MUMBAI: More than an award show, but a film unto itself! MTV in the US has announced the nominees, of the 2006 MTV Movie Awards.

The comedies 40-Year Old Virgin and Wedding Crashers each received five nominations. The event will air in the US on 8 June.

The show will have new categories of Best Hero, Sexiest Performance and the mtvU Student Filmmaker Award. And, in another first, all of this year's categories, including Best Performance will make no distinction between male and female. Breaking the gender barrier and award show tradition, both actors and actresses will be vying for the same coveted golden popcorns.

MTV US president Christina Norman says, "This year's Movie Awards will be more than an awards show -- it's an experience completely inspired by the movies, and everything we love about them. This year's cast of movies and stars are all deserving nominees, and there is no doubt this year's Movie Awards will in itself, be a movie to remember."

Competing for best film are The 40 Year old Virgin, Wedding Crashers, Sin City, King Kong and Batman Begins. Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhall who play gay cowboys in Brokeback Mountain have been nominated for best kiss. Their heterosexual competition consists of Taraji P. Henson and Terrence Howard for Hustle and Flow, Anna Faris and Chris Marquette for Just Friends, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt for Mr. & Mrs. Smith and Rosario Dawson and Clive Owen for Sin City.

For on screen sexiness Beyonce Knowles for The Pink Panther, Jessica Alba for Sin City, Jessica Simpson for The Dukes of Hazzard, Ziyi Zhang for Memoirs of a Geisha and Rob Schneider for Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo have been nominated.

Showing the huge gap between what critics consider a great film and what the youth want, critically acclaimed films like Crash which won the Best picture Oscar, A History of Violence, Capote, Munich and Syriana have all been shut out.