Transformers Best Movie at MTV Movie Awards

Transformers went 1 for 3 at the MTV Movie Awards tonight. The award it walked away with was for "Best Movie" which Michael Bay accepted remarking about shooting for the sequel staring tomorrow. Megan Fox was also there looking hot as normal but not saying anything beyond presenting an award earlier.

Transformers Win Video
Megan Fox Presents Best Kiss Video

Thanks to Jason for the heads-up on the video being online. I tried embed the videos from MTV's code but it didn't work. Not surprised considering how complicated it was compared to normal embed code (like 4x as much).

The show itself was pretty good with a brief return of "Wayne's World" and a hilarious "viral video" promoting Tropic Thunder. Hopefully they will be on YouTube soon.

So for the Transformers nominated categories the winners were:

Best Male Performance - Will Smith (for I Am Legend)
Best Breakthrough Performance - Zack Ephron (for Hairspray)
Best Movie - Transformers

Megan Fox Wins Spike TV Award

What do you know, turns out that Spike TV has a "Guys Choice Award." Who knew? The show was filmed today and Megan Fox won for Next Big Thing (I think). The actual show will air Sunday, June 22 from 10PM to Midnight ET/PT). Mostly talking about it because it’s not often you get to post a picture of a hot girl holding golden horns.

Click here for the list of winners but the format is sketchy and Spike TV's website is pretty useless in even trying to find out who the nominee's where to begin with.

On a related note, Fox is up for "Breakthrough Performance" at the MTV Movies Awards airing tonight at 8:00PM. Transformers is also up for Best Movie and Best Male Performance.

Transformers MTV Movie Award Nominations

MTV has announced its nominations for the MTV Movie Awards which will air live from Gibson Amphitheatre in Universal City, CA on Sunday, June 1st at 8:00PM EST. The event will be hosted by Mike Myers.

The full list of nominations can be found here, but the categories that Transformers was nominated in are:

BEST MOVIE
- Juno (Fox Searchlight Pictures)
- Transformers (DreamWorks SKG/Paramount Pictures)
- Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (Walt Disney Pictures)
- I Am Legend (Warner Bros. Pictures)
- Superbad (Sony Pictures)
- National Treasure: Book of Secrets (Walt Disney Pictures)

BEST MALE PERFORMANCE
- Will Smith - I Am Legend (Warner Bros. Pictures)
- Shia LaBeouf - Transformers (DreamWorks SKG/Paramount Pictures)
- Denzel Washington - American Gangster (Universal Pictures)
- Matt Damon - The Bourne Ultimatum (Universal Pictures)
- Michael Cera - Juno (Fox Searchlight Pictures)

BREAKTHROUGH PERFORMANCE
- Zac Efron - Hairspray (New Line Cinema)
- Seth Rogen - Knocked Up (Universal Pictures)
- Jonah Hill - Superbad (Sony Pictures)
- Michael Cera - Superbad (Sony Pictures)
- Chris Brown - This Christmas (Screen Gems)
- Nikki Blonsky - Hairspray (New Line Cinema)
- Megan Fox - Transformers (DreamWorks SKG/Paramount Pictures)
- Christopher Mintz-Plasse - Superbad (Sony Pictures)

Sadly the Optimus Prime vs. Megatron fight or Optimus Prime vs. Bonecrusher fights didn't get nominated which seems almost criminal considering the nominees in that category:

BEST FIGHT
- Matt Damon vs. Joey Ansah - The Bourne Ultimatum (Universal Pictures)
- Tobey Maguire vs. James Franco - Spider-Man 3 (Sony Pictures)
- Hayden Christensen vs. Jamie Bell - Jumper (20th Century Fox)
- Sean Faris vs. Cam Gigandet - Never Back Down (Summit Entertainment, LLC)
- Chris Tucker & Jackie Chan vs. Sun Ming Ming - Rush Hour 3 (New Line Cinema)
- Alien vs. Predator- Aliens vs. Predator - Requiem (20th Century Fox)

The awards are based on popular vote so be sure to vote here.

Transformers 0 for 3 At Oscars

Transformers struck out at the Oscars tonight, losing all three categories it was up for. Sound Mixing and Sound Editing went to The Bourne Ultimatum and Visual Effects was won by The Golden Compass.

I haven't bothered to watch the show since I saw 4 of the 5 Best Picture noms and was a bit horrified that they where the contenders. Juno is a silly movie with Ellen Page playing herself (wait till her next movie comes out to prove me right). Michael Clayton was incredibly full of itself and didn't really have much purpose and atrocious pacing. No Country for Old Men was just bizarre, where half the cast served no other purpose then to balloon the screen time and chew scenery. If you can remove half your cast and it has no effect on the picture then you have a poor picture. Oh and playing an un-emotional killer shouldn't be Oscar winning, that use to be called bad acting as anyone can do it (see Jason Voorhees). I tried to watch There Will Be Blood but its pacing problems and that horrendous atonal music was just a bit much for me.

As far as actors go, if you are a "Method" actor, to me you are no actor. It’s just a crutch. A true skilled professional should be able to switch in and out of their roles as simple as changing clothes. Just like a skilled engineer, cook, and so forth can just do what they do whenever the need arises. A writer doesn't have to "become" a character to write in their voice, they just have the skills to do it and call on it when needed. I think a true actor should be able to do the same. By being "Method" the person is essentially saying they don't have that critical skill set and they shouldn't be awarded for that.

My point is sadly the Academy that rewards these things tend to go for tried and true rather then genuine innovation in movies. I blame it for skewing 55+ in the average age for the voting members. They vote on the movies that remind them of the films they use to perform in and grew up on (those from '40s to '70s). It wouldn't surprise if most probably never saw Transformers because "It was too loud" but saw Golden Compass with their grandkids. Tech and sci-fi is still frowned upon because it reminds them of their horrible execution of way back when.

I think the safe, familiar voting of the Academy combined with the secrecy is a huge failure to the art it’s supposed to represent. If the academy wasn't its own secret society, where the votes where public (and therefore would have to explain), I think the results would be much more dynamic. It is also why the ratings go down each year because my generation and the next is a lot more skeptical of award shows then the previous and tend to notice the pattern of these strange and disagreeable choices more quickly. Maybe I will feel different if there was a movie to root for (other then Transformers) for the first time in years but there wasn't. In other words, it’s just another year of the same o same o. It saddens me because I use to like the awards and the more I see how it really works, the greater the disappointment. So ends the diatribe.

Congrats for the nominations and maybe better luck with Transformers 2.

"The Oscars: 20th Time’s the Charm?"

Vanity Fair has a brief interview with Transformers Sound Mixer Kevin O'Connell. He is nominated for Transformers, making it his 20th nomination in 24 years yet he has not yet won. Hopefully this will be his year as Transformers does deserve credit for its special effects and sound.

The full interview is here.

The Oscars are later tonight starting at 8:00PM EST, with Jon Stewart hosting. No idea when the Transformers related categories (below) may air however. The list of nominees is here.

Sound Mixing: The Bourne Ultimatum, No Country for Old Men, Ratatouille, 3:10 to Yuma, Transformers

Sound Editing: The Bourne Ultimatum, No Country for Old Men, Ratatouille, There Will Be Blood, Transformers

Visual Effects: The Golden Compass, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, Transformers

Transformers Nominated for 2 Saturn Awards

Transformers has been nominated for Best Science Fiction Film and Best Special Effects. The Saturn Awards are giving out each year for movies and TV by the Academy of Science Fiction Fantasy and Horror Films. Basically its a pat on the back from the Sci-Fi genre and a way to reward those movies since the classic Hollywood award machine looks down on the genre. The winners will be announced on Tuesday, June 24th.

Saturn Awards

Best Science Fiction Film nominees:
Cloverfield
Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer
I Am Legend
The Last Mimzy
Sunshine
Transformers

Best Special Effects nominees:
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Transformers
The Golden Compass
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
Spider-Man 3
300

Don't forget, this Sunday is the Oscars where hopefully Transformers will take home a few.(source)

Transformers Wins Four VES Awards

Transformers on Sunday won four Visual Effects Society Awards. Think of it as the equivalent as the SAG Awards because it’s their peers awarding them for their work. Transformers won the top prize of the awards with for Outstanding Visual Effects which is a strong indicator it will win the Oscar for Visual Effects. In addition, Transformers won for Single Visual Effect (Highway Sequence), Models and Miniatures and Compositing. Congrats to winners Scott Farrar, Shari Hanson, Russell Earl, and Scott Benza and rest of the Transformers team. Hopefully Oscar night will be just as rewarding.

Also wanted to point out that Battlestar Galactica (excellent show) won Outstanding Visual Effects TV, Pirates 3 and Ratatouille picked up a few and Steven Spielberg got a the lifetime achievement award. The full list of winners is here.

Jon Voight Nominated for Razzie

While Transformers recieved three Oscar nods, it also got one less prestigious nominiation. Jon Voight was nominated for a Razzie Award for Worst Supporting Actor in Transformers, Bratz, National Treasure 2, and September Dawn. Basically they are slamming his entire year's worth of work.

The Razzie Award is the anti-Oscar, giving out an award for the worst performances of the year in multiple categories. Voight's fellow nominees include Orlando Bloom (Pirates 3), Kevin James (I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry), Eddie Murphy (Norbit), and Rob Schneider (I Now Pronounce..). The "awards" will be given out Febuary 23rd, the day before the Oscars.

The full list of Razzie nomonees is here on the left column.

Transformers Up for 3 Oscars

The Oscar nominations are out today and Transformers picked up three nominations in the technical catergories. The winners will be announced on Febuary 24th but with the Writers Strike that may change. SAG has already agreed to boycott the ceremony so nothing much to air right now.

Achievement in Sound Editing
"Transformers" - Ethan Van der Ryn and Mike Hopkins
"The Bourne Ultimatum" - Karen Baker Landers and Per Hallberg
"No Country for Old Men" - Skip Lievsay
"Ratatouille" (Walt Disney)- Randy Thom and Michael Silvers
"There Will Be Blood" - Matthew Wood

Achievement in Sound Mixing
"Transformers" - Kevin O'Connell, Greg P. Russell and Peter J. Devlin
"The Bourne Ultimatum" - Scott Millan, David Parker and Kirk Francis
"No Country for Old Men" - Skip Lievsay, Craig Berkey, Greg Orloff and Peter Kurland
"Ratatouille" - Randy Thom, Michael Semanick and Doc Kane
"3:10 to Yuma" - Paul Massey, David Giammarco and Jim Stuebe

Achievement in Visual Effects
"Transformers" - Scott Farrar, Scott Benza, Russell Earl and John Frazier
"The Golden Compass" - Michael Fink, Bill Westenhofer, Ben Morris and Trevor Wood
"Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End" - John Knoll, Hal Hickel, Charles Gibson and John Frazier

The full list is here.

Obviousily I am partial but really it doesn't even seem like a contest to me. Transformers should get all three. Sadly, Oscar voters like to spread the wealth though. I think Transformers is a lock for Visual Effects, Bourne Ultimatum will probably get Sound Mixing and same for Sound Editing mostly because most of the nominees don't really understand the differences between the two categories.

Congrats to everyone on Transformers for the nominations and good luck.

Transformers Short-Listed for Oscar Noms

Oscar's are coming next year and Transformers is already on the short lists for two categories for Visual Special Effects and Best Song.

According to Variety Transformers joins 14 other movies on a short list which will be reduced to 7 and then further reduced to the final 3. The whittling down process is that voting members have time to see the films before casting a vote, which is typically a problem for the Oscars where the voters don't really know anything about what they are voting for and so make choices either based on popularity or advertisments (hmm that sounds familiar). Visual effects specifically refers to computer generated or model work that is used in film. So for the Transformers, that work would be, well most of the film. For Die Hard 4, it might be the jet sequences which was a combo of real, CGI, and model work.

I guess the hope is that this will lead to a more solid line up of contenders rather then head-scratchers but then that doesn't explain some of the choices below. They all use VFX but to me the category should be about those that really use visual effects effectivily and move the quality bar a little further and of the list that is Transformers.

The entire list of 15 for Special Effects, in alphabetical order, is: “Beowulf,” “The Bourne Ultimatum,” “Evan Almighty,” “The Golden Compass,” “Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix,” “I Am Legend,” “Live Free Or Die Hard,” “National Treasure: Book Of Secrets,” “Pirates Of The Caribbean: At World's End,” “Ratatouille,” “Spider-Man 3,” “Sunshine,” “300,” “Transformers,” and “The Water Horse.”

For Best Song, the "short-list" is made up of 59 songs, one of which is "Before It’s Too Late (Sam and Mikaela’s Theme)” from “Transformers” by the Goo Goo Dolls. The complete list is here. From this list the final 3-5 songs will be chosen for Oscar contention. Hate to say it, but I don't think the song stands a snow balls chance. It was barely used in the movie (chords where used during the film) and it wasn't really all that impressive a song. Also its a big summer box office movie. Best Song nomonees rarely come from those.

Now remember this is just a short-list of possible Oscar contenders, not a finalized list of nomoniees for only those two categories. There are many other categories that its can still be nominated for. Usually the Oscars snub summer big boom movies for the main categories (those that air on TV) but they tend to get nominated in the technical rewards (effects, etc) so I wouldn't be surprised if Transformers gets a few more nominations in mid-January. (source)

Transformers People Choice Awards Nominations

The People's Choice Awards nominations where announced and Transformers is up in a few categories. The award show will air on CBS on January 8th and is basically a popularity contest to show what stuff the voters liked most in the last year across TV, movies, and music.

Transformers is up for "Favorite Action Movie", and "Favorite Movie." Also Linkin Park is nominated in "Favorite Song From A Soundtrack" for "What I've Done". Did that song even come up during the movie?

To vote, click here.

Transformers Wins at SCREAM Awards

Spike TV recorded the Scream Awards at the Greek Theatre in LA on October 20th to air on Spike on October 23rd (10-midnight EST) and Transformers came away with multiple awards. The award show doesn't really matter much other then an excuse for the participants to party and get laid on Spike TV's dime and maybe help push some DVD sales (being Spike TV, I doubt even that).

Transformers won for Best Science Fiction Movie, Scene of the Year (Optimus vs Megatron), and Best F/X.
Shia LaBeouf won "Scream King" for Disturbia and "Sci-Fi Star" for Transformers
Megan Fox won for "Sci-Fi Siren" for Transformers.

Full list of winners here.

If you have Spike TV, it might be worth watching if your bored. Based on the Spike TV Video Game Awards, the production tends overdone and mostly groan worthy but it gave Harrison Ford the "Hero Award" for his body of work and did a 25th Anniversary thing for Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan so I plan on recording it for fast forwarding through the stupid bits (of which there will probably be many). (source)

Transformers Up For Awards

Apparently awards season (really its year long) has started and Tranformers is already up for few. At the 11th Annual Hollywood Film Festival and Hollywood Awards Gala Ceremony (that's a mouthful) on October 12th, Scott Farrar will accept the award for Visual Effects of the Year for Transformers.

Transformers has also been nominated for 8 Scream Awards from Spike TV. Ie its a "watch our channel" awards ceremony but a back pat is a back pat. Its up for "The Ultimate Scream", "Best Science Fiction Movie", "Sci-Fi Siren" for Megan Fox, "Sci-Fi Star" for Shia LaBeouf, "Breakout Performance" for Megan Fox, "Scene of the Year" for Megs vs Optimus sequence, "Best Director" for Michael Bay and "Best F/X". The awards will be presented on October 19th at the Greek Theatre in LA and air on Spike TV on October 23rd at 10:00PM. The only award that really matters, Oscar, I think TF is a lock for visual and sound effects.

Transformers Score 10 Teen Choice Award Noms

The movie isn't out for a week and already its collecting marketing...err mean achievement awards. This time from the Teen Choice Awards which will air on FOX August 26th. Based on some of the below info, I can't tell if its an announcement of who won or a list of nominee's since some categories only have one nominee. I think the movie is highly entertaining but honestly the only awards it probably deserves are in the technical arena such as Best Visual and Special Effects. I see an Oscar at least for that.

The categories TF is up for:

Choice Movie: Action Adventure -- 300, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, Spider-Man 3, Transformers.
Choice Movie Actor: Action Adventure -- Shia LaBeouf - Transformers, Chris Evans - Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, Tobey Maguire - Spider-Man 3.
Choice Movie Actress: Action Adventure -- Jessica Alba - Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, Kirsten Dunst - Spider-Man 3, Lena Headey - 300, Megan Fox - Transformers.
Choice Movie: Villain -- Julian McMahon (Victor Von Doom) - Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, Megatron - Transformers. Topher Grace (Venom) - Spider-Man 3.
Choice Movie: Hissy Fit -- Jessica Alba - Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer.
Choice Movie: Liplock -- Kirsten Dunst & Tobey Maguire - Spider-Man 3, Megan Fox & Shia LaBeouf - Transformers.
Choice Movie: Breakout Female -- Megan Fox - Transformers.
Choice Movie: Rumble -- Spider-Man 3 - Spider-Man (Tobey Maguire) & New Goblin (James Franco) vs. Venom (Topher Grace) & Sandman (Thomas Haden Church), Transformers - Captain Lennox (Josh Duhamel) vs. "Blackout", Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer - Johnny Storm (Chris Evans) vs. Victor Von Doom (Julian McMahon), 300 - Spartans vs. The Immortals.
Choice Movie: Breakout Male -- Shia LaBeouf -- A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints, Disturbia, Transformers.
Choice Movie: Chemistry -- Shia LaBeouf & "Bumblebee" - Transformers.
Choice Female Hottie -- Megan Fox, Hayden Panettiere, Jessica Alba
(source)

Transformers At MTV Movie Awards

According to Superherohype.com, the June 3rd live Movie Awards pre-show (7:30pm EST)will have some exclusive Transformers footage. Also assuming that some more stuff including commercials will occur during the show since its a good platform to advertise the movie. Also Transformers is up (with like 8 others) for Most Anticipated Movie.

From the site:

MTV sent us the following alert about Transformers at the MTV Movie Awards:

For the movie buffs at home, the MTV Movie Awards Pre-Show will include exclusive footage with the stars of Transformers, the summer's most anticipated action flick.

Tune in at 7:30pm/6:30c to see Megan Fox of Transformers "transform" from grunge to glamour as MTV News cameras document her entire "getting ready process."

Shia LaBeouf, Josh Duhamel and Tyrese of Transformers will join MTV News' Tim Kash to show off the actual cars and reveal an EXCLUSIVE never-before-seen clip from the movie.

Hosted by Sarah Silverman the 2007 MTV Movie Awards will air LIVE on June 3rd at 8:00pm/7c from the Gibson Amphitheater in Universal City, CA.