At Spike’s annual “Guy’s Choice Awards,” honoring anything and everything deemed “man-tastic,” Mark Wahlberg walked away the big winner Saturday night.
Surrounded by David O. Russell, Micky Ward, Dicky Ecklund, some of the infamous “sisters” from “The Fighter,” and crowded by VIP military guests asking for photos at every step, he won both “Guy of the Year” and “Guy Movie of the Year”.
“If I’m not watching HBO, which is my bread and butter, I’m watching Spike,” Wahlberg told the crowd inside Sony Studios’ Stage 15.
On last awards season, he added, “Only being nominated as a producer and not an actor (on “The Fighter”), it’s OK. Christian Bale doesn’t have one of these motherf**kers,” he noted, holding up the golden antler trophy dubbed “Mantlers.”
Jim Carrey, Jennifer Aniston, Ben Affleck, Harrison Ford, Scarlett Johansson, Cameron Diaz, Justin Timberlake, Jeremy Renner, Chris Evans, Samuel Jackson were amongst the big names gracing the Key West meets Havana themed stage, replete with live monkeys, parrots, and functioning replica of Key West’s iconic Sloppy Joe’s Bar.
With “Guy’s Choice” now in its fifth edition, Spike has worked closely with the studios and talent community to create segments and land big names on a channel not known for celebrity content.
Cameron Diaz opened the show with a foul-mouthed lecture in a set ripped from the key art for her upcoming film, “Bad Teacher.”
All the ouch moments — like tearing down past Spike honorees Mel Gibson and Arnold Schwarzenegger — were punted to a puppet. That was Robert Smigel’s “Triumph the Insult Comic Dog,” who got laughs on Sarah Palin, Osama Bin Laden, and Lebron James during a 15-minute set.
Nearby, the best parking spots were reserved for top publicists like Stephen Huvane (big get for “Decade of Hotness” Jennifer Aniston), Ina Treciokas, and Liz Biber.
Robert De Niro served as the elder statesman at the host-less event, handing out the two featured awards of the night.
Counting De Niro, three Best Actor Oscar winners shared the stage as Sean Penn and Forest Whitaker accepted honors for the cast of “Fast Times at Ridgemont High,” alongside director Amy Heckerling and several supporting actors from the film.
De Niro later returned to close the night by presenting a lifetime achievement award of sorts — the “Brass Balls” — to Rolling Stone Keith Richards.
“Our audience doesn’t just want to honor Keith Richards, they want to be Keith Richards,” Casey Patterson, Spiek's exec VP, event production, talent and studio relations told TheWrap.
Backstage, the gossips were after the renewed interaction between Penn and Scarlett Johannson, who reportedly broke up this week.
In and around the crowded VIP room, the triangle between exes Justin Timberlake and Cameron Diaz, with possible flame Mila Kunis kept heads turning and fingers tapping blackberries in a race to be first with news on Twitter.
MTV Networks Entertainment Group President Doug Herzog made his way through an outdoor VIP area, shaking with sponsors like Pizza Hut, which was served off silver trays.
Herzog has a busy weekend with sister network MTV’s Movie Awards broadcasting live Sunday night.
Other sponsors with a deep footprint throughout the event included Captain Morgan’s, Corona Extra (two beverages that either tie in to, or helped direct the tropical theme), Snickers, and Kia.
Dipping in to sports with breakout NBA star Blake Griffin, TV comics (Aziz Ansari, Danny McBride, and Joel McHale), and bombshells (Eva Mendes, Megan Fox’s terminator successor Rosie Huntington-Whitely), the fast moving, barroom banter-toned show feels like what ESPN’s conservative summer ESPY Awards wishes they could be for the male audience.
Patterson, Carol Donovan, and Beth McCarthy-Miller executive produce the special that premieres this Friday, June 10, at 9:00 P.M., before many repeats.
Over at the Fairmont in Santa Monica, Global Green USA and CEO Matt Petersen was singling out Mark Ruffalo and chief green thumb Ed Begley Jr. for “fostering a global value shift toward a sustainable world.”
Ruffalo’s environmental activism isn’t limited to his character’s landscaping business in last year’s “The Kids Are All Right”. The actor testified before Congress earlier this year on “fracking,” a controversial method of extracting natural gas.
Kevin Bacon, Kyra Sedgwick, with Petersen. Inside, Sebastian Copeland, Orlando Bloom, Miranda Kerr, and Ruffalo, Jamie Lee Curtis, Christopher Guest, Laura Dern, and Alan Horn presented and participated in the annual Millennium Awards, which had a strong tilt towards next year’s Rio Earth Summit when global leaders will converge to discuss climate change.
Executive Producers Ilene Chaiken, Dan Cutforth, and Jane Lipsitz (blue scarf) unveiled the almost all new cast of Showtime’s “The Real L Word” season two on Wednesday. (Season one’s wild child Whitney is back for an encore.)
Chaiken, who created and executive produced six seasons of the scripted “The L Word,” teams with prolific unscripted producers Magical Elves (Cutforth and Lipsitz) on the unscripted “Real” series. “Season one was a big learning experience for me,” Chaiken told TheWrap.
“Everyone believes there is a scripted world and a reality world and never the planes shall meet … but we’ve had a really amazing union of the two,” Lipsitz said.
Lipsitz, who missed her “Top Chef’s” upset de-throning of “The Amazing Race” at last fall’s Emmys because she was working on the Justin Bieber “Never Say Never” film added, “I’m hoping we do win (again), because I would like to be there for that.”
The Human Rights Campaign co-hosted the celebration at East/West Lounge in West Hollywood.
"The L Word" wasn’t the only genre crossover this week.
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The premiere episode of HGTV’s new series “My Yard Goes Disney” invaded the Radio Disney studios for a makeover, a cross promotion between the two outlets.
On hand: Brandon Johnson (host of “My Yard Goes Disney”), Ernie D. (the Ryan Seacrest of Radio Disney), on-air personality Candice Huckeba, Caroline Sunshine (Disney’s “Shake it Up”), on-air personality Jake Whetter, Sean Cocchia (senior VP/General Manager, Radio Disney), and Ross Babbit (senior VP, programming and partnerships, DIY Network, HGTV).
Down in Irvine, KROQ’s annual Weenie Roast mega-concert got perfect weather for performances by The Strokes and Bad Religion.
As an organic match, Farmer John sponsored this year’s roast.
“Next big thing” Lykke Li was a last minute scratch, but The Foo Fighters got a pop from the crowd as surprise performers.
