Backstage at the MTV Movie Awards

Hello, PopWatchers, and greetings from Universal City in sunny Los Angeles, California, where the MTV Movie Awards are underway. Somewhere up the hill from me, host Sarah Silverman (pictured) has most likely already offended 6 or 7 people with a joke about Tobey Maguire having a vagina, but I’m not in the auditorium: I’ve just gotten off the fuchsia carpet and set up camp in the photo tent, where all the stars will be stopping by to have their souls captured on film. The fine folks at MTV have done me a solid and given me my own special blogging table right at the front of the room, and with the help of a couple nice people in headsets, I’m going to be grabbing as many celebs as I can to sit here and blog with me a bit.

Okay, it’s an experiment, and I’ll just about die from shock if it works, but someone’s gotta have the stones to best Billy Baldwin. So come along after the jump, won’t you?  If we don’t get celebs, it’ll just be tales of crabby wire photographers… but that could be fun. If you open your mind.

8:08 p.m. Okay, I am frantically trying to make this blog work while simultaneously taking notes on Paris Hilton’s facial expressions as she is savaged in Silverman’s opening monologue. Something about prison bars that look like penises. I don’t know if it was a good idea for Paris to come out tonight. More on that later, though, as right now I need to breathe.

8:10 p.m. Jack Nicholson did not come down the red carpet. Still, I’m sure this MTV Movie Award will go in a room very close to the one in which he keeps his Oscar.

8:13 p.m. Phun Phact: A fine member of the MTV staff just told me the winners don’t get their awards until they come back here to the photo room. Which is very smart, MTV. Very smart indeed…

8:14 p.m. Although I am sitting here in front of a computer, I have not yet voted for Best Movie. What should I vote for, PopWatchers? We’ll pool — oh, Lord almighty, there is a very fat man on stage. Holy mother of pork.

8:15 p.m. Cast of Fantastic Four is incoming! I will try and get one of them over here to blog. Time to see if this experiment works, kids.

8:18 p.m. Okay, they’re not here yet. While we’re waiting: So yeah, Paris Hilton is here, and in case you happen to be Helen Keller, she’s going to jail in a little under 48 hours. It will come as no surprise to any of you, then, that her impending appearance was all the rage on the carpet, with the reporter from Us Weekly who was standing next to me actually getting text messages on her phone like "Hair and makeup just left Paris’s house." Because someone’s job is actually to sit outside Paris Hilton’s house. I don’t remember that being an option at career day.

8:20 p.m. Wait, Jessica Biel and Sarah Silverman may be about to make out. Hott. And… the cast of Fantastic Four has just entered the room and they turned the sound off. "Can you turn the sound back on?" yelled one photographer.

8:21 p.m. Oh, my God, I have just enjoyed an epileptic episode thanks to the flashbulbs in here. It’s like sitting inside a firecracker. It’s like staring directly at a strobe light. It’s like I’m living through Studio 54’s entire tenure in one 3 minute span.

8:24 p.m. The entire cast of Fantastic Four has just abandoned Jessica Alba on stage alone. There was no opportunity for me to ask them to do anything but run away from this nightmare. The photographers are now fighting amongst themselves about something. Am I going to get beat up?

8:26 p.m. Dane Cook just alluded to Jack Nicholson being drunk. He’s here in the photo room now, chugging water, which he has just handed to the nice MTV assistant; perhaps it is vodka, but honestly, if there’s one person who could always be drunk without anyone knowing, isn’t it Jack Nicholson? He’s been handed his award, and is now onstage smiling and so forth. Do I have the balls to ask Jack Nicholson to blog for PopWatch? Let’s put it this way: No.

8:31 p.m. "I can’t see," says Jack Nicholson to the photographers.

8:32 p.m. I’ve just realized the one flaw in this plan. If I am one of these celebrities, and my goal is to get in and out of this room with all the screaming and flashing as fast as I can, why would I want to come stand over on the side of the screamy/flashy room and type something? I am going to have to come up with something very persuasive. Maybe I could start flashing people.

8:34 p.m. They’re doing Jay-Z/Rihanna now? Won’t that make half of America tune out?

8:34:30 p.m. Rihanna was NOT wearing that on the red carpet.

8:36 p.m. "Umbrella" = song of the summer? At least one photographer just applauded, but based on the room’s reaction to Silverman and Biel making out that may have been for the patent leather.

8:38 p.m. Jessica Biel: Put down the bedazzler.

8:39 p.m. While we’re waiting to find out who wins Best Kiss: I don’t want you guys to think it’s all hopeless in terms of getting celebrities to blog. (Otherwise, all none of you who are reading this would maybe find something better to do.) I got a couple people out on the carpet to agree to help me out here — Justin Long, Amanda Bynes, and the cast of Human Giant, you better come through.

8:42 p.m. Sacha Baron Cohen: effin’ gorgeous. I’d kiss him. I doubt it would get the revolted-yet-elated response his makeout session with Will Ferrell just received back here, however, so it would probably be a letdown. Sigh.

8:44 p.m. Wow, they really went for that.

8:46 p.m. "Don’t f— with me!" were Gerard Butler’s first words upon taking the photo room stage.

8:47 p.m. He is now making his MTV Movie Award do vulgar things, and his publicist/minder has  just given a very cloudy-faced thumbs down to my request that he come over here and blog. Whatevs. I SHALL FIGHT IN THE SHADE.

8:50 p.m. Just to clarify: My kissing Sacha Baron Cohen would be a letdown for the people in the photo room, not for me. Okay.

8:53 p.m. This montage of Silverman inserting herself into a variety of movies is actually relatively funny. Also I like the word "crapsticks."

8:57 p.m. Jaden Smith: The new Pearl?

8:58 p.m. No, no matter how much fun you have at Paris Hilton’s expense, she is not going to leave. That would go against everything she believes. Why maintain dignity, so long as people are still looking at you?

9:00 p.m. Phun Phact: Did you guys know the Orbitz girl is also in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies? It’s true. She plays a wench. I did not know that until I met her on the red carpet today. She gave me gum. It was a nice moment.

9:03 p.m. One of the photographers just asked them to switch the feed to HBO.

9:05 p.m. Dane Cook just came and left. This system is not working.

9:07 p.m. Sa-cha sweep! Sa-cha sweep!

9:08 p.m. Oh, Sacha. Why must you say things like "pubis"? Such a turn-off.

9:11 p.m. Incoming: John Krasinski!  Cross your fingers!

9:16 p.m. Krasinski has come and gone. I don’t know what to tell you, PopWatchers. I am failing, and I have no idea what to do about it. But given that this post has exactly 0 comments at the moment, it’s unclear whether anyone actually cares. I care. I care, PopWatchers. Which is why I’m here. Which is why I’m always here.

9:20 p.m. Note to any future MTV Lifetime Achievement Award winners: They will make you dance before they give you anything. Ah, Mike Myers. You’ve been gone too long.

9:21 p.m. Myers’ acceptance speech: "I’d like to thank my parents for encouraging me never to sell out. I’d also like to thank the makers of the new Pontiac Laterra."

9:24 p.m. They just announced Cameron Diaz is on her way back here. Every photographer in the room stood up. Pray for me, PopWatchers.

9:26 p.m. I just taped a giant "EW.COM" sign to my computer.

9:28 p.m. "We’re going to have Cameron and Mike Myers together," says the photo room guy. The room lets out a groan of disappointment.

9:30 p.m. As Amy Winehouse takes the stage to perform "Rehab," an observation from the carpet: Amy Winehouse is skinnier than Victoria Beckham. By about half.

9:30:17 p.m. "She looks like Minnie Driver!" a photographer just yelled of Winehouse. This is, I believe, the same photographer who was overheard referring to Mandy Moore as "big-boned." It is a damn good thing the camera does the observing for him.

9:31 p.m. They just announced the winner of the Yahoo! spoof award is coming back here before Mike and Cameron. At least 4 people bolted for the bathroom.

9:34 p.m. "We’ve got Mike and Cameron coming right up," said photo room PA. "What about Baron Cohen?" said crabby, loudmouthed photographer. "Let’s work with what we’ve got," said PA.

9:37 p.m. Here are all the reasons why people are mad right now: 1. Mike Myers and Cameron Diaz finally got out here, but Mike walked out first, Cameron came in and stood behind him, and then Cameron left. So the photographers got no Canadian-free photographs of her. 2. I have not even come close to interviewing Mike Myers, which I very much needed to do. [Insert small, quiet profanity here.]

9:38 p.m. Seth Rogen just said "sloppy Jew sperm."

9:39 p.m. Sacha is back here. Annoyingly, everyone is talking to him in the Borat voice. I wonder how much those MTV Movie Awards weigh, and if he could smash someone’s face in with them.

9:44 p.m. I’m trying to think of other stories from the fuchsia carpet to regale you people with, as this grand experiment is a disaster, we’re at commercials, and I would give my left calf muscle to find a way to tune out Crabby Loudmouth (who is currently demanding Jessica Biel). Kevin Smith just scooted by outside, wearing a long, olive overcoat, jean shorts, patriotic Vans, and a psychotically hot wife. I would say more about Kevin Smith, but he already hates me enough.

9:49 p.m. OMG Johnny Depp IS here. Everyone in the photo room just busted an artery from excitement. As, admittedly, did I. This liveblog may be sucking, but if I wind up in the same room as Johnny Depp, I really can’t say I’ll care.

9:50 p.m. "Up next, we have Heidi and Spencer from The Hills," says photo room PA. "Who?" ask the photographers. "Oh," say the photographers, when Heidi and Spencer take the stage. "Give him a little kiss!" one yells to Heidi, who obliges. "Again!" they yell. I am a little squicked out.

9:53 p.m. LADIES AND GENTLEMEN OUR FIRST CELEBRITY BLOG: Heidi, of The Hills! "Hey hope you are all having fun! Watch the new season of the hills this august." Thanks, Heidi! I’m sure many of us will!

9:57 p.m. Um, okay. Show’s over? That’s it? What an absurdly compact awards show, MTV. You know you could stretch that s— out for another 3 hours, right?

9:59 p.m. "Okay, guys, we’re still waiting to hear if we’re going to get anyone else," says photo room PA. "What about Johnny?" "What about Biel?" "What about Cameron again?" say the photographers.

10:01 p.m. It is dead back here, and the photographers have gone back to talking smack about celebrities. Sure, I mean, you should totally insult them. It’s not like your livelihood depends on their tolerance or anything.

10:03 p.m. Uh… and that’s it! They’ve shut the photo room down and asked us all to leave. Wow. Well, I’d like to thank MTV for the opportunity, and apologize to all of you for its resulting lameness. Watch next week’s mag for my style report, and I’ll listen back to my red carpet tapes and post anything of interest. Like, for example, Jon Voight making me feel like ass for asking him what his current pop-culture obsession was. Dude. Jon Voight. YOU ARE AT THE MTV MOVIE AWARDS WHAT DID YOU THINK I WAS GOING TO ASK. Oh yeah — it’s been an awesome night all around, PopWatchers. Thanks to the four of you who were here to share in it. xoxo