`The 40-Year Old Virgin' and `Wedding Crashers' lead MTV Movie Awards

NEW YORK (AP) _ Comedies, frequently snubbed by award shows, will be front and center at this year's MTV Movie Awards. <br/><br/>``The 40-Year Old Virgin'' and ``Wedding Crashers''

Monday, April 24th 2006, 11:04 am

By: News On 6

NEW YORK (AP) _ Comedies, frequently snubbed by award shows, will be front and center at this year's MTV Movie Awards.

``The 40-Year Old Virgin'' and ``Wedding Crashers'' lead with five nominations each, MTV announced Monday. Both films will compete for best movie along with ``Batman Begins,'' ``King Kong'' and ``Sin City.''

``Virgin'' star Steve Carell is up for three awards, including best performance, best comedic performance and best on-screen team with Paul Rudd, Seth Rogen and Romany Malco.

Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn will also vie for best on-screen team for ``Wedding Crashers.'' Both actors received nominations for best comedic performance.

Nominees for best kiss include Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger for ``Brokeback Mountain'' and Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie for ``Mr. & Mrs. Smith.''

``Crash,'' the Academy Awards best-picture winner, didn't receive a nomination.

One of the more unlikely groups of nominees is for sexiest performance, a newly added category. Rob Schneider, star of ``Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo,'' competes with Beyonce Knowles, Jessica Alba, Jessica Simpson and Ziyi Zhang.

MTV has also added a category for best hero and will present an mtvU Student Filmmaker Award. For the first time, acting awards won't be divided by gender, and instead will be grouped under best performance.

A host and performers will be announced later.