Actor Jim Carrey introduces the Foo Fighters while wearing a green chroma key suit at the 2011 MTV Movie Awards in Los Angeles, June 5, 2011. [Photo/Agencies]

Award show junkies forced to go cold turkey since the Oscars three months ago will get a mild fix on Sunday courtesy of MTV.

The lifestyle cable channel hosts the 20th annual MTV Movie Awards near Hollywood, promising a light-hearted homage to recent crowd-pleasers such as the latest "Twilight" and "Harry Potter" films.

With such categories as best kiss, including a nod this year for the lesbian scene in "Black Swan," nobody could ever confuse the MTV event with the self-congratulatory Academy Awards.

Perhaps the real point of the show -- apart from the presentation of a lifetime achievement award to Reese Witherspoon, star of the recent costly flop "How Do You Know" -- is to promote upcoming buzzworthy movies.

MTV will offer exclusive peaks of the supernatural thriller "Super 8" (due in theaters on Friday), "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2" (July 15) and "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part 1" (November 18).

Stars of the various films will be on hand to introduce the footage for the excitable crowd and viewers at home.

"Saturday Night Live" comic Jason Sudeikis hosts the two-hour event at the Gibson Amphitheatre, beginning at 6 p.m. PDT (0100 GMT on Monday).

Most of the presenters, not surprisingly, have new movies coming out imminently, including Jim Carrey, Cameron Diaz, Shia LaBeouf and Blake Lively. Lively has not wanted for publicity in recent days thanks to the online leak of nude photos she swears are not of her.

MTV will be hoping the A-list contingent boosts ratings. Viewership for last year's show slid 13 percent to 4.6 million in the United States, according to Nielsen Media Research.

For those keeping count, "The Twilight Saga: Eclipse" leads the contenders with eight nominations. "Inception" picked up seven, followed by "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1" with six, "The Social Network" with five and "Black Swan" with four. All five films will vie for best picture.

If the last two years are anything to go by, it should be a "three-peat" for "Twilight." The first two films in the vampire romance series each won five awards, including best picture.