Taylor Swift, Justin Bieber Turn CMT Awards Into Crossover Celebration

Kid Rock hosted the show, which featured everyone from Ludacris and Jason Aldean to Sheryl Crow.
By Gil Kaufman


Sheryl Crow and Justin Bieber at the 2011 CMT Music Awards
Photo: Getty Images

You might have done a double-take when you saw the list of winners and guests at Wednesday night's CMT Music Awards, which included trophies for Taylor Swift and Justin Bieber as well as performances that featured Ludacris and a cover of Eminem and Rihanna's "Love the Way You Lie."

But, yes, this was a country music event. It's just that some of the hardware handed out at the show hosted by Kid Rock tipped its 10-gallon hat to the ongoing popularity of the pop-infused sound.

The biggest example of that cross-over success, Swift, took home one of the top honors, Video of the Year, for her clip "Mine." She accepted the prize from a stage in Wisconsin, her latest tour stop.

"I just want to say thank you and hi to everybody back at the CMT Music Awards," she said. "I wish I could be there, but I'm hanging out with 15,000 of my closest friends in Milwaukee. I want to thank so many people — all the little kids who are in the video and their families for bringing them to Maine and being in the video. ... I don't know what I did to deserve you guys, but you've made so many amazing things happen to me in my life."

Male Video of the Year honors went to "The Voice" judge Blake Shelton for "Who Are You When I'm Not Looking," while the female video winner was his wife, Miranda Lambert, for her emotional tune "The House That Built Me."

One of the more unusual names on the winners list was Bieber, who snagged Collaborative Video of the Year for his hookup with Rascal Flatts on the tune "That Should Be Me."

"First of all, I just want to say how honored I am to be here ... with Rascal Flatts," Bieber said while accepting his first country award. "How amazing are Rascal Flatts, everybody? I want to thank my mom. I want to thank my family. And I want to thank Rascal Flatts for even jumping on the song with me."

Flatts bassist Jay DeMarcus thanked Bieber right back for bringing the group the "great song," adding, "It was an honor to be in this video with you. What a talented guy. We appreciate it so much."

Lady Antebellum, another group that has surfed the more country side of the crossover wave, scored Group Video of the Year for "Hello World." And the Band Perry, an act that many mainstream listeners were first introduced to thanks to "American Idol" runner-up Lauren Alaina, took the USA Weekend Breakthrough Video of the Year prize for "If I Die Young," as well as the 2011 Nationwide Insurance On Your Side Award.

Of course, it wasn't all awards and honors, there was also a hilarious opening bit in which Swift and Shania Twain killed it in a three-minute "Thelma & Louise" parody. In the clip, the two jump in their convertible and run into a perv played by comedian Ron White, practice shooting their guns and run into "Glee" star Chord Overstreet, who plays the shirtless Brad Pitt character. In addition to a gratuitous Donald Trump cameo, the video also featured Kenny Rogers singing his hit "The Gambler" by the roadside and host Rock hopping into the car with the ladies after getting kicked off his tour bus for partying too hard.

There were other highlights, including someone tossing a pair of ladies' underwear at Rock and Sheryl Crow later admitting she flashed hers while getting up from a stool after performing with the rapper-turned-heartland-rocker.

"I'm just gonna address the elephant in the room, because people all over America are tweeting that I was wearing a really short skirt when I sang with Kid Rock — and that when I got up off the stool, I showed my underwear," Crow joked. "Well, at least you were wearing underwear," co-presenter Sara Evans said.

There was further drama when Twain came out to introduce the male video winner and took a major tumble on a too-slick floor while walking to the stage. She got up quickly and regained her composure, later laughing, "I don't need a stunt double."

In addition to Rock opening the show with a bit of his hard-hitting "Bawitdaba" (which was cut off in favor of a more country-safe tune named "Till My Dying Day" that he wrote for Wynonna Judd), Ludacris hooked up with Jason Aldean for "Dirt Road Anthem," the Band Perry played "Love the Way You Lie," and Lady Antebellum did a bit of Prince's "Kiss."

"Idol" winner Scotty McCreery was on hand with Alaina to introduce a performance by Sugarland as well.

Other winners included Sugarland (Duo Video of the Year for "Stuck Like Glue"), Zac Brown Band and Jimmy Buffett (CMT Performance of the Year for "Margaritaville") and Shelton (Best Web Video of the Year, "Kiss My Country Ass.")

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Transformers' Director Michael Bay Calls 3-D A 'Technical Nightmare

'I've slowed down my style on this one,' he tells MTV News of adjusting to 3-D for 'Dark of the Moon.'
By Eric Ditzian, with reporting by Josh Horowitz


Michael Bay on the set of "Transformers: Dark of the Moon"
Photo: Paramount Pictures

Toward the end of February of last year, as James Cameron's "Avatar" was crossing the $700 million mark at the domestic box office on its way to a record-shattering worldwide total, "Transformers" director Michael Bay was still not convinced that 3-D was the true future of popcorn moviemaking.

"I've seen some tests that look great on other movies. I just want to see how it looks on my footage... in terms of a lot of real stuff coming out of the frame, real dirt, real complicated little particles coming towards the lens," he said at the time by way of revealing that he was considering a 3-D treatment for the third installment of his alien robot franchise.

The fact that he'd even arrived at such a testing phase is a credit both to Cameron and "Transformers" exec producer Stephen Spielberg. "Jim Cameron, he's like, 'Mike, you got to do it in 3-D,' " Bay told MTV News recently. "Stephen Spielberg, he says, 'Michael, you should do this in 3-D,' and I'm like, 'I don't know about the technology.' "

In the end, Bay became convinced that the tech was solid. For "Transformers: Dark of the Moon," he shot, by his own estimation, 60 percent of the finished film using 3-D cameras, another 15 percent consisting of all-digital 3-D shots and 25 percent footage converted from two dimensions to three. And while the director remains happy with the results, he did not mince words in talking about the challenges of working with 3-D cameras.

"It's hard with my style of shooting and taking [a camera] and strapping it to guys who are skydiving off buildings, and helmet cams," he said. "It's a technical nightmare. You don't even want to tell your viewers how technically complicated this stuff is."

To accommodate the limitations of a 3-D presentation, Bay ended up adjusting his often-kinetic approach to filmmaking. "I've slowed down my style on this one," he explained. "There are longer shots, there are evolving shots, some shots are 45 seconds long, where you're going in and through things. Where people say, 'Oh, I can't watch action with 3-D,' it's where 3-D was done poorly and your eye goes in and out, and if it jumps fast, it's when you get bad 3-D, because it screws with your head. Shot by shot, we're transitioning the viewer. You can really feel the action in this. It's much more experiential."

Check out everything we've got on "Transformers: Dark of the Moon."

For breaking news, celebrity columns, humor and more — updated around the clock — visit MTVMoviesBlog.com.

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?Princess Diana? & Kate Middleton?s Newsweek Cover Controversy

Newsweek has decided to do a story on what life would be life if Princess Diana were still alive. In doing that they have a photoshopped, clearly, a picture of Diana and Kate Middleton strolling along on the cover. The photo of the two princesses? is causing quite the controversy. Although the cover actually looks kind of cool it really is in bad taste to do that not only her memory but to her family. Can you imagine how Prince William is going to react when he sees his wife on the front of a magazine walking with his dead mom? Ugh so disrespectful, I would throw up literally. Wondering why a magazine like Newsweek would do such a thing? Well it is editor-in-chief Tina Brown?s way of commemorating what would have been Diana?s 50th birthday. There is even a fake Facebook page for her, which can I say is ridiculous. I am all for doing something to remember her on what would have been such a milestone day for the princess but to literally create fiction as to what her life would have been like is way too much. I am sure it is all meant in good taste [...]

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