a major player at this award show two years in a row, this year with four nominations including Video of the Year for Wide Awake.  Rihanna had 5 nominations, while she was featured in two other videos.  Rihanna was featured in the videos of one of the other major nominees Drake who also 5 nominations.  There is no nominee with more than this, the field is evenly spread this year which highlights a lackluster crop of potential nominees.  Here is a list of all the nominees, and take a look to see some of the videos.

Video of the Year

Katy Perry, "Wide Awake"

Gotye, "Somebody That I Used To Know"

Rihanna, "We Found Love"

Drake feat. Rihanna, "Take Care"

M.I.A., "Bad Girls"

Best New Artist

Fun. feat. Janelle Monae, "We Are Young"

Carly Rae Jepsen, "Call Me Maybe"

Frank Ocean, "Swim Good"

One Direction, "What Makes You Beautiful"

The Wanted, "Glad You Came"

Best Hip-Hop Video

Childish Gambino, "Heartbeat"

Drake feat. Lil Wayne, "HYFR"

Kanye West feat. Pusha T, Big Sean & 2 Chainz, "Mercy"

Watch the Throne, "Paris"

Nicki Minaj feat. 2 Chainz, "Beez in the Trap"

Best Male Video

Justin Bieber, "Boyfriend"

Frank Ocean, "Swim Good"

Drake feat. Rihanna, "Take Care"

Chris Brown, "Turn Up the Music"

Usher, "Climax"

Best Female Video

Rihanna, "We Found Love"

Katy Perry, "Part of Me"

Beyoncé, "Love on Top"

Nicki Minaj, "Starships"

Selena Gomez & The Scene, "Love You Like a Love Song"

Best Pop Video

One Direction, "What Makes You Beautiful"

Fun. feat. Janelle Monae, "We Are Young"

Rihanna, "We Found Love"

Justin Bieber, "Boyfriend"

Maroon 5 feat. Wiz Khalifa, "Payphone"

Best Rock Video

Coldplay, "Paradise"

The Black Keys, "Lonely Boy"

Linkin Park, "BURN IT DOWN"

Jack White, "Sixteen Saltines"

Imagine Dragons, "It's Time"

Best Electronic Dance Music Video

Duck Sauce, "Big Bad Wolf"

Calvin Harris, "Feel So Close"

Skrillex, "First of the Year (Equinox)"

Martin Solveig, "The Night Out"

Avicii, "Le7els"

Best Video With a Message

Demi Lovato, "Skyscraper"

Rise Against, "Ballad of Hollis Brown"

Kelly Clarkson, "Dark Side"

Gym Class Heroes, "The Fighter"

K'Naan feat. Nelly Furtado, "Is Anybody Out There?"

Lil Wayne, "How to Love"

Best Art Direction

Katy Perry, "Wide Awake"

Drake feat. Rihanna, "Take Care"

Lana Del Rey, "Born to Die"

Regina Spektor, "All the Rowboats"

Of Monsters & Men, "Little Talks"

Best Choreography

Chris Brown, "Turn Up the Music"

Rihanna, "Where Have You Been"

Beyoncé, "Countdown"

Avicii, "Le7els"

Jennifer Lopez f/Pitbull, "Dance Again"

Best Cinematography

M.I.A., "Bad Girls"

Adele, "Someone Like You"

Drake feat. Rihanna, "Take Care"

Coldplay feat. Rihanna, "Princess of China"

Lana Del Rey, "Born to Die"

Best Direction

M.I.A., "Bad Girls"

Duck Sauce, "Big Bad Wolf"

Coldplay feat. Rihanna, "Princess of China"

Frank Ocean, "Swim Good"

Watch the Throne, "Otis"

Best Editing

Beyoncé, "Countdown"

A$AP Rocky, "Goldie"

Gotye, "Somebody That I Used to Know"

Watch the Throne, "Paris"

Kanye West feat. Pusha T, Big Sean and 2 Chainz, "Mercy"

Best Visual Effects

Katy Perry, "Wide Awake"

Rihanna, "Where Have You Been"

David Guetta feat. Nicki Minaj, "Turn Me On"

Linkin Park, "BURN IT DOWN"

MTV Movie Awards Add an Academy and Change Some Categories....I predict Twilight will Win Again

MTV is shaking things up at their movie awards this year.  They had one of their largest audiences last year with 4.5 million viewers at what has most recently become in my own words "The Twilight Awards."  Rabid fans have voted online in drones for their darling Bella and Edward in numerous categories.  I understand that this award show is for teens/tweens, but come on ladies get better taste in films.  

MTV has most likely heard a lot of great things from viewers, but they also want this award to mean something.  In the past it appeared that to used to.  While the MTV movie awards was not on the level of the Oscars this show used to be a little more ground breaking, and honored films that were good that fans like but the Oscars forgot about.  Like the network which has develoved this award show has spiraled into a fan girls wet dream, honoring people like Taylor Lautener.

This award show is meant to to be for teens and young adults, but in the past balanced things out with quality films.  Looking at past years nominees for Best Movie will help show the devolution of this award show.

In the shows first year (1992) the nominees were:

Backdraft

Boyz in the Hood

JFK

Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves

Terminator 2: Judgement Day

While these are not five stellar films, this is a great cross section of popular/quality films during 1992.  The first winner is the classic sequel that may be deemed better than the original T2.

Four years later in 1996 the group of nominees to be a solid, they were:

Apollo 13

Braveheart

Clueless

Dangerous Minds

Seven

With two best picture nominees (Apollo 13), and the actual best picture picture winner (Braveheart) this is a great list of nominees.  While Dangerous Minds was not the best it makes sense that it was there during the time.  The winner was Seven.  I am impressed with MTV for honoring this film, when the Oscars wrongly dissed this film.  At this point MTV was almost visionary.

The pattern of quality continued in 2000 with these nominees

American Pie

American Beauty 

Austin Powers: The Spy who Shagged Me

The Matrix 

The Sixth Sense

I will defend Austin Power's nomination because people were high off getting into this series, and the film was pretty funny.  American Pie was the high school movie of my generation.  Like back in 96 there were two Oscar nominated films The Sixth Sense and the Best Picture winner American Beauty.  The winner at this show was The Matrix, which swept the tech categories at the Oscars.  The Matrix was a great film and deserved this honor.

In the era after this the MTV movie awards have rubber stamped series as Best Movie nominees some deserving, some not that were not.  MTV did a good thing honoring The Lord of the Rings Trilogy with three nominations and three wins.  The first film series to be rubber stamped that should not have was the Pirates films (the first film deserved its nomination).  Like with Twilight the girls turned out in drones to honor their boys Johnny Depp, and and Orlando Bloom.  I have to say if I wanted to watch an award show driven by hormones I would tune into the Porn awards, come on ladies.

MTV has noticed this pattern, and has now added an "Academy" (who knows who is it) to change their process. I imagine MTV did not want to have similar nominees to the Razzie awards so they decided to try and shake things up.  I applaud this change. I also recognize I am no longer a teenager, but my hope is that this show speaks to a wide variety of teenagers like it did in the past and honor films like Seven, Boyz in the Hood, and Clueless.  I am worried if Twlight register more with our generation than most films today.  Here's to hoping this change is good, here is a list of the categories that are gone and the new categories for the year.

New Categories for 2012:
Best Music
Best Onscreen Transformation
Best Gut-Wrenching Performance
Best Cast
Best Onscreen Dirt Bag

Retired Categories from 2011:
Best Villain
Best Scared-as-Shit Performance
Best Jaw Dropping Moment
Biggest Badass Star
Best Line From a Movie