Confessions From A MTV Movie Awards Seatfiller

It’s one thing to watch an award show from home. But it’s a completely different experience when you are an audience member.

Such was the case for me at Sunday’s 2011 MTV Movie Awards, held at the Gibson Amphitheater in Los Angeles, where I was chosen to be a designated “seatfiller” for the show.

As I was seated up above in the balcony with a view of every stage angle — I could see everything. When you are in the actual venue of a live awards show, I found some feelings and events happen that just don’t fully appear on the screen at home.

From the beginning, “Saturday Night Live” star Jason Sudeikis came out vulgar and snarky, bringing plenty of laughs and surprising jokes as host. Evident from the thunderous applause, the audience loved his reference to MTV actually standing for music television before the onset of reality shows such as “16 and Pregnant.” They also enjoyed the joke regarding Justin Timberlake and Britney Spears’ teenage relationship. “I wish I had your confidence,” Sudeikis told Timberlake. “I probably would if I slept with Britney Spears when I was 16.” What didn’t go over so well? The frequent Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver comments. The audience was clearly team Shriver as Sudeikis tried to get laughs from the couple’s recent drama, but instead got near silence.

The repeated musical elements that appeared early on during the awards show seemed a bit out of place. Nobody was expecting Justin Bieber to be at the show. He wasn’t with girlfriend Selena Gomez. He didn’t Tweet that he was on his way. However, when Bieber suddenly appeared on stage to accept his award for Best Jaw-Dropping Moment in his 3-D Movie “Never Say Never,” the Beliebers in the crowd were actually not their usual uncontrollable, OMG selves. When the clips from the latest “Harry Potter,” “Twilight” and “Transformers” movies appeared on-screen, however, the crowd instantly went crazy.

In addition, when The Foo Fighters and Lupe Fiasco with Trey Songz performed, the audience excitement seemed to disappear after the initial 10 rows – which were all filled by casted audience members like me. It appeared that the Movie Awards had a primary audience filled with movie lovers wanting to see the hottest big screen stars. Perhaps the musical acts and guests would be better reserved for the upcoming Video Music Awards.

For those curious, the big moment of Robert Pattinson running to kiss co-star Taylor Lautner, who was seated next to Chelsea Hander, was as surprising to us as it was to viewers at home. From my angle, it wasn’t really clear if he kissed Lautner at all. Obviously, as we’ve all seen from photos, he very much kissed his co-star!

When it was time for Reese Witherspoon to accept this year’s MTV Generation Award, Pattinson was one of three stars to give a short, heartfelt speech about the actress. After Patrick Dempsey’s seemingly genuine remarks, Pattinson didn’t know what to say, where to look, or what to read. He then had to pull out a script he wrote before the show. To me, it was extremely awkward and you didn’t know if he was actually serious. For such an important award (at least, in MTV standards) and as a former co-star of Witherspoon’s (in “Water for Elephants”), the fact that Pattinson appeared so unprepared was disappointing. Thank goodness Witherspoon had some funny facial expressions and a good sense of humor during Pattinson’s speech. If not, those moments could have really made the “Twilight” leading man look bad in my eyes.

To end the night, recent “Celebrity Apprentice” star Gary Busey arrived to announce the award for Best Movie. Many young audience members had no idea who he was and many more didn’t understand his humor. Nonetheless, the cast and crew of “The Twilight Saga: Eclipse” took home the top prize. Many wondered what credentials Busey possessed for delivering the last award of the night for Best Movie? You figure that out and let me know as I try and figure out how “Eclipse” took home Best Movie and all the other awards at this crazy, unpredictable awards show.