MTV Movie Awards a fiery snooze-fest

A supposed music channel hosting movie awards has always been a stretch. But now that music is an afterthought amidst the gamut of reality programming on MTV, the connection is even less clear.

That might explain last night’s thoroughly boring two-hour broadcast of the MTV Movie Awards, which were probably a waste of time for everyone involved except MySpace [website].com vixen-turned-TV star Tila Tequila, who likely used the opportunity to get more camera time.

There were a few highlights: r & b heartthrob Chris Brown and host Mike Meyers in a “Bad”-inspired dance-off, an emotional performance from Coldplay featuring strange petal showers, and appearances from Johnny Depp and Tom Cruise that proved men in their mid-40s can still look super hot.

Other than that, the broadcast was mostly a snoozefest full of unfunny skits and strange pairings: strangest among them was the trio of Lindsay Lohan, Verne Troyer and Diddy, followed by the uber petite Sarah Jessica Parker next to the curvy Jennifer Hudson.

Mike Meyers is typically funny, but he wasn’t on Sunday. His monologues were generally dull, his skits confusing and lengthy, and even a “Wayne’s World” sketch with Dana Carvey did little more than advance some low-brow humor via a Top 10 list of porno names based on movies in 2008.

Maybe someone at MTV had a psychic moment: "Movie Awards Weekend Heats Up" was the headline on the channel's website right around the time of the early morning blaze Sunday that turned a portion of Universal Studios into something resembling a 1970s disaster film.

Despite the fire, the 2008 MTV Movie Awards and its national broadcast from Universal's Gibson Amphitheatre went ahead as planned. And there was virtually no evidence of the real world amid the Hollywood fantasy.