Los Angeles - Forget the stuffed shirts, the tuxedos, the Hollywood insiders, and the race for a small statue of a gold man. The MTV Movie Awards are about the people, and the stars pay homage to their crowd by acting and dressing like one of them. The stars come out to look cool and act cool.So laid-back! So irreverent! So Gen-X! (Oh, wait, no, what is it now, Gen-Y?) Anyway, they spoof big movies! They mock big awards shows! They give out weird-looking trophies in cute categories like best kiss and best villain and best fight!
So taped in advance! So you haven't missed it!
With performances by music superstars such as Christina Aguilera, Li'l Kim, Mya, and Pink and The Dave Matthews Band, we know you'll watch the show on MTV at 9 p.m. on Thursday no matter what. But you should know that the ceremonies were actually filmed last night in Los Angeles.
Jimmy Fallon (TV's Saturday Night Live) and Kirsten Dunst (Bring It On) hosted the show, and began the festivities with an off-kilter look at the blockbuster flick The Mummy Returns.
The Mummy Returns wasn't the only big name to feel the satirical screws. Madonna, Adam Sandler, Gladiator and Cast Away all felt the comedic roasting of Fallon, Dunst and comedian Andy Dick, among others.
But for all the parody of the movies, it's still a movie awards show, and there were winners and losers.
The big winner of the evening was Gladiator, which snagged the silver bucket of popcorn for best film, besting X-Men, Hannibal, Erin Brockovich and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Gladiator won an Academy Award for best film earlier this year.
Joining Gladiator with a double dip was Julia Roberts, who reprised her Academy Award win for Best Actress with a win for best female performance in Erin Brockovich.
Mission: Impossible 2's Tom Cruise won the bucket for best male performance, denying Russell Crowe among others.
Sean Patrick Thomas won a pair of awards. One for best kiss with Julia Stiles in Save the Last Dance and one for breakthrough performance by a male for the same movie. Erika Christensen took home the female breakthrough performance award for her show-stopping work in Traffic.
Newcomers weren't the only ones to have a day in the sun.
Charlie's Angels' Cameron Diaz also doubled her pleasure, winning for best on-screen team with Drew Barrymore and Lucy Liu, and for best dance sequence. MTV viewers are certainly not the only ones to remember Diaz opening Charlie's Angels by dancing in her underwear.
Best villain went to veteran comedic actor Jim Carrey (Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas) who dove into a row of seats, a la a rocker diving into a mosh pit, on his way to the stage.
John Woo won best action sequence for the motorcycle chase in Mission: Impossible 2 and Zhang Ziyi took home the best fight award for Crouching Tiger.
The nominees for the MTV Movie Awards are chosen through a national poll of MTV viewers. Winners were determined by MTV viewers who cast their votes by phone or online.
According to MTV, the 2001 awards will be seen in 140 countries on 29 channels, in over 17 languages in 336 million households.