Well, at least Miley Cyrus will surely be nominated for a Razzie for her critically bashed "performance" in "The Last Song." We probably shouldn't get her hopes up too high about "winning," though. We haven't seen Lindsay Lohan 's "Machette" yet – or "Twilight Saga: Eclipse."

Razzie voters adore rewarding pop tarts who attempt to act. Some of its biggest past champs include Madonna, Paris Hilton and Britney Spears. We know that Miley Cyrus is on voters' radar. She was just nominated for worst actress for "Hannah Montana: The Movie," but lost to Sandra Bullock ("All About Steve").

Film critics certainly think that Miley deserves to be pelted with raspberries for appearing in "The Last Song," which only scores 39 at Metacritic. The New York Times asserts that acting "seems almost entirely beyond her," adding, "In 'The Last Song,' she pouts, slouches, storms in and out of rooms and occasionally cracks a snaggle-toothed smile, but most of the time she seems to be mugging for the camera, play-acting rather than exploring the motives and feelings of her character."

Lou Lumenick of the New York Post says that Miley displays "approximately 1 1/2 expressions" on screen, adding, "It's the worst of both worlds as Disney cash cow Miley Cyrus makes the most dubious 'dramatic' debut of any singer since Britney Spears."

OTHER POSTS:

'Glee' and 'Modern Family' win Peabody Awards

Again, Showtime ships first campaign mailer to Emmy voters

Can 'Avatar' crush 'Twilight: New Moon' at the MTV Movie Awards?

Gold Derby nuggets: 'Glee' gives back | Tonys a no-go for Conan O'Brien | 'Avatar' rules Empire awards | 'Lost' finale finds big bucks

Shocker: 'Squeakquel' beats 'Twilight: New Moon' at Kids' Choice Awards

Gold Derby nuggets: Megan Mullally exits stage left | Chloe Sevigny: No love for 'Big Love' | Simon Cowell Int'l Emmy honoree

Why will the Emmys be telecast in August instead of September?

Robert Culp never cracked Emmy's secret code

Do early awards foretell Emmy luck for 'Glee'?

Tony Awards battle for best musical: 'American Idiot' vs. 'Fela'?

Gold Derby nuggets: Honors for Stephen Sondheim and Matt Damon | Good debut for 'Breaking Bad'

Can Rosie O'Donnell grab her old Emmy crown from Ellen DeGeneres?

Upcoming Emmy diva smackdown: 'Nurse Jackie' vs. 'United States of Tara'

Emmy predix for best drama series: 'Breaking Bad,' 'Damages,' 'Dexter,' 'Mad Men' and ...?

Photo: Walt Disney Pictures

Get Gold Derby on Twitter. Join the Gold Derby Group at Facebook. Become friends with Tom O'Neil on Facebook. Get Gold Derby RSS feed via Facebook. RSS Feedburner. RSS Atom.

During the MTV Video Music Awards we held a live chat session to pool the reax of viewers. Check out what people said as Kanye West upstaged winner Taylor Swift. Read the outrage of posters when Green Day beat Kings of Leon for best rock video. Plus more. 

RELATED POST

Who'll win MTV VMA for best video of 2009: Beyonce, Britney, Lady Gaga or Eminem?

Get Gold Derby on Twitter. Join the Gold Derby Group at Facebook. Become friends with Tom O'Neil on Facebook. Get Gold Derby RSS feed via Facebook. RSS Feedburner. RSS Atom.

Oh, yeah, Kanye West is also nominated for best video of the year at MTV's Video Music Awards, which will be bestowed on Sept. 13, but this is a VMA battle among Beyonce Knowles, Britney Spears, Lady Gaga and Eminem.

Kanye has never won. He was nominated for "Jesus Walks" in 2005 (losing to Green Day's "Boulevard of Broken Dreams") and for "Stronger" in 2007 (Rihanna clobbered him with her "Umbrella"). Of course, Rihanna also beat Beyonce ("Irreplaceable"), which was the latter's only other nomination in this category.

Eminem won this race twice: "Without Me" (2002) and "The Real Slim Shady" (2000). Britney won last year for "Piece of Me," but that was part of her industry-wide welcome-back-from-the crazy-house hug. Previously, she'd lost all 16 nominations in all MTV VMA categories.

There's a problem with looking back at past winners to predict who'll prevail this year. The voting process has changed radically through the years. Prior to 2006, winners were chosen by a hodgepodge of media hipsters tapped by MTV. Ballots were distributed willy-nilly among various folks like producers at E! Entertainment and VH1, etc. Then in 2006, all online voters got to decide.

Personally, I loved the outcome that year, but the victory by Panic! at the Disco ("I Write Sins Not Tragedies") was considered horribly, shockingly uncool, so voting was returned to hand-picked hipsters again in 2007 and 2008, but of a slightly different mix. This year democracy triumphs again as voting is being returned to the great unwashed.

A MTV rep explains to Gold Derby the latest voting process: "This year nominees were chosen by a voting academy which consists of label reps, management reps, press, production companies and a few talent 'tastemakers' plus 2,000 first-come, first-serve mtv.com account holders who signed up for mtv.com extras e-mails. Winners will be determined by the general public this year through voting on MTV.com and via mobile. The best new artist category will be open to the public and remain live into the show on Sept. 13."

RELATED POST

Britney Spears, Beyonce, Eminem, Lady Gaga vie for MTV VMAs

Photo: Matt Sayles / Associated Press

Get Gold Derby on Twitter. Join the Gold Derby Group at Facebook. Become friends with Tom O'Neil on Facebook. Get Gold Derby RSS feed via Facebook. RSS Feedburner. RSS Atom.

Although the People's Choice Awards commemorate its 35th anniversary this January, there is little to celebrate about the tarnishing of these once-important kudos. Adding the new category of Favorite Scene-Stealing Guest Star may bring boffo ratings — as it did when nominee Britney Spears guested on "How I Met Your Mother" — but it won't earn these prizes any new respect. She competes against Luke Perry and Robin Williams, both nominated for dropping by "Law & Order: SVU." See the full list of People's Choice nominees in all categories and vote for the winners HERE.

You'll notice that there's also a new, sensational race for TV Drama Diva, which is missing Emmy winner Glenn Close ("Damages"). As Bob Sassone writes about the TV contenders over on TV Squad, "The list of nominees is the very definition of unexciting" citing the exclusion of such buzzed-about shows as Emmy champ "Mad Men" and "Dexter" for the likes of "CSI."

And the movie contenders are not much better. While "The Dark Knight" competes in several races, as do "The Secret Life of Bees", "Iron Man," and "Mamma Mia!" there is little else in the way of serious awards fare. That shift in focus for these kudos began five years ago. Until 2004, winners were determined by a Gallup Poll of everyday Americans. Not surprisingly, over those first three decades of the PCAs, the people often went with populist choices like "E.T." for best picture. However, many Oscarologists consider that film's loss to "Gandhi" at the 1982 awardsfest as one of the academy's biggest goofs.

And there were years when the People's Choice for a best picture prize (they have two or three in some years, just one in others) coincided with those of Oscar voters. Indeed, "The Sting" was picked as the very first People's Choice weeks before its upset win at the 1974 Oscars. Since then, the two kudos lined up for "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" (1976); "Rain Man" (1988); "The Silence of the Lambs" (1991); "Forrest Gump" (1994); and "Titanic" (1997). And when they disagreed, it was over equally worthy movies — like "Star Wars" versus "Annie Hall" in 1977 — and the alternative points of view were refreshing.

In 2005, PCA voting was changed to a much less expensive — and far less scientific — means of opinion-gathering. An Internet research company taps a sample number of pop culture fans to choose the nominees, then voting is thrown open to all Internet users who wish to register their opinions online at pcavote.com. Under this new and unimproved system, the first winner for best picture was "Fahrenheit 9/11." While it was arguably a worthy contender, such a polarizing pic never would've won using the old Gallup Poll method. Which raises the question: Was it really the people's choice? No. It was the choice of the people who dominate cyberspace: young men, who, biologically speaking, have a hormonal need to rebel against authority.

Combining the unknown British comedian Russell Brand with the seemingly never overexposed Britney Spears paid off for MTV as Sunday's airing of the VMAs pulled in record numbers for the network.

As per this report in Broadcasting & Cable, "When the simulcast on MTV2 is taken into account, the VMAs delivered an 8.1 grossed rating in the demo across the two networks. All told and across the two networks during its time period, the 2008 VMAs reached more than 23 million viewers two-plus, with more than 12 million 12-34. The show was the highest-rated telecast on all of cable in the 12-34 demo this year."

These numbers represent a 15% boost from last year's hostless edition of the VMAs (best remembered for Britney's bad lip syncing) and a 41% jump from the 2006 awardscast headlined by Jack Black from Gotham.

(MTV)

"After winning three Moonmen, including video of the year, Britney Spears got cold feet before she met the press," Reuters reported on what took place backstage at the MTV Video Music Awards. "She peeked into the media room with personal assistants and camera crew in tow, then promptly turned around and left."

However, then Britney was "whisked into a photo-only area where no pesky questions could be asked," adds Marc Malkin of E! Online. "Who could blame her for that?"

Have you seen all of the L.A. Times' extensive coverage?

Denise Martin reported on "bubbly flowing for audience members . . . Michael Phelps upstaging the Jonas Brothers and Chris Brown busting a move in the aisle for Lil Wayne." READ MORE

Ann Powers ruminates on MTV's use on various venues at Paramount studios where "the gimmick at this most unrepentantly contrived of awards shows was to play up the artifice of the screen image, whether of the blockbuster film variety." That included using sets and crowds for "live music videos (that) did make for better musical highlights than the show had in the past few years. The night's producers chose well in tapping talents who could handle the distractions of quick-changing sets. Nobody fell down, and the music wasn't completely swallowed by the special effects . . . . What viewers witnessed every time Britney took the stage (or appeared in an MTV promotional skit, like the dull one that preceded her opening the program) was not only an expensively refurbished body in a laudably tasteful silver dress, but the relaunching of a brand." READ MORE

In one of our photo galleries, we score the night's high and low points while inviting our readers to pipe in with their letter grades too. Todd Martens gives Britney's appearance a F, which differs from the view of our readers. About 65% give Britney an A. READ MORE AND CAST YOUR VOTE!

In another photo gallery, the Dish Rag blogger Elizabeth Snead says, "Zac Efron looks just as hot without those trendy boy bangs. With his hair swept back into a proper Hollywood hunk 'do, we get to see more of his eyes and his eerily well-shaped brows. You don't think? Nah." SEE AND READ MORE

Oh, yeah, and for a complete list of nominees and winners, CLICK HERE.

Photos: WireImage

When the nominations were first unveiled for the MTV Video Music Awards this year and Britney Spears made the lineup for "Piece of Me," my first impulse as an awards guru was to think: She'll win, natch. Britney Spears was the biggest star of 2008, after all, albeit in that train wreck kinda way. But then, after further reflection and a look back at past winners in this category, I flip-flopped and thought: no, no, no.

The reason: Who picks the MTV VMA winners. If this year's VMAs were decided like they were in 2006, yes, Britney might be considered the front-runner. That was the one year champs were decided by online voters. But Panic at the Disco prevailed then for "I Write Sins, Not Tragedies," which was widely ridiculed by serious music gurus. Gritty journalists — the type who write for Rolling Stone and Billboard — were particularly irked that Panic beat the Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Dani California," and they gave MTV so much hell over it that the VMAs switched the decision-making process back to folks who picked winners in the past: a random assortment of showbiz industry hipsters they considered to be cool. Some past voters who I knew personally were journalists and producers at E! Entertainment Network and VH1, for example.

In the past, these hipsters chose mostly respectable champs for video of the year: Green Day ("Boulevard of Broken Dreams"), Outkast ("Hey Ya") and Eminem ("Without Me"). Not the trashy, trailer-park, bubble-gum stars like Britney, who hasn't, let's face it, been taken too seriously as an artist and has never won a Moonman. She lost all 16 past nominations, including her only previous bid for best video of the year: "Toxic" (2004).

This year it seemed possible that voters might give Britney the pop-video award as a sympathy prize after all she's been through. After all, that award has "pop" in the title. But best video of the year?

The fact that Britney won that lofty trophy is a triumph of the Olympian kind and proof of what host Russell Brand asserted at show's end: that she has finally "conquered" musicdom.

Here is a compilation of more MTV VMA reax from Gold Derby forum posters:

Professor Chaos: It wasn't the worst, but nowhere near the glory years. Paris Hilton & Britney Spears together. Somewhere John McCain is smirking.

KellyClarksonFan: Britney the Queen of the VMAs. She is unstoppable!

Hollywood Star: I knew Britney would win. Good for her. Too bad it was for the lackluster "Piece of Me," but, oh, well. A win is a win.

Guru: I thought this show was awful!

Flavorflav: Christina was the worst tonight. She lip-synced to some dated, second rate Goldfrapp bull she calls her new single while looking like Linda Hogan.

LKMOSCAR: The Jonas Brothers actually did very well. At least I could hear them.

Try Again: They really need to stop letting the fans vote for Best New Artist. The refer this award for predicting future superstars but in the past few years the winners have fallen off the face of the earth.

Bildo 10: How on God's Green Earth is Kid Rock still relevant? This song makes me want to shove a pencil in my ear. It's terrible.

Read more, CLICK HERE!

"Well, now it's official!" roars MTV.com, announcing that Britney Spears will appear on Sunday night's telecast of the MTV Video Music Awards, suggesting that it was always part of the plan.

Although Spears "will not be performing, she will open the show," reports the site.

"MTV has long played an important role in my career," Spears said in a statement. "How can I not be there to kick off their 25th VMAs? I'm excited to open the entire show, to say 'hi' to my fans and to be nominated."

How can she ask "how can I not be there" as an official part of the telecast? Just a week or so ago a spokesman for her manager, Larry Rudolph, firmly denied rumors that she'd be part of the awards show — as a performer or in any other capacity.

The spokesman told the New York Daily News, while referring to the early PR spot she did with host Russell Brand and an elephant, "She did the promo for them, but there never were any plans for her to appear on the show."

"It's unclear exactly what Britney has up her sleeve," teases MTV.com, adding this quote from network president Van Toffler about her past appearances: "Britney has done everything from perform with a snake, lock lips with Madonna and prove that what happens in Vegas doesn't always stay in Vegas. I can't wait to see what she does to kick off this year's show."

Hmmmm, to me that suggests that Britney's going to perform, not musically, but in some other capacity. Oh, please let it not be with that poor elephant!

Hmmmm again. Didn't her dad and lawyers recently assert that Britney wasn't crazy anymore?

Or does Britney see nothing wrong with her spokesman fibbing? If her rep just misspoke, why didn't Britney issue a clarification after the Daily News article hit print?

(MTV.com)

Our two music kudos gurus are split over who'll win best female video at the MTV Video Music Awards on Sunday night. David "Guru" Schnelwar ranks Mariah Carey in top place. Darrin "DoubleD" Dortch ranks Mariah Carey last, opting instead of Rihanna as likely champ. David has Rihanna in second place.

BEST FEMALE VIDEO: DOUBLED'S RANKING
1) Rihanna, "Take a Bow"
2) Britney Spears, "Piece of Me"
3) Katy Perry, "I Kissed a Girl"
4) Jordin Sparks, "No Air"
5) Mariah Carey, "Touch My Body"

You can immediately eliminate Mariah. Her buzz has faded and her follow-up singles have underperformed on the charts; she won't win. "American Idol" alums don't have a great track record at the VMAs, and Jordin Sparks' momentum didn't continue after the massive success of "No Air," so I think she's out, too.

Katy Perry is a dark horse. "I Kissed a Girl" is the No. 1 song of the summer; it spent seven consecutive weeks on top of the Hot 100 chart and is still in the Top 5. If Perry's follow-up single catches heat during voting, then I think she will win. If not, voters will reward Rihanna for her massive year. She's on her third No. 1 single from her album.

Britney could get this for sentimental value, but VMA voters have no problem splitting up their top prizes. Last year Rihanna won video of the year while Fergie nabbed this category.

BEST FEMALE VIDEO: GURU'S RANKING
1) Mariah Carey, "Touch My Body"
2) Rihanna, "Take a Bow"
3) Britney Spears, "Piece of Me"
4) Katy Perry, "I Kissed a Girl"
5) Jordin Sparks, "No Air"

This is a tight race. Mariah Carey and Britney Spears have never won a VMA.  Both artists are overdue. I think Mariah Carey is the front-runner.  Comical music videos usually win. Unless MTV decides to award Britney to make up for her career-suicide performance last year just for the headlines.

Rihanna had the most music videos released this year.  She may upset.  Fergie had the most music videos released last year and won this category last year.

I think Katy Perry is more likely to win best new artist in a video instead of this. I don't see Jordin Sparks winning.

Photos: (Island/Def Jam)