When you think of Kristen Wiig’s funniest moments, either from her days as a Saturday Night Live cast member or from her best movies, it might not be what she says that makes you laugh, but how she says it or the expression she makes as she speaks. Regardless of what it is that makes the following Kristen Wiig quotes so memorable, we certainly found them hilarious.

"I Learn Something Every Day At Target. Yesterday, I Learned That Coca-Cola Is Dark Brown" - SNL (as Target Lady)

Arguably the single funniest SNL sketch starring Kristen Wiig sees her playing the aptly named Target Lady, who likes to converse with her customers while ringing them out even if they don’t ask to. One such example is when the grocery store checker revealed something relatively obvious about a popular brand of soda that she, somehow, did not realize until recently.

"Are You An Appliance?" - Bridesmaids

Perhaps the one scene from Bridesmaids — the 2011comedy that made co-writer Kristen Wiig into an Oscar-nominated SNL star — that sees the actor at her most brilliant is when an overly relaxed Annie causes a ruckus on a flight in first class. After a flight attendant named Steve (Mitch Silpa) tries to get her back to coach, she intentionally calls him “Stove” instead, leading to this cleverly taunting question.

"I Got Shot In Nicaragua!" - MacGruber 

In one of the best movies based on an SNL character, 2010’s MacGruber, Will Forte’s bumbling titular operative tries to calm Vicki’s (Kristen Wiig) nerves by comparing their mission to a job they did in Nicaragua. When she reminds him how things ended up for her then, he immediately recants the statement.

"Someone Threw A Box Of Dictionaries Out Of A Four-Story Window, Crushing Everything Below My Waist... So, I Think I Know A Little Something About People Throwing Words Around" - SNL 

In an underrated SNL sketch from Season 32, Kristen Wiig and host Alec Baldwin play colleagues who end up offending each other with literally every single thing they say while carpooling to work. For instance, when Baldwin’s character tells Wiig to be more careful about the "words you throw around,” it reminds her of an oddly specific incident that has left her metal from the waist down.

"It's Just, It's The First Time I've Ever Seen You Look Ugly And That Makes Me Kind Of Happy" - Bridesmaids

In Bridesmaids, while searching for Lillian (Maya Rudolph), Annie (Wiig) cannot help but smile when she sees an upset Helen’s (Rose Byrne) “ugly crier” face and lets her rival know exactly how this sight makes her feel. However, the socialite refuses to accept that her face could possibly bear an unfavorable expression.

"James Bond May Go By 007, But I Give This Film a Double ‘Oh, Brother!’” - SNL 

Kristen Wiig appeared on “Weekend Update” a few times as Amy Poehler’s Aunt Linda, a film critic who is impossibly hard to please. At least she has a clever and even punny ways of rating movies, with her review of 2006’s Casino Royale being one of the best examples.

"Ohhhh Myyy Goddddddd!" - SNL

One of the best examples of how Kristen Wiig can turn just about any phrase into comedy cold comes from one of her most memorable recurring characters, Sue. When someone announces a secret that they want to keep for a surprise and you hear her say this in her signature, rousing tone, you know that she is about to get out of control with excitement.

"He Looked Like Jesus... He Was Wearing Sandals" - SNL 

Kristen Wiig and Jason Sudeikis appeared in several sketches as a gum-chewing, air-headed couple who are impossible to talk to, which makes them the worst crime witnesses imaginable as a detective (played by host Kevin Spacey) discovers. When Wiig’s character mentions that the car thief “looked like Jesus,” the detective assumes she means he has a brown beard, only for her to clarify she was referring to his footwear.

"Oh, How Romantic! What Woman Gives Another Woman A Trip To Paris?" - Bridesmaids 

Annie’s rivalry with Helen reaches its peak at Lillian’s bridal shower in Bridesmaids, when the upstaging socialite reveals she is taking the bride to France as her pre-wedding gift. To tries to back up her reaction by pointing out that such a getaway is typically something that couples do together.

"... Just Kidding..." - SNL 

Arguably, Wiig’s funniest recurring “Weekend Update” guest is Judy Grimes — a travel expert whose extreme nerves cause her to compulsively make things up, ending just about every sentence with an assurance that she is “just kidding.” It’s truly a wonder to watch her spout out these falsehoods (or are they?) in such an intense rapid-fire momentum.

"I Do Believe In You. I Just Know You're Gonna Fail" - Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story 

One of the many music biopic cliches explored in 2007’s Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story is that the subjective artist’s first marriage tends to fall apart due to a lack of support from their spouse (and vice versa). John C. Reilly’s titular soon-to-be rock star experiences this when his first wife, Edith (Wiig), reveals that, while she does want to be supportive of his music career, she can’t feign her faith in his talent.

"And I Burnt My Arm In The Oven. It Hurts Pretty Bad, But I Didn't Even Scream, 'Cause I Keep The Pain Inside Of Me" - SNL 

Kristen Wiig hosted SNL’s Season 46 holiday episode, which features a “Christmas Morning” rap music video starring her as a mother whose only gift was a robe. The song takes her family’s ignorance a step further with a lyric that reveals her reluctance to announce a kitchen injury while the rest are preoccupied with their truckload of presents.

“I Apologize For Screaming At The Top Of My Lungs” - Barb And Star Go To Vista Del Mar 

Quite a few of Kristen Wiig’s funniest movie moments happen to take place on airplanes, such as in Barb and Star Go To Vista Del Mar, starring Wiig as Star and her co-writer, Annie Mumolo, as Barb. We only see the middle of the duo’s flight to their titular vacation destination, but the takeoff must have been pretty intense if Star felt the need to apologize to a passenger for her behavior.

"I've Already Been Working On My Accent. Wallaby. Didgeridoo. Hugh Jackman" - Despicable Me 2 

Illumination’s Despicable Me 2 sees former supervillain Gru (voiced by Steve Carell) partnered with Anti-Villain League agent, Lucy (Wiig), whom he starts to fall for, only to learn she is being relocated to Australia. She demonstrates how she has been preparing to move down under by practicing some local phrases, including the name of a certain Academy Award nominee and X-Men movies star.

"Have Fun Having A Baby At Your Prom" - Bridesmaids 

Annie (Wiig) loses her jewelry store gig after a teen’s (Mia Rose Frampton) request for a “Best Friends Forever” necklace leads to a heated verbal sparring match. The single most biting (but not so-R-rated) insult in this classic Bridesmaids scene implies that one of the customer’s “four boyfriends” is going to be the father of her child.

"At This Time Of Dayee? It's Gonna Be Jahmed" - SNL 

In the first edition of the recurring SNL sketch, “The Californians,” Stuart (Fred Armisen) catches Devin (Bill Hader) kissing his wife, Karina (Wiig), and tells him to "Get back on San Vicente, take it to the 10 then switch over to the 405 North and let it dump you out onto Mulholland where you belong!" What makes Karina’s response such a gut-buster is not just her over-the-top West Coast accent, but Wiig’s struggle not to break character.

"I'm Hoping For Some Mauling. Like, On My Shoulder Or Lower Back" - How To Train Your Dragon

In How to Train Your Dragon, the younger members of the Viking village called Berk prepare for dragon fighting class by discussing the anticipation for the pain they are likely to experience in this next brawling session. Wiig’s character, Ruffnut, easily has one of the funniest expressions of this in the DreamWorks animation favorite.

"Can't Say The Pledge Of Allegiance Or I'll Burn My Hand, So I Guess My Heart's A Little Warmer Than Yours" - SNL

One of Kristen Wiig’s most ridiculous recurring SNL characters is Penelope, who tends to make a competition out of literally everything, such as when she volunteered at a soup kitchen on Thanksgiving. When one person (played by Kenan Thompson) mentions how seeing how many people are volunteering “really warms [his] heart,” she can’t help but embellish just how much warmer her heart is.

"Haven't You Ever Wondered If The Real Ocean Sounds Like Our Noise Machine?" - Barb And Star Go To Vista Del Mar 

There are so many hilarious Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar moments and quotes to choose from. One of the funniest to come from Wiig’s character, Star, comes when she compares the sound you hear from inside a seashell to the sound of her noise machine from home.

"Instead Of Using Paper Money, I Think We Should Pay For Things With Clouds" - SNL

Kristen Wiig has portrayed various celebrities on SNL, but one of her funniest impersonations is that of eccentric Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter, Björk. When Seth Meyers brings the Iceland native onto “Weekend Update” to discuss her ideas to save her country from financial ruin, he quickly realizes that she is not qualified to tackle this issue.

"It's A Good Tub. I Slept In There On My 30th Birthday, Remember?” - Bridesmaids 

Annie finds the missing Lillian at her apartment, where she reminisces about all the things that she is going to miss about living there after she gets married and moves out. Among them is her bathtub, which Annie mentions also has a special place in her heart for serving as a bed the night she entered her 30s.

"Hey, That Pollo Is Loco" - Despicable Me 2 

In Despicable Me 2, Gru and Lucy break into a restaurant that they discover is guarded by one erratic chicken. After incapacitating the fowl foe, she makes a pun regarding its behavior that calls to mind a famous food joint called El Pollo Loco.

"Okay, Were Britney Spears And Christina Aguilera The Same Person?" - Girl Most Likely

Out of context, this quote from Girl Most Likely — a 2013 dramedy starring Wiig as a failed playwright forced to live with her mother (Annette Bening) after suffering a meltdown — sounds like someone exposing how out of touch they are with pop music history. In reality, it comes from a scene when her character, Imogene, goes to a ‘90s pop music tribute show where the same woman performed as both Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera.

"He Looked Like A Rabbit" - SNL 

Only some of Kristen Wiig’s recurring SNL characters have catchphrases, such as her half of the ignorant and infantile couple she portrayed alongside Jason Sudeikis in several episodes. Nearly each of their segments ended with Wiig’s character declaring that the person they just drove mad resembled a hare.

"God, You're Noteworthy!" - The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty

In star and director Ben Stiller’s The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, Kristen Wiig’s character, Cheryl Melhoff, makes frequent appearances in the title hero’s many fantasies.  In one, after Walter rescues Cheryl’s dog from a catastrophe, she expresses her gratitude by calling him “noteworthy,” reflecting his fear that he has never done anything noteworthy in his life.

"If Your Man Likes Chicken, He Might Like Chicken Man" - SNL 

In a fun SNL game show sketch, Kristen Wiig and her fellow Bridesmaids cast member Maya Rudolph play models presenting a showcase of prizes a contestant could have won, including a lifetime supply of chicken from a company called Chicken Man. The way Wiig delivers this line — in an unusual accent and whilst struggling to contain her laughter — is one of the more potent examples of her ability to make even the simplest lines such classics.

"No One Can Get Anywhere In Three Seconds. You're Setting Me Up For A Loss Already" - Bridesmaids 

In Bridesmaids, during the wedding party’s flight to Las Vegas, Flight Attendant Steve is at wit's end with an overly relaxed Annie, who refuses to leave an open First Class seat. When he gives her a measly three seconds to get back to coach, her acknowledgment of just how unfairly brief that is makes for a good point.

"I Almost Hit A Horse Once With My Smart Car. I Ended Up Driving Right Under It! It Left A Brown Racing Stripe On The Hood And I Loved It!" - SNL 

Sometimes, when trying to make conversation with her customers, Target Lady shares a personal story that just ends up alienating them more. For instance, when she references the time a new paint job for her small car more than likely cost the life of an animal.

"Last Night A Bird Chased Me Home, And I Wished It Was You" - Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues

In Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues, Brick Tamland (Steve Carell) finds the love he has been waiting for with a woman he shares a lot in common with named Chani Lastnamé (Wiig). She has an appropriately bizarre way of expressing her feelings for the absent-minded weatherman. 

"I Mean, What Are We Gonna Say, 'Dear America, Remember That Astronaut We Killed And Had A Really Nice Funeral For? Turns Out He's Alive And We Left Him On Mars. Our Bad. Sincerely, NASA'" - The Martian 

As NASA’s director of public relations, Annie Montrose (Wiig) has a real challenge on her hands when it is discovered that Mark Watney (Matt Damon) is alive and trapped on the Red Planet in The Martian. Wiig’s character is not quite the comic relief of Ridley Scott’s 2015 space movie favorite, but the comedian still gets one of the funniest quotes of the movie, and fittingly so.

"Do You Consider Yourself A Moderate Republican, A Conservative Republican, A Tea-Partier, A Crazy Whack-A-Doodle, Or A Democrat Voting Sarcastically?" - SNL 

In an SNL sketch set during the months leading up to the 2012 Presidential election, Harry Potter actor Daniel Radcliffe plays a voter stopped by a surveyor (Kristen Wiig) whose questions go quite off-topic. Before then, however, she asks him to identify his political affiliation in five increasingly ridiculous ways.

"And Also, I Did Purchase A Spanish Dictionary. I Didn't Like What You Said" - Despicable Me

Kristen Wiig plays a couple of different characters in the Despicable Me movies — the first being abusive orphanage owner Miss Hattie, to whom Gru says, “You have a face” in Spanish when he first meets her. She later reveals that she was able to translate it with a Spanish dictionary that she hits him with in retaliation. 

These are just some examples of the hilarious things Kristen Wiig has said over the years. In reality, we might laugh at anything she says.

It seems like we see wrestlers-turned-actors showing up in major action movie franchises and massive comic book movies more than ever, but the truth is, this isn’t a new trend. In fact, some of the great Best Picture winners have featured in-ring technicians and brawlers show up in some capacity for decades at this point. 

If you’ve ever wanted to know about movies featuring professional wrestlers then you’ve come to the right place because we’re about to break down films big and small, blockbusters and cult classics, and everything in between.

Rocky III (1982)

Rocky III was bigger and badder than the previous two installments in Sylvester Stallone’s all-time great boxing movie franchise, and some of that is thanks to Hulk Hogan’s brief yet iconic performance as Thunder Lips, the wrestler Rocky Balboa (Stallone) faces in an exhibition match early on. And while Mr. T is an actor more than a wrestler, the man behind Clubber Lang would go on to appear at WrestleMania three years later.

The Princess Bride (1987)

Andre the Giant was one one of the most legendary wrestlers to ever step into the ring, but there are some out there who probably know the “Eighth Wonder of the World” from his work in Ron Reiner’s 1987 fantasy comedy, The Princess Bride. 

Spider-Man (2002)

You can’t tell Peter Parker’s origin story without including Bone Saw McGraw, and luckily fans didn’t have to live in that reality in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man movies, as the first entry in the franchise saw the late Macho Man Randy Savage take on the role of the over-the-top and notorious wrestler.

The Longest Yard (2005)

There are movies with one or maybe two wrestlers, but the 2005 remake of The Longest Yard starring Adam Sandler featured some of the WWE superstars of that era with the likes of Stone Cold Steve Austin, Kevin Nash, Bill Goldberg, and the Great Khali on both sides of the inmates vs. guards football game.

Road House (1989)

The late, great Terry Funk left us in August 2023, but he leaves behind a lasting legacy, both in the ring and in Hollywood. Perhaps his best known performance is that of Morgan, a bouncer who’s given the boot from the Double Deuce and proceeds to make James Dalton’s (Patrick Swayze) life a living hell. He even does a mean "Gorilla Press" early in the movie.

Predator (1987)

Jesse Ventura has worn a lot of different hats throughout his life: professional wrestler, conspiracy theorist, author, the 38th governor of Minnesota, and actor. He has made quite a few movies over the years, but his most notable flick has to be John McTiernan’s Predator starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. Can you imagine that great action movie without Blain Cooper?

The Wrestler (2008)

By its very title, it’s safe to assume Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler was going to see Mickey Rourke step into the ring with a lot of real-life grapplers before everything was said and done. And he did. The list of wrestlers includes everyone from Ernest “The Cat” Miller to Necro Butcher (pictured above) and future AEW stars Claudio Castagnoli and Chuck Taylor to name only a few.

Highlander (1986) 

Highlander, a movie about immortals, swords, and all other kinds of fantasy elements, starts off with an absolutely bonkers match involving none other than the Fabulous Freebirds, one of the most impactful stables in American wrestling. They’re only around for a few minutes, but this definitely counts for something.

Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)

Dave Bautista has gone on to become one of the most versatile action stars in Hollywood, but the former WWE Champion made his first big splash as an actor with his portrayal of Drax in Guardians of the Galaxy. Since then, Bautista has appeared in several of the best Marvel movies to date.

They Live (1988)

Before Dwayne Johnson, John Cena, and pretty much everyone else not named Hulk Hogan or Andre the Giant tried their hand at acting, Roddy Piper gave a career-defining performance in 1988’s They Live, one of the best John Carpenter movies. This sci-fi action thriller not only features one of the best one-liners with the “Bubblegum” moment, it also features an epic fight scene.

The Mummy Returns (2001)

At the peak of his WWE career, The Rock decided he wanted to be a movie star, a process that essentially started with his portrayal of the Scorpion King in 2001’s The Mummy Returns. Though he wasn’t in the Brendan Fraser sequel all that long (except for that CGI abomination in the final act), it did lead to bigger and better things.

The Marine (2006)

John Cena is now known more for his acting than wrestling, but that wasn’t always the case. Back in 2006, the future Fast & Furious star and the man behind Peacemaker got his start with The Marine, a WWE-produced action thriller that would go on to spawn multiple sequels with everyone from The Miz to Becky Lynch and Shawn Michaels to Bo Dallas.

Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

Remember the Nazi who had the misfortune of stepping into a propeller during a fight with Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) in Raiders of the Lost Ark? Well, that’s none other than Pat Roach, a wrestler who found a tremendous amount of success on the big screen after hanging up his boots.

The Godfather (1972)

Prior to playing Luca Brasi, the Corleone family’s towering enforcer who ends up sleeping with the fishes in The Godfather, Lenny Montana had a rather successful in-ring career as a professional wrestler. Over the course of his nearly 20-year career, Brasi won multiple championships in various promotions under the National Wrestling Alliance.

Major Payne (1993)

Bam Bam Bigelow, a wrestler who took his larger-than-life persona and talents all around the world, showed up in the 1993 Damon Wayans comedy, Major Payne. He only shows up briefly as a biker hired to scare off Wayans' character, but it makes for one of the funniest spots in the movie.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze (1991)

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze is mostly remembered for its lighter tone compared to its predecessor, as well as that Vanilla Ice cameo, but it also features an appearance by Kevin Nash as Super Shredder near the film’s climax. This was years before “Big Daddy Cool” changed the wrestling industry with the inception of the NWO.

Blazing Saddles (1974)

Blazing Saddles, one of Mel Brooks’ best movies, is full of great characters like Cleavon Little’s Sheriff Bart, Gene Wilder’s Jim the Waco Kid, and Harvey Korman’s Hedley Lamarr. But did you know one of the most absurd villains in this Western parody was a professional wrestler? It’s true, as prior to taking on the role of Mongo, Alex Karras, who also had a hall of fame NFL career, wrestled off-and-on for various American promotions. 

John Wick (2014)

There are a lot of John Wick characters who haven’t survived a run-in with Keanu Reeves’ titular assassin, but Kevin Nash’s Francis isn’t one of them. The bouncer was one of the few employees of Viggo Tarasov to survive the franchise’s first installment.

Ed Wood (1994)

Tim Burton’s Ed Wood is a wild movie with an incredible cast and one remarkable group of actors. In addition to Johnny Depp, Martin Landau, Bill Murray, and Sarah Jessica Parker, the 1994 biopic also features George “The Animal” Steele as Tor Johnson, a professional wrestler hired for parts in Bride of the Monster and Plan 9.

The Suicide Squad (2021)

John Cena’s portrayal of Peacemaker in The Suicide Squad is honestly one of the best things about James Gunn’s 2021 R-rated comic book movie. He’s crass, he’s annoying, but there’s no denying his charisma and ability to dispense enemies with just about everything that comes out his hands.

Mr. Nanny (1993)

Is Mr. Nanny a great movie? No! But is it a movie that has to be watched whenever it airs on cable? You bet. Hulk Hogan is the star of the show in this 1993 family-friendly comedy no matter if he’s battling young kids with all their schemes or Tommy Thanatos (David Johansen) with his metallic head. This one is WILD.

The Champions of Justice (1971)

The Champions of Justice, or Los Campeones Justicieros, takes some of the most famous masked luchadors in the history of Mexican wrestling and puts them together as a team of crime fighters (motorcycles and all). Together, Blue Demon, Mil Máscaras, and various other superheroes take on an evil Mayan princess in this B-movie classic.

Man on the Moon (1999)

The 1999 Andy Kaufman biopic, Man on the Moon, retold several of the late comedian’s biggest moments with Jim Carrey losing himself in the role. You know who else did a great job in Miloš Forman’s movie? None other than Jerry “The King” Lawler, who portrayed himself to recreate the epic “feud” between him and Kaufman that included that unforgettable David Letterman moment. 

Friday (1995)

Friday just wouldn’t be the same without the towering Deebo bringing fear to the neighborhood, and that now iconic presence is all thanks to the late Tiny “Zeus” Lister Jr. The actor, who also appeared in movies like The Dark Knight, The Fifth Element, and No Holds Barred, will always be remembered for this role.

The Peanut Butter Falcon (2019)

Tyler Nilson and Michael Schwartz’s 2019 drama, The Peanut Butter Falcon, is a wonderfully tender movie about a young man with Down syndrome (played by Zack Gottsagen) with one dream: to become a wrestler. And he finally gets his wish in a magical scene that features some wonderful heel work by Jack “The Snake” Roberts’ character and a heartfelt performance by Mick Foley.

Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)

Mad Max: Fury Road is anchored by scene-stealing performances by Tom Hardy, Charlize Theron, Nicholas Hoult, and Hugh Keays-Byrne as the brutal Immortan Joe, but let’s not forget former WWE superstar Nathan Jones’ performance as Rictus Erectus. He’s massive, he’s deadly, and he has great comedic timing, which brings a lot to one of the best action movies of all time.

MacGruber (2010)

MacGruber, the movie and not the Peacock original series of the same name, is a ridiculously silly movie that is all-around a lot of fun. On top of Will Forte and Kristen Wiig, the action comedy also features a whole stable of WWE wrestlers, all of whom die in the most absurd way possible.

The Rundown (2003)

The Rundown isn’t the best Dwayne Johnson movie, but it’s also not his worst. This 2003 buddy action comedy, which also features Seann William Scott and Christopher Walken, showed audiences that the wrestler’s electric charisma could translate to strong on-screen performances.

Ready To Rumble (2000)

If there was a wrestler on the WCW roster when Ready to Rumble was in production, there’s a good chance they show up in this 2000 comedy starring David Arquette and Scott Caan. Goldberg, Diamond Dallas Page, Booker T, Curt Henning, Sting, Rey Mysterio Jr., and countless others pop up.

Blade: Trinity (2004)

Nearly 20 years before taking over WWE creative, Triple H had a sizable role in 2004’s Blade: Trinity, the third and final installment in the Wesley Snipes-led comic book franchise. In the movie, which also starred Jessica Biel and Ryan Reynolds, the multi-time WWE Champion made his acting debut as a vampire named Jarko Grimwood.

Warrior (2011)

A movie about MMA featuring a professional wrestler with a professional wrestler in one of the major supporting roles sounds crazy, right? Well, that’s what happened in the 2011 sports drama, Warrior, which saw Kurt Angle portray the formidable Koba, Brendan Conlon’s (Joel Edgerton) opponent before taking on his younger brother, Thomas “Tommy” Conlon (Tom Hardy) in the final act.

The Waterboy (1998)

The Waterboy, Adam Sandler’s 1998 football comedy, has a brief, yet unforgettable cameo by Paul Wight as Captain Insano in one of the movie’s funniest scenes. Wight, who was wrestling as The Giant in WCW at the time, would use the gimmick during a 2023 AEW appearance.

With more and more wrestlers stepping out of the squared circle and jumping onto the silver screen, it wouldn’t be all that surprising to see some of the big names show up not only at some of the upcoming WWE events but also the 2024 movie schedule.

Remember that time MacGruber had a Super Bowl commercial? It was all the way back in 2009, and it featured sketch regulars Will Forte and Kristen Wiig, along with the original MacGyver himself Richard Dean Anderson. Some fans loved it. Those out of the loop were mostly confused. Upon further review, it turns out it almost didn’t happen.

Will Forte appeared on Dana Carvey and David Spade’s podcast Fly On The Wall earlier this week (though it was filmed prior to the strike) and the subject of Richard Dean Anderson came up. Carvey has apparently been watching Stargate with his son and asked about Forte working alongside him for the Super Bowl commercial, and apparently there’s a much more complicated story behind it than I realized.

According to Forte, Pepsi originally approached Lorne Michaels and said they’d like to turn one of the recurring sketches into a Super Bowl commercial. The longtime SNL headman went back and said he’d like to do MacGruber, and they said thanks but no thanks. Instead of bailing, however, Michaels and Forte decided to just film the commercials anyway and try to convince Pepsi after they were done. Here’s a portion of his quote…

Forte and company filmed three commercials for the big game. Pepsi liked them enough to move forward with the project, but only one of them ultimately aired during the broadcast. In fact, the company reportedly didn’t decide to air one of them until days before The Super Bowl. The rest of them ultimately ran on Saturday Night Live itself as commercials attached to the show, and they are utterly outrageous. One even features Forte saying Pepsi over and over again with different inflections, sorta like John Malkovich in Being John Malkovich. 

In addition to having a Super Bowl commercial, which must be pretty freaking amazing, one of the highlights for Forte was working with Richard Dean Anderson. He said he couldn’t have been nicer and immediately made it clear he was a big fan of the MacGruber sketches and watched them with his 10 year old daughter, which was prefect then but maybe not as much after the movie came out and got way way raunchier. Here’s what he said…

Early in the interview, Carvey and Spade talked about doing research on Forte ahead of the interview (even though they’d all met thanks to SNL), and they said they came across a website describing Forte’s humor as “bizarre.” They saw it as a compliment, and I couldn’t agree more. No one else is like Will Forte, and if you want a reminder of that, check him out in the recently released Strays, which is, of course bizarre.

In 2023, Conan O’Brien had his former Saturday Night Live colleagues — Robert Smigel, Dana Carvey, and Kevin Nealon — on his podcast, Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend, to dramatically read their script for an unmade movie based on Carvey and Nealon’s popular characters, Hans and Franz. Despite the bizarre content of the screenplay, I am surprised it was never greenlit, considering how many other movies based on SNL characters have ended up getting made.

In fact, despite being a life-long fan of The Blues Brothers and enjoying other known classics like the Wayne’s World movies, I did not realize how many there were until my research brought up a total of 11 titles. As an also life-long fan of the legendary comedy series, I watched each feature-length adaptation of some of the most popular SNL sketches ever and ranked them from my least favorite to the most hilarious and memorable. We shall start with one I believe most agree deserves to be at the bottom.

11. It's Pat (1994)

The Plot: A person whose gender becomes a perplexing mystery to everyone they encounter (Julia Sweeney) meets and falls for someone equally androgynous (Dave Foley).

The Reason For The Ranking: The concept of It’s Pat has aged poorly, but I was espeically offended by the film’s complete lack of humor — even with an uncredited rewrite by Quentin Tarantino, according to Playboy (via Uproxx). I was also put-off by Sweeney’s portrayal of the title role — whom Norm Macdonald claimed was meant to be a woman — as more selfish and ignorant than I remember from their original SNL appearances, resulting in a throughly unenjoyable experience that, at least, lasts only 77 minutes.

10. Stuart Saves His Family (1995)

The Plot: Stuart Smalley (Al Franken), the host of a public access self-help show, must rely on his own therapeutic methods when struggling keep his extremely dysfunctional family together.

The Reason For The Ranking: It actually pains me to rank Stuart Saves His Family so low, out of admiration for the Daily Affirmations sketches, respect for SNL star-turned-politician Franken — who, as his character, wrote the 1992 book the movie adapts — and because it is probably the most mature and heartfelt of these films. Unfortunately, I also think it is one of the least funny and most dull of the bunch, even with the late, great Harold Ramis at the helm.

9. The Ladies Man (2000)

The Plot: After his risqué sensibilities cost him his job, a call-in radio show host and outspoken womanizer (Tim Meadows) searches for a wealthy past lover, while being unwittingly pursued by a legion of men he has cuckolded over the years.

The Reason For The Ranking: The vastly underrated Meadows (one of SNL’s longest running cast members) brings a certain charisma to Leon Phelps that made the character’s sketches a success and The Ladies Man somewhat enjoyable for me (in addition to its choice soundtrack of classic funk hits). However, I would not necessarily recommend this Reginald Huldin-directed comedy, as I feel it suffers from recycled and oft-repeated jokes and lacks real authority over its more important themes: heart and raunch.

8. Coneheads (1993)

The Plot: After becoming stranded on Earth, married extra-terrestrials (Dan Aykroyd and Jane Curtin) and their Earth-born daughter (Michelle Burke) try to blend in among humans, despite their unusual mannerisms and conical head shape.

The Reason For The Ranking: I definitely chuckled a few times at this somewhat heartwarming sci-fi comedy from 1990’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles director Steve Barron and was amused by how it reimagines the characters’ lore. For instance, Beldar and Prymatt’s daughter, Connie, is a naturalized Earthling as opposed to the full-blooded Remulak native originally played by Laraine Newman, who also cameos here. However, I still think the Coneheads are a prime example of SNL characters that work best when limited to a minutes-long sketch, especially with how their struggle to fit in becomes the only joke, and their distinct, robotic speech pattern grows irritating.

7. Blues Brothers 2000 (1998)

The Plot: After his brother dies in prison, a recently released musician (Dan Aykroyd) reunites old bandmates and recruits a few new members (John Goodman, Joe Morton, J. Evan Bonifant) to enter a music competition while avoiding the pursuits of cops, Russian mobsters, and white supremacists.

The Reason For The Ranking: Speaking as someone who has a deep passion for its predecessor (which we'll get to), I find Blues Brothers 2000 to be a pretty weak attempt at a sequel in its clear attempt to recapture that magic with cheap references, weak humor, and its overall needlessness, especially nearly two decades after John Belushi’s death. The reason it ranks closer to the middle of our list is because, much like the first movie, the soundtrack — performed by an incredible assortment of legends like Aretha Franklin, B.B. King, and more — is chock-full of irresistible bangers.

6. A Night At The Roxbury (1998)

The Plot: A pair of brainless, self-absorbed brothers (Will Ferrell and Chris Kattan) chase their dream of getting into an exclusive night club and, hopefully, running one of their own.

The Reason For The Ranking: Catchy needle drops — the most prominent being Haddaway’s “What Is Love” — also won me over while revisiting this early Will Ferrell movie “classic” that I recognize is as dim-witted as its protagonists, who were first referred to as Steve and Doug Butabi upon the film’s release. However, I would still call A Night at the Roxbury one of the better attempts at needlessly stretching an SNL sketch to feature-length for its candid lampooning of the ‘90s club scene and free-wheeling approach to humor that I, shamelessly, could not help but get lost in.

5. MacGruber (2010)

The Plot: A retired special forces operative (Will Forte) is called back into action to prevent his archnemesis (Val Kilmer) from releasing a nuclear warhead with help from a former colleague (Kristen Wiig) and a young lieutenant (Ryan Phillippe).

The Reason For The Ranking: With this otherwise sharp send-up of yesteryear's best action movies, I, admittedly, began to grow weary of Forte’s title character — based on Richard Dean Anderson's orginal MacGuyver — for his pervasively selfish absent-mindedness and crudeness that I still feel is more suitable for his original sketches. However, I applaud MacGruber — co-written and directed by The Lonely Island’s Jorma Taccone —  for not being a direct, two-hour adaptation of those hilarious, rigidly structured segments and admire how it overcame its low RT scores and box office returns, gained a passionate cult following unlike most SNL movies can claim, and inspired its own spin-off series on Peacock.

4. Superstar (1999)

The Plot: An idiosyncratic teenager (Molly Shannon, one of the most iconic ‘90s SNL stars) tries out for her Catholic high school’s talent show, hoping to achieve her ambitions of being famous and getting kissed.

The Reason For The Ranking: Similar to Tim Meadows’ Leon Phelps, I believe that Shannon’s unmistakable, endlessly compelling comedic talents are why a character as eccentric as Mary Katherine Gallagher became such a memorable staple on SNL and why her feature-length moment is such a hilarious winner. Honestly, I think Superstar could have been just another quirky high school comedy if it centered on a character any less distinct or starred an actor any less unique. 

3. Wayne's World 2 (1993)

The Plot: A successful cable access show host (Mike Myers) and his co-host/best friend (Dana Carvey) are inspired by a strange dream to put together a star-studded rock music festival, but a slimy record producer’s (Christopher Walken) manipulative wooing of his musician girlfriend (Tia Carerre) gets in the way.

The Reason For The Ranking: I genuinely consider Wayne’s World 2 to be one of the most enjoyable and satisfying comedy sequels of its time, especially with cameos by the legendary James Hong and Aerosmith, who previously collaborated with Wayne and Garth in one Mike Myers' single funniest SNL sketches. However, to more specifically describe what makes it great would be to describe what makes the first one great. So, without further ado…

2. Wayne's World (1992)

The Plot: A cable access show host (Myers) and his co-host/best friend (Carvey) are faced with the ultimate challenge to their moral integrity and relationship after a sleazy executive (Rob Lowe) offers them the chance for a network deal.

The Reason For The Ranking: Out of all of Mike Myers’ best characters, I still have a soft spot for Wayne Campbell who, along with Carvey’s charmingly strange Garth Algar, headlined one of SNL’s most beloved recurring sketches with “Wayne’s World.” It is no wonder that this ceaselessly jovial, cleverly self-aware barrage of absurd humor and pop culture references — such as the famed “Bohemian Rhapsody” sing-along — was an instant box office hit, a winner among critics and audiences, and remains an enduring favorite that exceeds generations. 

1. The Blues Brothers (1980)

The Plot: After reuniting when one is released from prison, two brotherly musicians (John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd) set out on a mission from God to put their old band back together for a show to benefit the orphanage where they were raised.

The Reason For The Ranking: After technically making their musical SNL debut dressed as bees in 1976 (according to Primetimer), Belushi and Aykroyd officially appeared as the leaders of the Blues Brothers Band — Jake and Elwood — two years later and went on to serve as the official musical guest for an episode hosted by Carrie Fisher, land a record deal, and go on tour. The moment they entered the public consciousness as icons was with the release of director John Landis’ undisputed classic of both comedy and musicals for its uniquely surreal and invigorating mastery of both genres (with help from guests like Ray Charles and Cab Calloway, to name a few), that has since transcended way beyond its roots in Studio 8H as one of the most important movies set in Chicago and, apparently, a Catholic classic, as well.

Saturday Night Live is always at its best when it is, indeed, live. However, most of the movies above prove that some of the sketch comedy series’ most iconic characters do translate well when pre-taped and on the big screen.

Sam Elliott is an undisputed, mega-talented, and still relatively underrated icon of both the big and small screen. His role as Shea Brennan in the 1883 cast is only the latest example of why. 

If the 19th-century-set Yellowstone prequel series - which premiered on Paramount+ on Sunday, December 19 - is your introduction to the Academy Award nominee, you have quite a bit of catching up to do. Allow us to help you speed up the process with our following picks of the best Sam Elliott movies and TV shows, starting with another one of his many, many Western roles over the years.

Tombstone (Amazon Rental)

A lawman (Kurt Russell) seeking a nice, quiet place to retire thinks he has found it in a small Arizona town, until a gang of vicious outlaws stir up trouble that quickly turns personal, leading him to enlist the help of his friend and fellow gunfighter, Doc Holliday (Val Kilmer).

Why it’s worth checking out if you like Sam Elliott: Just a year before Yellowstone cast lead Kevin Costner coincidentally released his own Wyatt Earp biopic, Sam Elliott starred as Virgil (brother of Kurt Russell’s Wyatt) in 1993’s Tombstone - a thrilling recreation of the events that led to the legendary shootout at the O.K. Corral in 1881.

Rent/Buy Tombstone on Amazon.

Road House (Showtime)

A martial arts expert (Patrick Swayze) is enlisted to become a bouncer at a roadside bar in rural Missouri and helps protect it from an unscrupulous businessman and his henchmen.

Why it’s worth checking out if you like Sam Elliott: In addition to his many traditional Westerns, a title that could be considered one of Sam Elliott’s best Neo-Western movies is the 1989 cult favorite, Road House, in which he plays the mentor to James Dalton - the role that made a certified badass out of the late, great Patrick Swayze.

Stream Road House on Showtime.
Rent/Buy Road House on Amazon.

The Ranch (Netflix)

A semi-professional football player (Ashton Kutcher) reunites with his dysfunctional family when he returns to help run their business in rural Colorado.

Why it’s worth checking out if you like Sam Elliott: A title that could be considered one of Sam Elliott’s best Neo-Western TV shows (geographically speaking, that is) is The Ranch - a hit, Emmy-winning, Netflix original sitcom that lasted from 2016 to 2020, and on which Sam Elliott played Ashton Kutcher’s no-nonsense father and the owner of the titular ranch.

Stream The Ranch on Netflix.

Prancer (Starz)

A young girl (Rebecca Harrell Tickell) tries to convince her widowed and financially struggling father (Sam Elliott) that the stray, injured reindeer she found is from the North Pole.

Why it’s worth checking out if you like Sam Elliott: One of the earlier times that Sam Elliott played a farmer was in the more family-friendly of his 1989 releases - Prancer, one of the more fun and underrated Christmas movies of its time that puts the spotlight on one of Santa’s other reindeer.

Stream Prancer on Starz.
Rent/Buy Prancer on Amazon.

Mask (Blu-ray/DVD Purchase)

A divorced mother (Cher), with help from her boyfriend (Sam Elliott), is determined to make sure her son (Eric Stoltz), a teenager with a rare bone disorder that causes facial deformities, has a normal and fulfilling life.

Why it’s worth checking out if you like Sam Elliott: Another ‘80s classic that is some parts heartwarming and heartbreaking, and stars Sam Elliott in a fatherly role, is Mask - director Peter Bogdonavich’s 1985 biopic about Roy “Rocky” Dennis and his struggles with craniodiaphyseal dysplasia up until his death.

Buy Mask on Blu-ray/DVD on Amazon.

A Star Is Born (HBO Max)

A rock star (Bradley Cooper) struggling with addiction gets a chance at redemption and love when he meets an aspiring singer-songwriter (Lady Gaga), whom he helps achieve her dream.

Why it’s worth checking out if you like Sam Elliott: Despite actually playing his half-brother and manager, Sam Elliott’s Academy Award-nominated role could be seen as a father figure to co-writer and director Bradley Cooper’s troubled character in A Star Is Born - the Oscar-winning, 2018 edition (and arguably best interpretation) of a tragic romance told three times before.

Stream A Star Is Born on HBO Max.
Rent/Buy A Star Is Born on Amazon.

MacGruber (Peacock)

A heavily decorated, but highly problematic and conceited, former special forces agent (Will Forte) is called out of retirement again and tasked with taking down a dangerous man from his past (Billy Zane) with the help of his trusted allies (Kristen Wiig and Ryan Philippe).

Why it’s worth checking out if you like Sam Elliott: One of the funnier and more recent instances of Sam Elliott in a fatherly role is when he appeared in the MacGruber cast as the father of Will Forte’s bumbling titular hero on the Peacock original series, spun-off from the cult favorite 2010 movie that was spun-off from the popular Saturday Night Live sketch.

Stream MacGruber on Peacock.

The Big Lebowski (Peacock)

A case of mistaken identity leads an aging pothead (Academy Award winner Jeff Bridges) and his Vietnam-obsessed bowling buddy (John Goodman) to become embroiled in an increasingly concerning situation involving ransom, murderous nihilists, and pee-stained rugs.

Why it’s worth checking out if you like Sam Elliott: Perhaps the funniest of Sam Elliott’s characters in what is even more likely his funniest movie, is the mysterious role of cowboy-hat-clad The Stranger, whose iconic voice also narrates 1998’s The Big Lebowski - Joel and Ethan Coen’s brilliant, cult classic hybrid of film noir movie tropes with stoner humor.

Stream The Big Lebowski on Peacock.
Rent/Buy The Big Lebowski on Amazon.

Thank You For Smoking (Amazon Prime)

A skilled, charismatic tobacco company lobbyist (Aaron Eckhart) struggles with balancing the moral complications of his profession with being a role model to his son (Cameron Bright).

Why it’s worth checking out if you like Sam Elliott: Another great dramedy featuring Sam Elliott in a small, but memorable, role is Thank You For Smoking - Jason Reitman’s dazzling 2005 adaptation of Christopher Buckley’s satirical novel in which Elliott plays the former “Marlboro Man.”

Stream Thank You For Smoking on Amazon Prime.
Rent/Buy Thank You For Smoking on Amazon.

Up In The Air (HBO Max)

A cynical corporate downsizing expert who lives in and out of airports all across the country (Academy Award winner George Clooney) begins to change his tune when he meets an alluring fellow frequent traveler (Vera Farmiga).

Why it’s worth checking out if you like Sam Elliott: Sam Elliott would reunite with writer and director Jason Reitman in 2009 for Up in the Air - an inspiring tale of self-rediscovery based on Walter Kirn’s novel, in which Elliott briefly appears as an American Airlines pilot.

Stream Up In The Air on HBO Max.
Rent/Buy Up In The Air on Amazon.

We Were Soldiers (Netflix, Amazon Prime, Paramount+, PlutoTV)

Soldiers of various ages endure heart wrenching hardships as their loved ones eagerly await and hope for their return, during the beginning of the United States military’s participation in the Vietnam War.

Why it’s worth checking out if you like Sam Elliott: In addition to Westerns, Sam Elliott is also known for starring in a few war epics, such as when he (sans his famous mustache) played Sgt. Maj. Basil Plumley 2002’s We Were Soldiers - a stirring, emotional depiction of the Vietnam War based on Lt. Col. Harold G. Moore’s memoir,  written for the screen and directed by Braveheart scribe Randall Wallace.

Stream We Were Soldiers on Netflix.
Stream We Were Soldiers on Amazon Prime.

Stream We Were Soldiers on Paramount+.
Stream We Were Soldiers on PlutoTV.

Rent/Buy We Were Soldiers on Amazon.

The Man Who Killed Hitler And Then The Bigfoot (Hulu)

A former U.S. military assassin (Sam Elliott) who successfully completed a pivotal, top-secret operation during War World II is brought out of his reclusive retirement years later and tasked with taking out an entirely different and more monstrous enemy.

Why it’s worth checking out if you like Sam Elliott: A war epic starring Sam Elliott that is not to be taken quite as seriously as We Were Soldiers is the lengthily titled The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then the Bigfoot - an intriguing and surprisingly earnest revisionist history thriller released in 2018, in which Elliott goes full badass in the title role.

Stream The Man Who Killed Hitler And Then The Bigfoot on Hulu.
Rent/Buy The Man Who Killed Hitler And Then The Bigfoot on Amazon.

The Hero (Amazon Prime)

Not getting the roles he used to anymore and diagnosed with a terminal illness, an actor (Sam Elliott) who rose to fame playing cowboys decades earlier begins to experience a sudden career resurgence as he tries to mend his broken relationship with his family.

Why it’s worth checking out if you like Sam Elliott: Sam Elliott gives a stunning performance as a character with a few glaring similarities to his career (but very few similarities to his own personal life) in 2017’s The Hero - a charming, heartfelt dramedy from co-writer and director Brett Haley.

Stream The Hero on Amazon Prime.
Rent/Buy The Hero on Amazon.

While these titles are certainly considered among his best, we just barely scratched the surface of Sam Elliott’s highlights, which also includes Marvel movies Hulk and Ghost Rider, a recurring role in the Parks and Recreation cast as who Ron Swanson would be as a “hippie,” or the many times he has lent his golden voice to animated projects like Barnyard or Family Guy. 

Following his turn on 1883, Elliott’s voice will also be featured in an upcoming, star-studded documentary about the Gettysburg Address as Abraham Lincoln’s bodyguard, Ward Hill Lamon.

I always found it funny how MacGruber - a Saturday Night Live character favorite played by Will Forte - got his own theatrically released movie in 2010 and the character he parodies, MacGyver (played by Richard Dean Anderson on the original series and Lucas Till on the CBS reboot), only had a few spin-off TV specials to his name. 

Now, the bumbling special operative is also getting a TV series of his own - premiering exclusively on Peacock, on Thursday, December 16, 2021. In addition to some familiar faces, there are a surprising amount of Hollywood heavies joining the MacGruber cast, but let’s start with our returning lead.

Will Forte (MacGruber)

The character of MacGruber is the brainchild of The Lonely Island’s Jorma Taccone, but was brought to life on SNL by Will Forte. The comedian would leave the sketch comedy series after eight years, in 2010, and create and star on his own post-apocalyptic sitcom, The Last Man on Earth, starting in 2015. 

He has also leant his talents to movies, like the 2013 Oscar nominated drama Nebraska and the coming-of age comedy Booksmart in 2019, and leant his voice to movies like Scoob! (as Shaggy) or Netflix’s America: The Motion Picture cast as Abraham Lincoln. After the MacGruber series, Forte will share the screen with Grammy-winning rock band Foo Fighters in Studio 666 - a horror-comedy coming out February 2022.

Kristen Wiig (Vicki St. Elmo)

As MacGruber’s long-time friend and partner, Vicki St. Elmo (who also originated on SNL and was reprised in the 2010 movie), is Kristen Wiig. She would quickly evolve into one of the biggest names in comedy, especially after leading the Bridesmaids cast and writing its Oscar-nominated screenplay with her Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar co-star, Annie Mumolo. 

Of course, after making her superhero movies debut in 2020 as Cheetah - one of the main villains of Wonder Woman 1984 - I think we can safely call her one of the biggest names in any genre these days. Wiig also has done a few voice acting roles recently, (including leading Fox’s Bless the Harts cast) and starred in Netflix’s epic holiday fantasy A Boy Called Christmas in 2021.

Ryan Phillippe (Lt. Dixon Piper)

Reprising his role from the MacGruber movie as Lt. Dixon Piper is one-time SNL host Ryan Phillippe. After debuting on One Life to Live, movies like teen slasher I Know What You Did Last Summer and the teen drama, Cruel Intentions, made him a movie star in the late 1990s. 

After starring in more acclaimed hits in the 2000s, like the Best Picture Oscar winner Crash or Clint Eastwood’s Flags of Our Fathers, he would redefine himself as TV star once more by assuming Mark Wahlberg’s role in USA’s series remake of Shooter and landing a recurring role on ABC’s hit crime drama, Big Sky. However, Phillippe still appears in films, such as the 2021 military thriller, One Shot, most recently.

Billy Zane (Enos Queeth)

As MacGruber’s arch nemesis, Enos Queeth, we have Billy Zane. This actor is no stranger to villainy, with his debut role in the Back to the Future cast as one of Biff’s goons, and playing Cal Hockley in the 1998 Best Picture Oscar winner, Titanic, just to name a few.

He also has a few comic book adaptations under his belt, as the lead of the 1996 film, The Phantom, and as himself in a fun cameo with The Boys cast for Amazon Prime. He will soon share the screen with several iconic horror movie actors in the thriller, Hellblazers, and is producing a Marlon Brando biopic called Waltzing with Brando in which he will play the iconic actor.

Sam Elliott (Perry)

An old MacGruber sketch starring Richard Dean Anderson revealed that MacGyver was MacGruber’s father. However, that has apparently been retconned for the new show, with Sam Elliott as his estranged old man, Perry. 

In addition to a couple of Marvel movies (Hulk in 2003 and 2007’s Ghost Rider) the Academy Award nominee (for 2018’s A Star is Born) is known for starring in countless westerns - including 1993’s Tombstone and the FX series Justified - but, arguably, his best-known cowboy hat-clad character is The Stranger from The Big Lebowski in 1998. He recently put on another cowboy hat when joining the 1883 cast as Shea Brennan for the 19th century Yellowstone prequel.

Laurence Fishburne (General Barrett Fasoose)

Another MacGruber cast member with a powerful voice and an Oscar nomination (for What’s Love Got to Do with It) is Gen. Barrett Fasoose actor Laurence Fishburne. Like Sam Elliott, he has done his fair share of superhero movies (he played Perry White in the DCEU) and has played a cowboy (Cowboy Curtis on Pee-wee’s Playhouse) to great acclaim. 

In addition to grounded, powerful dramas like Boyz n the Hood and various TV shows (he plays Pops on Black-ish, for instance), his most notable claim to fame is playing Morpheus in the original Matrix movies. While Yahya Abdul-Mateen II took over that role for The Matrix Resurrections, Fishburne will soon reunite with Keanu Reeves when he reprises the Bowery King in John Wick: Chapter 4. 

Timothy V. Murray (Constantine Bach)

Reprising his role from the MacGruber movie as Constantine Bach is Timothy V. Murray, who typically appears in titles that the MacGruber series pokes fun at, like 24, Criminal Minds, Sons of Anarchy, or True Detective. He once played one of Ed Harris’ henchmen in 2007’s National Treasure: Book of Secrets before reuniting with the actor for the western Appaloosa in 2008, and then working with Disney again for its remake of The Lone Ranger in 2013. He, more recently, had recurring roles on the hit dramas Snowpiercer and S.W.A.T.

Joseph Lee Anderson (Major Harold Kernst)

As Major Harold Kernst, we have Joseph Lee Anderson, who is also known for a recurring role on S.W.A.T., among plenty of other crime procedurals. A good chunk of his career is historical dramas, such as American Soul (based on the life of Soul Train creator Don Cornelius), Showtime’s I’m Dying Up Here (on which he appeared as Muhammed Ali), and the Oscar nominated Harriet (in which he played Harriet Tubman’s brother, Robert Ross). However, his biggest claim to fame in the category of playing real-life people is his role as Dwayne Johnson’s father, Rocky, on the NBC series, Young Rock.

Previously, Sin City cast member and Oscar nominee Mickey Rourke was cast as Billy Zane's villainous character. As cool as it is to see the Titanic star play a bad guy again, I would have been very curious to see Rourke in such a role. We shall see how Zane and the rest of the MacGruber cast handle their characters when the series premieres on Peacock.

During his time on SNL and beyond, Will Forte evolved his MacGruber character from a one-note MacGyver parody into a spinoff machine that somehow hasn't ever overstayed its welcome. The true test is coming via the in-development TV adaptation for NBCUniversal's Peacock streaming service, and the producers just boosted the new series' credibility by casting a stellar trio of actors, with MCU and Sin City vet Mickey Rourke tapped to play MacGruber's new arch nemesis.

Let's break down each of these MacGruber casting additions and see what fans can expect from the new stars joining the previously revealed Will Forte, Kristen Wiig and Ryan Phillippe.

Mickey Rourke - Brigadier Commander Enos Queeth

One of 2020's strangest TV moments involved Mickey Rourke's voluntary Masked Singer unmasking, and I can almost already guarantee that he'll be at the center of more baffling small screen moments on MacGruber. In the action comedy romp, Rourke will take on the role of Enos Queeth, one of MacGruber's most notorious enemies. Though Queeth was long believed to be dead, he reemerged in the world with a deadly plot to bring the Earth to its knees, all while declaring revenge on MacGruber himself.

The foibles of Iron Man 2 aside, Mickey Rourke has long proven himself to be an intimidating presence on screen, and he's usually best either when playing things completely straight, as it went with The Wrestler, or when he's in full self-aware mode, as it went with The Expendables. Can't wait to see what kind of madness he brings to the role of Enos Queeth.

Sam Elliott - Perry

Having cemented his streaming TV star power on Netflix's Grace and Frankie and The Ranch, the legendary Sam Elliott is heading to a far zanier comedy by taking on a fatherly role in MacGruber. That's right, Will Forte's bumbling hero was somehow sired by Elliott's character Perry. Though the two characters are no longer as close as they once were, Perry is a guiding beacon in MacGruber's life, and it sounds like he'll serve as a pillar of inspirational advice as his son attempts to save the world. No pressure, no pressure.

I love the idea of giving the manic MacGruber a classic westernly parental figure in Sam Elliott. His Southern drawl is instantly recognizable, from truck commercials to The Big Lebowski to Family Guy, so I'm guessing everyone will be hanging onto every word he says in the TV show.

Laurence Fishburne - General Barrett Fasoose

This excellent casting update is rounded out by the addition of black-ish star Laurence Fishburne, who will bring his comedy-friendly professional demeanor to MacGruber in a big way. Not only is Fishburne's Barrett Fasoose a highly decorated general who has earned the respect of the entire U.S. military, but he's also the current husband of MacGruber's ex-wife Vicki St. Elmo, as played by Kristen Wiig. Expect some ludicrous sparks to fly between Fasoose and MacGruber over just about everything.

Laurence Fishburne has played the upper-patriarch on the ABC comedy black-ish for seven seasons now, and with Season 8 having already been announced as the show's final one, it's awesome that the actor has already landed a follow-up comedy to dive into in the meantime. (We're also still pumped to hear him in the upcoming Marvel series Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur.)

The eight-episode initial season of MacGruber will debut on Peacock at some point later in 2021 or in early 2022, depending on how complicated the filming gets. While waiting to hear more updates, be sure to keep up with everything coming to TV soon with our 2021 Summer TV schedule.

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Every movie fan has their favorite genre, but few can deny that one with the most addictive qualities is action. Whether you have a preference for suave secret agents like James Bond, over-the-top stunts like Tom Cruise performs in the Mission: Impossible franchise, or something with a sci-fi twist like Terminator: Dark Fate, there is something, quite simply, intoxicating about how Hollywood likes to blow stuff up. If you have a subscription to Amazon Prime Video, your next adrenaline high is just one click away.

The popular streaming platform has more action movies at its disposal than I can even begin to count. I can, however, easily narrow down the number of flicks featuring intense gunfights, dazzling hand-to-hand combat sequences, high-octane car chases, and plenty of explosions that I personally consider to be genuinely worth your time. I have compiled my own top picks on the subject that are currently available on Amazon Prime (which rounded out to a main total of 12) for you below, starting with a more recent hit featuring one of the greatest action movie stars of all time.

Live Free Or Die Hard (2007)

John McClane (Bruce Willis) teams up with a young computer hacker (Justin Long) targeted by cyberterrorists who soon become acquainted with the veteran cop’s old school brand of justice over Fourth of July weekend.

Why It Is One Of The Best Action Movies On Amazon Prime: The fourth installment of this beloved action franchise, Live Free or Die Hard, is rarely considered the favorite. Yet, even for how easily a 50-plus John McClane escapes death throughout, I think most would agree it is still a more unapologetically entertaining treat and comparatively grounded experience than the fifth movie.

Stream Live Free or Die Hard on Amazon Prime here.

The Good, The Bad And The Ugly (1966)

A mild-mannered bounty hunter (Clint Eastwood), a cold-blooded contract killer (Lee Van Cleef), and a goofy wanted criminal (Eli Wallach) each attempt to outwit each in each other in search of hidden loot during the Civil War.

Why It Is One Of The Best Action Movies On Amazon Prime: The last and, arguably, best of director Sergio Leone’s iconic “Dollars” Trilogy may more accurately fall under the western category, but everything from Ennio Morricone’s Oscar-winning score, the three leads’ ace-high performances, and the intense final act makes The Good, the Bad and the Ugly just as thrilling as modern actioner.

Stream The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly on Amazon Prime here.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)

A master warrior (Chow Yun-Fat) and his equally skilled friend (Michelle Yeoh) join forces to retrieve his famed sword from a young thief in the latter years of the China’s Qing Dynasty.

Why It Is One Of The Best Action Movies On Amazon Prime: Speaking of westerns, the genre is known for being largely inspired by traditional kung-fu movies, but director Ang Lee’s Oscar-winning, Taiwanese blockbuster Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is a masterpiece of unprecedented beauty, incorporating a fighting style that literally defies gravity.

Stream Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon on Amazon Prime here.

The Last Of The Mohicans (1992)

The remaining survivors of a dying Native American tribe must endure the conflict of the French and Indian War when tasked with rescuing the kidnapped daughters of a British colonel.

Why It Is One Of The Best Action Movies On Amazon Prime: The great Daniel Day-Lewis has never been more badass than in yet another period piece on our list, The Last of the Mohicans - director Michael Mann’s Oscar-winning adaptation of the novel by James Fenimore Cooper.

Stream The Last of the Mohicans on Amazon Prime here.

Casino Royale (2006)

After being promoted to the prestigious 00 status, an MI6 agent is enlisted for his exceptional poker skills to best a shady terrorist funder in a high-stakes international tournament.

Why It Is One Of The Best Action Movies On Amazon Prime: After Daniel Craig took over the role of James Bond in Casino Royale, an exceptionally gritty adaptation of Ian Fleming’s first 007 novel, the enduring spy franchise would never be the same again.

Stream Casino Royale on Amazon Prime here.

The Bourne Ultimatum (2007)

Amnesiac Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) uncovers more secrets from his past as a government assassin as his ongoing conflict with the CIA hits its peak.

Why It Is One Of The Best Action Movies On Amazon Prime: Many like to credit James Bond’s gruffer reinvention in recent years to the popularity of this franchise inspired by the novels of author Robert Ludlum, which director Paul Greengrass’ relentless and immersive third installment, The Bourne Ultimatum, is widely considered its finest chapter.

Stream The Bourne Ultimatum on Amazon Prime here.

Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011)

Veteran IMF agent Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his trusted crew (Simon Pegg, Paula Patton, and Jeremy Renner) are left to their own devices to figure out how to clear their names when they are framed for bombing the Kremlin.

Why It Is One Of The Best Action Movies On Amazon Prime: I would personally credit Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, the fourth installment and director Brad Bird’s live action-debut, for reinventing this ongoing espionage franchise as the fool-proof blend of engaging complexity and hair-raising stunts it is lovingly known as today.

Stream Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol on Amazon Prime here. *

*Also try Mission: Impossible - Fallout.

Clear And Present Danger (1994)

Soon after he is suddenly appointed as the CIA’s acting Deputy Director of Intelligence, skilled analyst Jack Ryan becomes wrapped up in a covert conflict between a Colombian drug cartel and the US government.

Why It Is One Of The Best Action Movies On Amazon Prime: Jack Ryan has recently found new life on his own Amazon Prime original series as played by John Krasinski, but many still prefer Harrison Ford as Tom Clancy’s best-known action hero and his second time in the role in Clear and Present Danger is clear proof as to why.

Stream Clear and Present Danger on Amazon Prime here.

The Hurt Locker (2009)

A staff sergeant’s (Jeremy Renner) “devil may care” attitude puts him at odds with his aides (Anthony Mackie, Brian Geraghty) after he is reassigned to lead a military bomb disposal unit stationed in Iraq.

Why It Is One Of The Best Action Movies On Amazon Prime: In 2010, Kathryn Bigelow became the first woman to win a Best Director Oscar for that year’s Best Picture winner, The Hurt Locker - a military film unlike any for its intense, enveloping cinematography and stirring analysis of the addictive qualities of war.

Stream The Hurt Locker on Amazon Prime here.

The Avengers (2012)

A wealthy mechanical genius, a soldier out of his own time, a scientist with a wicked anger problem, a brilliant former assassin, an unequivocally skilled archer, and a godly warrior come together to defeat the latter’s adoptive brother when he unleashes a powerful extraterrestrial army onto Manhattan.

Why It Is One Of The Best Action Movies On Amazon Prime: Jeremy Renner later became a different kind of soldier when he was cast as Hawkeye in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which first brought its most famous comic book icons together in The Avengers - an unprecedented feat that greatly exceeded expectations for its masterful balance of multiple larger-than-life characters surrounded by larger-than-life excitement.

Stream The Avengers on Amazon Prime here.

Also try Captain America: The First Avenger and Thor.

Face/Off (1997)

In order to prevent a bomb threat, an FBI agent (John Travolta) undergoes an experimental procedure to pose as his comatose longtime rival (Nicolas Cage), but is horrified to find the sadistic terrorist has woken up and assumed his appearance, too.

Why It Is One Of The Best Action Movies On Amazon Prime: Admittedly, the laughably far-fetched literal meaning behind the title of Face/Off has since thrown this John Woo-directed thriller into the guilty pleasure category, but what a pleasure it truly is to see a totally unplugged Travolta and Cage in a bloody, over-the-top battle of wits.

Stream Face/Off on Amazon Prime here.

MacGruber (2010)

A bumbling former special agent (Will Forte) is forced out of retirement to prevent his arch-enemy (Val Kilmer) from using a stolen nuclear weapon on Washington D.C.

Why It Is One Of The Best Action Movies On Amazon Prime: In this case, the far-fetched elements are intentionally laughable in MacGruber, which expands Saturday Night Live’s recurring, one-joke parody of ‘80s action show MacGyver into a clever parody of ‘80s action movie cliches.

Stream MacGruber on Amazon Prime here.

What do you think? Are you part of the fandom that believes box office failure MacGruber is better than how it was first was initially received, or are you the kind of fan who balks at anything that ridicules your over-the-top, high-octane cinematic favorites? Let us know in the comments and be sure to check back for additional information and updates on the current state of the action genre, as well as even more of our own recommendations for what is currently available to stream, here on CinemaBlend.

Easy arguments can be made that there are already too many streaming services in the world right now, but there's at least one more major addition on the way in the form of NBCUniversal's Peacock. Considering the long TV history of the studios and networks involved, Peacock could very well make quite a splash when it goes live on July 15, thanks to its free and paid subscription tiers boasting a vast lineup of fan-favorite programming, from SNL to Cheers to The Office, eventually.

For the streaming fan who just can't get enough new shows to watch, though, Peacock will indeed boast an assortment of scripted and unscripted original series, from brand new projects to fan-favorite revivals. Below, we'll go over the ten Peacock originals that I am most excited to watch whenever they premiere.

Saved By The Bell

With a lasting legacy that's both mind-boggling and perfectly understandable to '90s youths, Saved by the Bell is returning to enroll a new generation of TV viewers into Bayside High School. With Mario Lopez and Elizabeth Berkeley back as series regulars, Peacock's Saved by the Bell will follow Haskiri Velazquez's Zack-esque Daisy, who transfers to Bayside after her former school gets closed down. Against all logic, Mark-Paul Gosselaar's Zack Morris has become California's governor, with the actor and his on-screen wife Tiffani Thiessen (as Kelly Kapowski) each signed on to appear in three Season 1 episodes. As the revival's principal, the always excellent John Michael Higgins serves as Mr. Belding's successor. If this revival is inevitably a mess, it's probably only because the teacher popped a test and the dog ate all our homework.

Angelyne

At a time when seemingly anyone can achieve a certain level of fame online, Peacock is reintroducing audiences to an entertainer who wrote the book on grassroots popularity. The miniseries Angelyne will tell the tale of the titular singer, actress and model (born Ronia Tamar Goldberg) whose boosted her own unique rise to fame by appearing in sultry poses on a series of L.A. billboards in the early 80's. With former Six Feet Under and True Blood writer and producer Nancy Oliver as creator, Angelyne is perhaps most notable for being beloved Shameless vet Emmy Rossum's return to TV after exiting the Showtime hit. As semi-biographical TV dramas go, Angelyne definitely looks like a one-of-a-kind experience.

Battlestar Galactica

Ronald D. Moore's 2004 take on Battlestar Galactica stands as one of the greatest TV reboots ever, and the franchise is returning with Mr. Robot creator Sam Esmail as the developer. While there's always reason to be wary about cherished TV shows getting reinterpreted, more Battlestar can never be a bad thing. A bottom-to-top reboot would have been reason enough to get excited, but Esmail and showrunner Michael Lesslie will apparently keep the new BSG series within the already established universe that Moore set up. Given this project hasn't yet built its ensemble cast, with the presumably high-end production still being a ways away, it's unclear exactly when Battlestar Galactica will debut on Peacock, but I'm betting it'll be worth the frakking wait.

Rutherford Falls

The immediate comedy hook for Rutherford Falls is that it'll be an NBC-adjacent reunion for Ed Helms and former Office writer/producer Mike Schur, who also created The Good Place and co-created Parks and Recreation. The timely narrative is set in a reservation-bordering small town in upstate New York where a statue of the town's founder is potentially in danger of getting moved. In a wise attempt to avoid cultural stereotyping, Rutherford Falls is headed up by Indigenous showrunner Sierra Teller Ornellas, and within the writers room she developed (which includes Schur and Helms), five of the twelve writers are Indigenous. Expect to see seemingly simple townspeople exploring deeper issues in Rutherford Falls, and at least one reference to Pawnee, Indiana.

The Amber Ruffin Show

As the first black woman to ever serve on a late night talk show's writer staff, Late Night with Seth Meyers' writer/performer Amber Ruffin is perfectly suited to take on a talk show of her own for Peacock. The Amber Ruffin Show aims to hinge more on the host's sillier side, with a focus on pure comedy and presumably less headline news, though it presumably won't go as far off the beaten path as The Eric Andre Show. One can only hope this talk show format can reach the same comedic heights as other projects that Ruffin has written for, such as Comedy Central's hilarious Detroiters (with Tim Robinson and Sam Richardson) and HBO's A+ series A Black Lady Sketch Show.

Brave New World

Battlestar Galactica won't be the first sci-fi project with name recognition that will grace Peacock's streaming library. First will be Brave New World, an updated take on Aldous Huxley's classic dystopian novel that stars Alden Ehrenreich, Demi Moore, Jessica Brown Findlay, Harry Lloyd and more. This will be the third TV version of Brave New World since its 1932 publishing, following the 1980 version and the 1998 version with Leonard Nimoy, and perhaps it will be the most poignant one yet. I cannot wait to see how the how handles a society where sex and hallucinogens are embraced, while money and family values are not. Here's hoping it taps more into a Clockwork Orange vein than something more Westworld-ian.

MacGruber

Will Forte's special ops agents MacGruber entered existence via a series of ridiculous SNL shorts in which the blindly obtuse character consistently fails to disarm explosives. Against all odds, the concept was expanded into a full-length feature in 2010 that worked largely because of Forte's gung-ho performance. Now, MacGruber is heading back to audiences via Peacock, with creator Jorma Taccone back at the helm, and a new mission to take down a villain from his past. What's not to be excited about here? Hopefully splitting the story up across episodes will be the perfect balance between the extremely short SNL segments and a full-blown movie, and that the TV show lands as great of a TV villain as Val Kilmer was for the film.

Washed Up

As Disney gets set to finally start filming its long-gestating live-action adaptation of its own 1989 take on The Little Mermaid, Peacock will be giving fairy tale fans a comedic follow-up to the original story from Hans Christian Andersen. Created by Jane the Virgin writer Gracie Glassmeyer, the series Washed Up will be set in the modern day, 15 years after the events of the story took place, and its central former mermaid will be in a loveless marriage, lacking the motivation to make her life better. She gets shaken out of her rut by an investigation into her father's suspiciously sudden death, and the adventure that ensues provides her the chance to save both her underwater domain but also the rest of the world. With the right tone, Washed Up could be an excellent alternative for mermaid lovers looking for non-Disney storytelling.

Girls5Eva

To put it simply, Girls5Eva is the latest TV show to be co-created by Tina Fey, which is justification enough for it to be on this list...but it also sounds fabulous. Co-created with Meredith Scardino (a former writer of both David Letterman's Late Show and The Colbert Report), Girls5Eva is about an all-girl pop group who made it big as a one-hit wonder in the '90s, and focuses on their later-in-life reunion as they try to reach their musical dreams anew. From 30 Rock's Liz and Jenna to Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt's Indiana Mole Women, Fey is an expert at crafting unique and idiosyncratic female clusters, and I'm already throwing money at my screen for a future Girls5Eva soundtrack.

Psych 2: Lassie Come Home

While technically not a TV show in the strictest sense, Psych 2: Lassie Come Home is the second TV movie follow-up to USA's beloved buddy dramedy. Plus, the James Roday and Dulé Hill-starring feature can technically be split into two separate episodes if someone is so invested, but don't be. This continuation will feature the more palpable return of Jimmi Simpson's Mary Lightly, the addition of Community's Joel McHale, and it will also incorporate star Timothy Omundson's real-life stroke into his character Lassie's story. I'm also excited that Peacock is bringing Glenn Howerton's A.P. Bio back for Season 3, but when it comes to the streaming service's follow-up projects, Psych 2 tips the scales.

Again, these examples are only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Peacock's original programming plans. The service will also feature the next big Law & Order spinoff in the form of Hate Crimes (which was preemptively deemed too intense for NBC proper), the aforementioned return of A.P. Bio, quite a few sports-centric docu-series and more. Peacock will go live for subscribers on Wednesday, July 15, 2020. In the meantime, check out the service's upcoming schedule with our Summer 2020 TV premiere rundown.

MacGruber, the 2010 box office bomb that turned cult classic, is not exactly a family-friendly film. The raunchy comedy based on the SNL skit which is also a not-so-clever parody of MacGyver pushes its R rating to the limit. And apparently it could have been much more disgusting with a scene Val Kilmer ultimately refused to do.

In MacGruber, Val Kilmer played Dieter Von Cunth, MacGruber’s nemesis and foil that wants to destroy Washington D.C. with a nuclear weapon. Recently, Yahoo! Entertainment spoke with director Jorma Taccone and writer/star Will Forte about the movie, with Taccone saying he wished he could have gotten Val Kilmer to do one specifically lewd scene. Here’s what he said:

I don’t think anyone is going to blame Val Kilmer for shutting Jorma Taccone down over that one. Though, that’s not to say Val Kilmer doesn’t have a sense of humor. He was in the movie after all, but he also pulled off a pretty funny prank on Tom Cruise when they shot Top Gun back in the '80s.

Despite underperforming at the box office, MacGruber has captured hearts and minds over the long span of time, aging like a fine wine. MacGruber fans have hoped for a MacGruber 2 for some time, and while it sounds like Will Forte and Jorma Taccone have written some of it, no one has officially pulled the trigger to put the sequel into production.

Of course, That hasn’t stopped Will Forte from talking about MacGruber 2.In one interview, he talked about an idea they had for a cold open that he says would be crazier than anything they’ve done before. Which, if you think about it, is saying something.

Even though we don’t have a MacGruber 2 yet, that doesn’t mean we won’t be getting more MacGruber. A MacGruber TV series has been announced and is in the works with Jorma Taccone spearheading the project and Will Forte set to return as the titular character. The TV show will premiere on Peacock, NBC’s streaming service.

While there’s no word yet if Kristen Wiig or Ryan Phillippe will return for the TV series, perhaps they’ll figure out a way to bring back Val Kilmer’s Dieter Von Cunth? Crazier things have happened. Besides, it almost wouldn’t be the same without MacGruber’s arch-nemesis.

When I think of Will Forte’s famous character MacGruber, I have to say I think of Cunth and throat rips but almost never The Dark Knight director Christopher Nolan, until now. In fact, thanks to the anniversary of MacGruber, there’s a great story running around about a “stellar” email Nolan sent regarding the MacGruber TV series.

In a wide-ranging interview with Vanity Fair, Jorma Taccone revealed that after he learned Christopher Nolan used to recite “MacGruber” SNL sketch lines to Anne Hathaway on the set of The Dark Knight Rises, he actually invited the famous director to the table read for the MacGruber TV series. The director declined, but with an email Taccone called “stellar” and just “an amazing way to start a read-through.”

Taccone and Christopher Nolan were connected prior to the invite and email exchange, when Jorma Taccone had a great idea for a MacGruber-typical joke. Taccone said in the anniversary rundown that he found out about the whole “no big deal, but famous director Christopher Nolan likes to quote our movie” thing from a late night interview Hathaway gave and then got the gumption to ask the director to please let him incorporate a joke when the sequel happens.

There’s been no MacGruber 2 yet, but that TV series is coming. Will Forte is set to star and NBC’s streaming service Peacock is set to be the parent home of the comedy, which I suppose will serve as a sequel of sorts. There’s no word on whether Ryan Phillippe or Kristen Wiig will reprise their roles as of yet, but Vicki and Piper are part of the new eps.

In addition, eight episodes will be produced and we learned earlier this spring that the majority of them have been written. So this thing really looks to be happening, people. My only real question is: Will this be the cold open?

MacGruber didn’t do super well in its initial box office run, which may make you wonder why a TV series would even be coming, but a lot of people love it. The movie has a cult following, it had a mainstream and famous Super Bowl ad and also the SNL sketches are classics. We’ll have to wait and see about the trajectory of the TV series as it moves forward on Peacock, but for now, you can check out what’s coming to TV with CinemaBlend’s summer TV schedule.

Movie fans can go on until the end of days about big budget action flicks like Tom Cruise's Mission: Impossible franchise or Marvel's Avengers: Endgame. In the end, I think we can all agree that the greatest action hero of all time is Will Forte's MacGruber, and I'll also assume we all share the same jubilation about Forte recently revealing that he's got a MacGruber TV show in the works. Right? Right.

Understandably, not just any studio or TV network can handle the machismo-soaked magnificence that is MacGruber. Will Forte dropped a couple of tone-based teases about the in-development project, saying that there's likely no way MacGruber's episodic filthiness would ever be allowed to air on a broadcast network in the same way as Forte's post-apocalyptic comedy The Last Man on Earth did.

It's as if Will Forte has some hidden telepathic way of communicating with all of the heads of network TV at once. Otherwise, how would he have come to that conclusion so easily? Perhaps it's the fact that the big Four networks have for decades viewed F-bombs and dong references as being on par with the black plague, but it MIGHT be Forte's telepathy.

Speaking with IndieWire about his upcoming paranormal comedy feature Extra Ordinary, Will Forte pointed out that the ideas he's conceived with his spoof-loving MacGruber team – Jorma Taccone and John Solomon – are comfortably outside the parental advisory box. Even though the character MacGruber got his start on network TV via a series of ridiculous short-form gags during Forte's stint on Saturday Night Live, the 2010 feature definitely raised the scatalogical and expletive-laden stakes. (And then had sex with their ghosts on top of their graves.)

It's not like anyone can politely just ask MacGruber to change his ways, especially not after a nine-year absence. Knowing how beloved the character is to the writing trio, as well as with audiences, one would hope that Will Forte & Co. spent much of that hiatus conceiving of countless new ways to rip a villain's dick off and make him eat it. Would it be too much to ask for Val Kilmer to somehow return for the TV show?

Assuming MacGruber can snag itself a home somewhere in the worlds of cable or streaming, there's likely nothing that will stop the show from coming to fruition. Now that no one is busy working on Fox's cancelled Last Man on Earth – R.I.P. – Forte can get back rocking another signature hairstyle while also boasting a signature 20-lb python in the pants. In his words:

You hear that, execs at networks that aren't of the broadcast variety? Let Will Forte, Jorma Taccone and John Solomon go nuts! Give them a huge budget! Explode all the things!

There's obviously no clear timeline in place for MacGruber's TV development, so stay tuned to learn when it might make its way to primetime TV.

Think of the greatest comedy movies from your childhood: Austin Powers, Hot Shots!, and Scary Movie – just to name a few. All of these are spoofs. There was a time when the spoof genre reigned supreme above all other forms of comedic cinema, but sadly that era seems to have come to a close. Despite its long history of iconic films – ranging from Naked Gun to Spaceballs – the spoof genre has experienced a sharp decline in quality in recent years, leaving all of us to wonder where exactly things went wrong.

In recent years we have seen plenty of mediocre spoofs come and go, and yet none have managed to capture the magic of the genre during its heyday in the 1980s and 1990s. The recent release of 50 Shades of Black only further solidifies the notion that we’re witnessing the death of the modern spoof. After dissecting some of the most beloved – as well as most painful – spoofs in recent memory, we may have figured it out. Let’s take a quick look and examine the reasons why this once great genre is on the verge of its inevitable death

Modern Spoofs Lack Focus

One of the most egregious issues facing modern spoofs is the simple fact that most of them lack a specific target when it comes to whatever topic they lampoon. For an example of such a phenomenon one need only look at the recent release of 50 Shades of Black. Despite the fact that the Marlon Wayans comedy frames itself as a parody of the recent 50 Shades of Grey, it goes off on needless tangents to poke fun at other recent cultural touchstones like Magic Mike and the Kardashian family – firing wildly at whatever subject seems ripe for parody. When this happens the spoof no longer becomes a spoof, it’s basically a "best of" compilation of pop culture references over the last few years.

On the other hand, some spoofs have become so specific in their subject matter that they essentially act like inside jokes. Movies like Meet the Spartans and A Haunted House do not tell their own story; they take the stories of movies like 300 or Paranormal Activity and simply inject slapstick humor or grossout gags into plots we have already become familiar with. The best spoofs of all time take easily identifiable genres and tropes, but still manage to tell their own story. One can watch a movie like Airplane! without having seen any of the classic 1970s disaster movies and still pick up on the ideas and genre cliches that are being made fun of.

Internet Comedy Has Stolen Spoof's Niche

Perhaps it’s unfair to say that the spoof genre as a whole is "dying." However, we can say with near certainty that movie spoofs are most certainly on the way out due to the increased prevalence of Internet comedy. There was a time when film – and to a lesser extent television – represented the only potential outlet for spoof-style comedy; that’s simply no longer the case. Websites like Cracked or Funny or Die have become more suitable platforms for this style of humor, often distilling entire genres or movies into more digestible and economical forms of entertainment with short sketches and memes.

Social media has also stolen much of the spoof genre’s thunder because user generated content on platforms such as Vine, YouTube, and Snapchat offers the same type of wacky, outlandish humor without the cost of admission. This is arguably one of the more hopeful points we can make because it points to the idea that spoofs themselves aren’t going away, they're merely changing shape and adapting to the times we live in.

Modern Spoofs Have The Wrong People Behind The Camera

Comedy movies are a form of auteur cinema where filmmakers have their own distinct style and taste. Mel Brooks produced some of the best spoofs of all time during the 1970s such as Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein, while David Zucker picked up the torch during the 1980s and 1990s with films like The Naked Gun and Airplane!. However, the moment the Wayans became face of the spoof genre with the Scary Movie franchise is when spoofs started to become a laughing stock (and not in a good way). Their spoof films started off strong enough, but have weakened over the years with the likes of A Haunted House and the recent 50 Shades of Black.

As much as I want to put all of the blame for the death of the spoof genre upon the shoulders of the Wayans – it's really Marlon flying solo at this point – that simply isn’t the case. The real culprits are Aaron Seltzer and Jason Friedberg. Over the last decade these two have been responsible for some of the most glaring examples of how not to do a spoof – Epic Movie, Vampires Suck, The Starving Games, etc. – with complete impunity. Throughout their careers they have received numerous Razzie awards, and yet Hollywood producers continued to allow them to tarnish the genre because their movies are cheap and make money. If the genre as a whole hasany semblance of a chance for survival, then fresh blood must be brought in and put behind the camera.

Recent Spoofs Rely On Lowbrow Humor

Look, we’re not saying lowbrow humor doesn’t have its place in spoof movies, it does, but modern spoofs have become decidedly reliant on the tactic to generate laughter. There’s a scene in the recent 50 Shades of Black during which lead female character gets her head caught in an elevator door that repeatedly opens and closes on her. It’s pure slapstick – with absolutely no relevance or foundation in the story – that simply drags on and on. That’s far from the only example; far too many spoof films utilized unnecessary slapstick or gross-out gags that pander to an audience’s most basic sense of humor. Audiences are smarter than these directors think, and deserve better than that.

The best spoofs mix in clever jokes and gags. Say what you will about spoofs like The Naked Gun or Airplane! but the fact of the matter is they didn’t rely on lowbrow humor to garner laughs. Did they implement lowbrow? Absolutely. One need only remember the scene in which Elaine (Julie Haggerty) has to – literally – blow the autopilot in order to get the plane to fly itself once more, only to find herself interrupted by Dr. Rumack (Leslie Nielsen). A scene such as that works because it relies on Nielsen’s facial expression to achieve its desired effect, and not necessarily because of the implications of oral sex.

Satire Has Become More Popular Than Spoof

Spoofs have generally become less and less common to find in theaters these days, and that’s because something else has taken their place: Satire. Although we often hear the two terms used interchangeably, they have inherent differences to one another. Spoofs take existing genres and properties and exaggerate them, playing them for goofy effect. On the other hand, satire tends to examine it in order to dissect it and mock it in some way. Spoofs exaggerate subjects while satires provide commentary.

Recent years have seen a growing prominence in critically acclaimed comedic satires. Tropic Thunder skewered the entertainment industry, the Jump Street franchise satirized the prevalence of Hollywood sequels and reboots, and Borat satirized basically everything about American culture. Does this mean that Hollywood isn’t producing any spoofs of note anymore? Of course not, but they have become decidedly less prevalent in recent year – likely due to the final entry on this list…

Spoofs Have Seen Declining Box Office Returns In Recent Years

It’s a sad, simple truth that spoofs just don’t make the kind of money that they used to. Based solely on the numbers it’s clear to see that the genre was at its strongest in the years leading up to the turn of the century. Franchises like Austin Powers and the early Scary Movie entries are the highest-grossing spoofs of all time, with films from the 1980s and 1990s following closely behind. However, the last decade has seen a sharp decline in box office earnings for this particular genre; millions of dollars are nothing to scoff at, but recent years have seen some of the least profitable spoofs of all time.

The exact cause of this decline remains unclear. On one hand it could have to do with people losing faith after a string of low quality spoofs in recent years, and on the other hand it could simply indicate a shift in the general audience's taste. Even recent spoofs that were generally considered strong comedies, such as MacGruber or Casa De Mi Padre, barely made an impression at the box office – grossing $8.5 million and $6 million at the box office, respectively. Hope remains alive that the cult following of MacGruber can still revive the franchise with a sequel, but overall the era of spoof comedies as box office gold has definitively come to an end.

Films based on recurring Saturday Night Live skits run the gamut in terms of quality. For every Blues Brothers, we get Blues Brothers 2000. 2010’s MacGruber exists somewhere off the spectrum altogether. Will Forte’s MacGyver spoof didn’t exactly make a huge impression at the box office, but has since gone on to become a modern comedic cult classic. Fans of the action parody have wanted to see the maniac ex-soldier return to the silver screen, and now it seems that the creative forces behind the film share their passion.

In a recent interview with EW, Forte discussed his passion for bringing MacGruber back to the big screen, as well as the sheer absurdity that the creative team would bring to the sequel’s opening scene:

By contrast, the opening scene of MacGruber played things fairly straight before the audience got introduced to the titular hero – skewering just about every 1980’s action trope in the process. Over the course of the film, everything slowly devolves into a farce of over the top violence and sexual gratuity. Those who have seen the original film know that Forte has no qualms with crazy. This is a character that likens throat ripping to bowling, commits his enemy’s license plates to memory -- KFBR392, KFBR392, KFBR392 -- and is generally so morally corrupt that the villain’s motives almost seem completely justified. Basically, for Forte to hesitate about his idea for the sequel’s opening scene – even for a moment – means that it must be gold.

For the time being, Forte has kept incredibly busy with his Emmy nominated tenure on Fox’s The Last Man on Earth. His commitment to the series has prevented him from diving headlong into the creative process for a MacGruber sequel. An outline for the film is nearing completion, and Forte states that he will return to the process of finishing the outline – as well as a subsequent script – sometime in February when his commitments to the show become less rigorous.

Are you excited about the prospect of MacGruber 2? What could Forte possibly bring to the opening scene to make it so crazy? Until he dons the mullet and vest again, you can check out Will Forte on The Last Man on Earth every Sunday on Fox.

There was a time when Ryan Phillippe was known more for being "Mr. Reese Witherspoon" than he was for being a noted actor. Phillippe wouldn’t mind us acknowledging this. He has made similar, candid observations about his career and personal life while working the publicity circuit for his latest film, and directorial debut, Catch Hell.

In the film, Phillippe plays a slightly distorted version of himself – a once-famous actor who’s seeking the next big break that will put him back in the conversation at the major studios. Catch Hell evolves into a kidnapping thriller, but there’s enough honesty and autobiographical detail in the script to make you wonder, "Yeah, what did happen to Ryan Phillippe after all of these years?" The dude was in a number of engaging films over the course of his career. And yet, he readily admits to The L.A. Times, "I’ve made 30-plus films over 20 years. And in my opinion, five of them are good."

Is he right? And if so, which five are the "good" ones on Ryan Phillippe’s resume. Let’s spitball a few educated guesses.

Flags of Our Fathers

Many would argue that the follow-up film, Letters from Iwo Jima, was the better of Clint Eastwood’s two World War II dramas released in 2006 (and they would be right). But from Phillippe’s own perspective, the opportunity to work with an icon like Eastwood on a pedigreed war-effort picture about a seminal moment of American history has to feel like a win. I’m willing to bet Ryan Phillippe’s proud that Flags of Our Fathers is part of his filmography.

Gosford Park

Long before our nation’s Downton Abbey craze, Robert Altman gracefully weaved through the lives of British aristocrats and the servants who knew every inch of their daily existences. Again, Phillippe gets to study under a legend in Robert Altman, and call Helen Mirren, Maggie Smith and many others colleagues. Gosford Park earned multiple Oscar nominations, including Best Picture. It has to be a highlight for the 40-year-old Phillippe.

Crimson Tide

It doesn’t matter that Phillippe had a small part in Tony Scott’s harrowing submarine thriller. When the actor is combing over his past conquests and pointing out the movies that actually worked (and worked well), there’s no way he can overlook the expertly paced, energetically acted standoff act that dialed back on Tony Scott’s usual flourishes and kept the cameras focused on Denzel Washington and Gene Hackman. Never a bad idea.

Crash

Listen, I don’t care for Paul Haggis’ Crash. It’s manipulative, ham-fisted and overly melodramatic. But the people who like Crash ADORE it, and I’m quite sure Ryan Phillippe’s proud of the work that he did in the sprawling ensemble for this eventual Best Picture winner. Yep, Ryan Phillipps starred in a Best Picture winner. This wouldn’t be on my list, but it’s likely on his. Right?

Cruel Intentions

You’re damn right Cruel Intentions makes this list. It’s easy to make forgettable, throwaway shlock in Hollywood. But it’s extremely difficult to make memorable shlock that purposefully pushes the envelope of good taste to get a rise out of an audience. Cruel Intentions didn’t put its young cast on the map. But it helped us see them in a different light, opening up doors for Phillippe, his eventual wife Reese Witherspoon, Sarah Michelle Gellar and Selma Blair.

It’s worth noting that Phillippe low-balls his own career, as this list easily could have included The Way of the Gun, Stop-Loss, 54, I Know What You Did Last Summer, White Squall, Igby Goes Down, The Lincoln Lawyer and, obviously, MacGruber.

For years we were professional skeptics around here, pouring cold water on all the fans who dreamed of somehow seeing crazy stuff like an Arrested Development movie, or Anchorman 2 or a Veronica Mars movie. They were all crazy pipe dreams… right?

Now, of course, we look like big idiots, which is why I will officially be nothing but excited about the latest promise that we can expect a MacGruber sequel. Ever since the beloved but under seen comedy came out fans have hoped somewhat in vein for a sequel, and star Will Forte and director Jorma Taccone have occasionally stoked our hopes<, suggesting they could put it together on a tiny budget. Now Forte tells EW once again that, yes, they are committed-- and they totally had the Kickstarter idea before Veronica Mars did:

The last time Forte crushed our dreams about the sequel, he essentially said he'd love to make it happen, but no one on their right mind would help them fund it. Now it seems like they might have found someone crazy enough to do that, or at least a way to make another action parody on a tiny budget. Given that the original MacGruber only cost $10 million to make, and the Veronica Mars Kickstarter has made nearly half that in a month, could that be where Forte is headed? Right now I'm betting on something more along the lines of a web series or even a few short films… but if there's any MacGruber coming back at all, I'll be a happy fan.

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MacGruber certainly gave Ryan Phillippe a lot more respect in the filmmaking community, or at least in our eyes, but who knew it would be the turning point that saw him go from Ryan Phillipe the actor, to Ryan Phillippe the actor-writer-director. Sure, there were brief stints in between, like a recurring role on Damages and playing the baddie in The Lincoln Lawyer, but it was obviously the impeccably crafted SNL comedy that inspired the still young thespian to make a movie himself, one about fading movie star kidnapped while shooting an indie flick in Louisiana.

Variety reports that Phillippe will write, direct and star in Shreveport, an indie thriller about a down and out actor taken from his film set, held hostage and tortured for, well, reasons still unknown. Perhaps the fictional star made a movie as bad as 54 and audiences are out for revenge? Phillippe co-wrote the script with first time writer Joe Gossett and, since it's being produced by Mark Burg's Twisted Pictures (Saw), I bet the incident gets quite messy. Shreveport is set to shoot in uh, Shreveport, Louisiana sometime this summer and we'll await word on who'll be joining Phillippe on-screen for his first time behind the camera.

As the article notes, Phillippe has worked with a lot of very talented directors and could easily have picked up a lot of good habits. I wonder if working for experienced filmmakers like Ridley Scott, Robert Altman, Clint Eastwood, Kimberly Peirce and Jorma Taccone will rub off? Yes, Jorma Taccone! Seriously. I love MacGruber and if Shreveport at any point turns sour I will simply imagine that the kidnappers have grabbed Lt. Dixon Piper to enacting revenge on behalf of KFBR392. There's your sequel. Please. Please make a sequel.

You can catch Phillipe next alongside Luke Wilson and Anna Paquin in Straight A's, a comedy that comes out December 4, 2012.

Based on a pretty one-note Saturday Night Live sketch, MacGruber was a movie that shouldn't have worked. And yet, this bizarre comedy about a mediocre MacGyver proved thoroughly hilarious. From the names of MacGruber's elite team (Tug Phelps, Vicki St. Elmo, Vernon Freedom!) to his over-the-top enemy Dieter Von Cunth—played with masterful camp by Val Kilmer—to the grunt-heavy, candle-lit love scene, MacGruber was a pitch perfect send-up of '80s action flicks. Sadly, the majority of critics weren't in on the joke; audiences feared there'd be too few laughs to see this flick in theaters, and so MacGruber was deemed a major flop.

Still, last week MacGruber director Jorma Taccone inspired hope in the hearts of the underrated comedy's fans that a sequel was in the works. But now its star Will Forte has stepped forward to admit that a MacGruber 2 is just too much to hope for. At a press conference for the new Adam Sandler atrocity That's My Boy, covered by AICN, Forte confessed:

So it's not passion for the project that's the problem, it's financing. And frankly, Forte's right. It's highly unlikely that Relativity Media, who produced the original in league with Universal, would pony up the backing for a sequel as MacGruber's production budget was a measly $10 million, and it didn't even make that back, earning little more than $9 million worldwide.

So, to recap, Smurfs 2 and Smurfs 3 are happening, but MacGruber 2 is not. In related news, this is a fucking asshole of a day.

The first movie based on an SNL character in 10 years, MacGruber was a disappointing flop when it opened in 2010, making just $8 million in its entire theatrical run and disappointing a lot of us-- and there were a lot of us, I swear!-- who loved it and wanted to see it succeed. But star Will Forte has brushed himself off pretty well, doing excellent occasional work as Jenna's drag queen boyfriend Paul on 30 Rock and signing on to Alexander Payne's next film, and director Jorma Taccone has continued doing Digital Shorts for SNL, in addition to popping up as an actor on Girls and Up All Night and directing episodes of Parks & Recreation.

But just because Forte and Taccone are doing OK these days doesn't mean they've left the mulleted man of many improvised gadgets behind. Talking to Screen Crush, Taccone allowed for the possibility of a MacGruber 2-- though that wouldn't actually be the title. Here's the quote in question:

Of course, there's no indication that Universal or any other studio would want to fund a second MacGruber or that the original film's co-stars Kristen Wiig (who MacGruber marries at the end of the first movie) or Ryan Phillippe would return. But right now, it's enough just to know that Taccone, Solomon and Forte are still proud of it, and that someday those of us who fondly remember the celery-in-the-ass technique and Vicki St. Elmo's music career might get a chance to revisit that world. Hell, at this point if they made a handful of online shorts or an 80s-tastic music video, we'd all be happy with that too.

People react to grief and loss differently. Take Reverend Shaw Moore from Footloose. As the spiritual leader of a small town, his influence carries a lot of weight. His reaction to the death of his teenage son was to blame dancing and music, which he believes led his son down the road that would eventually kill him. While Moore may be a bit misguided in his attempt to protect the town’s youth from the same fate, he’s not quite a villain, despite what some of the kids in Bomont believe. In fact, Moore's reaction to grief would be considered tame by comparison to some of these other movie characters.

While many a movie antagonist’s evil is rooted in greed, jealousy, and/or a need for power, there are some whose stories begin in a much sadder place, with loss being the catalyst to set them on the course for evil. The following characters are as different from one another as the movies they’re featured in are, which is what makes them so interesting. The most notable common denominator among them is their grief. Despite coming from different backgrounds and set up in different types of stories, each of them has suffered loss and each dealt with it by unleashing their grief on others.

Harvey Dent - The Dark Knight

There have been many different motivations for Harvey Dent, the former District Attorney and shining 'White Knight' of Gotham City, turning over to the dark side. In some, it's misplaced blame on the Bats. In others, a psychological break occurs from the sheer physical trauma of having half his face doused in acid. In Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight, there's another layer - one much more emotionally resonant and relatable reason for his split with reality. Love. Or more specifically, loss. Yes, misplaced blame and good old fashioned disfigurement still provide some of the spark but it's the death of his love, Rachel Dawes, that disconnects Dent from his former values, skewing his sense of right and wrong and fair.

His fall from grace is foreshadowed when he utters the line, "you either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain," and he soon finds himself 'living long enough' to see his love's life threatened. His transformation begins the second he realizes that Rachel is in danger, which leads to his own capture. Finally, Joker's misinformation leads Batman to save Dent - not before half his face burns away - instead of Rachel which puts the final nail in Dent's crazy coffin. He wakes to find his trick coin, now scarred to indicate Rachel's death, and the sound all but fades as the grief overtakes and transforms. He screams, tearing the bandage from his face. Dent is dead. Two-Face is born. Gotham will pay.

Peyton Flanders - The Hand That Rocks The Cradle

We never get to know Peyton Flanders before her life was turned upside down. The wife of a successful OB/Gyn, she was presumably living a fairly good life, with a lavish home and a baby on the way. Then her husband is accused of molesting his patients, resulting in him killing himself. In a state shock over what’s happened, Peyton falls and miscarries her baby. It’s a tragic start to the woman’s story, however rather than trying to start over and move on with her life, she decides to deal with it by unloading her grief, disappointment and anger on one of her husband’s accusers.

Peyton’s wrath is distributed neatly and quietly as she inserts herself into the life of Claire Bartel, posing as a well-meaning nanny named Mrs. Mott. While Claire, believes Peyton is a kind, helpful person and a huge help to her as she attempts resume her work and raise her children, she has no idea that this woman is slowly chipping away at her life, driving a wedge between her and her husband, friends and children. Had Claire truly been responsible for any of the things Peyton blames her for, we might have had cause to cheer Rebecca De Mornay’s character on for her efforts, however her anger is misdirected, which only makes her seem like a sad, crazy person who sees herself as a grief-stricken woman who’s lost everything and is set to get revenge.

Nero - Star Trek

Star Trek’s Nero was never a criminal. He never murdered, stole or committed a crime of any kind. He was a simple Romulan, a loving husband, and an expectant father. His giant ship with a powerful laser drill was simply for mining, the character’s chosen profession. Then everything in his world that he cared about was destroyed in an instant as a supernova completely obliterated his entire planet. It wasn’t something that Nero could just let go. He needed someone to blame, and that person was Spock.

While there’s no forgiving the Romulan’s actions – he murdered over a billion people including Spock’s mother and Kirk’s father – but on some level his actions could be understood. There are thousands of films of films that feature a protagonist out for revenge when everything they love is taken from them and audiences cheer them on every step of the way. There’s no denying that Nero went too far and assigned blame to the wrong person (pretty sure supernovas falls under “Act of God” in most insurance policies), but to truly understand the antagonist you must ask yourself: How would you react? There are some of us who would cry ourselves to sleep every night. Others would contact the proper authorities and try to sort everything out in a legal fashion. If you’re like Nero, however, you will blow up a fucking planet in the name of vengeance.

Dieter Von Cunth - MacGruber

Handsome, likable and extremely intelligent, Dieter Von Cunth strolled through college with the swagger of a man who knew he was going somewhere. Arrogant? I suppose you could have called him that, but it’s hard to doubt a man set to excitedly marry the beautiful, pregnant girl of his dreams. In another time, another place, he perhaps could have rode that momentum to a nice house in suburbia with an automatic sprinkler system and a basketball hoop in the driveway, but thanks to his best man MacGruber, that nuclear family never happened.

There’s a reason why most archenemies had an intensely personal relationship at some point in their past. Nothing breeds hostility quite like a best friend betrayal, and a strong case could be made that no hero has ever betrayed a villain more than MacGruber. Prior to Von Cunth’s wedding, the bomb-disarming protagonist not only slept with the bride, he convinced her to terminate her child and leave the relationship. The abortion may have been the only way for a fresh start in MacGruber’s mind, but it was the ultimate symbol of war to Von Cunth. He murdered his two-timing ex-fiance as she said her I Do’s to MacGruber and set a new course of sociopathic villainy. I can’t condone his later attempts to blow up Washington DC, but if ever there was an antagonist with an honest to MacGruber axe to grind, it was Dieter Von Cunth.

Mrs. Vorhees - Friday The 13th

If only those damn camp counselors had done their jobs, we would have been spared decades of murderous, cold-blooded yet always creative slaughter in such places as Camp Crystal Lake, New York City and, of course, outer space. But no. Barry (Willie Adams) and Claudette (Debra S. Hayes) needed to have sex. And in their absence, the unattended Jason Voorhees drowned, sending his now-deranged mother on the warpath.

Listen, nothing can compare to the grief felt by a parent when they lose a child. Nothing. But that still doesn’t justify Mrs. Voorhees (Betsy Palmer) hacking away at a cabin full of horny twentysomethings in Sean S. Cunningham’s original Friday the 13th. The reveal of the killer’s identity is a bit of a surprise (spoiler warnings on a 31-year-old film are unnecessary), as audiences assume it’s Jason knocking off fornicating counselors. Not yet. Old hockey mask would get his chance in Friday parts two through whatever number we’re up to at this point. But the first Friday centered on a grieving parent pushed into a blinding rage when negligence robs her of her only son. And since Footloose kick started this initial discussion, here’s a direct tie-in: Kevin Bacon was one of the counselors murdered by Mrs. Voorhees when they returned to the camp. How’s that for a six-degrees connection?

Lotso - Toy Story 3

Lotso wasn't always a bad bear, and he certainly wasn't always the tyrannical ruler of a daycare. Like so many other toys, Lotso was loved once, by a little girl who carried him everywhere, to the point that he was eventually forgotten. What stung wasn't the fact that he had been left behind by his girl-- it was when he returned home to find that he replaced that Lotso turned a corner. You could say he was filled with grief for his missing, beloved owner, but I like to think of it as Lotso grieving for himself. He's learned that he was replaceable, but more than that, he'd learned that the version of himself that he knew was dependent on someone else, a someone else who was lost to him entirely.

In Toy Story 2, when Jessie told her story of being left behind, it simply made her afraid to love again; when Lotso is replaced, he goes into mourning for the version of himself he once knew, so much that he decides no other toys can feel that love again. It's a strange kind of grief, sure, but maybe that's the mastery of Pixar-- through evil leader toys they show you how grief doesn't just have to be for someone else, but for a part of yourself that's now gone forever.

Anakin Skywalker - Star Wars

As far as Anakin’s turn to the dark side, Palpatine deserves a fair amount of credit for how he handled Skywalker in the man’s younger years, however grief played a significant role in turning Anakin from the man and potential Jedi he was becoming, to one of the biggest bads in the galaxy. We saw an early look at the kind of rage the future Darth Vader held inside when he killed off an entire tribe of Tusken Raiders in reaction to his mother’s death. His anger was understandable but his lack of control demonstrated how Skywalker could easily use his abilities for darker purposes.

Padme represented what was left of the love in Anakin’s life after his mother died, however even she proved unable to help him control his rage in the end. She died in childbirth, which may have been the straw that broke the camel’s back, as Anakin Skywalker disappeared for a long time after that, giving himself over to the dark side and becoming the ruthless Darth Vader.

Interestingly enough, while Vader may be among the most celebrated villains in movie history, he’s also one of the few that redeemed himself in the end, showing us his face and what was left of his humanity at the end of Return of the Jedi. While his grief all but destroyed who he was as a man, there was just enough love in him to bring him back in the end, proving that it’s never too late to turn it all around, even if you’re Darth Vader.

Akiva Schaffer’s Neighborhood Watch is filling up with funny people. Will Forte, ensemble player on Saturday Night Live and star of his own cult film, MacGruber, is the latest name added to a cast that already included Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn, Jonah Hill and Rosemarie DeWitt.

The high-concept comedy revolves around suburban husbands and fathers who form a neighborhood watch program as an excuse to get out of their houses and escape their wives and children. But problems arise when the movie takes a sharp left turn and the Watch men stumble on an alien conspiracy, according to the Hollywood Reporter. Hey, if it’s funny, we’ll follow these guys anywhere. Let’s just hope Schaffer, who directed Hot Rod with Andy Samberg in 2007, can turn Watch into more than a glorified SNL skit.

Forte, meanwhile, has been stringing together back-to-back projects that would have other comedians salivating. In addition to recurring roles on the very funny 30 Rock and lending his voice to FOX’s The Cleveland Show, Forte has supporting parts alongside Tom Cruise, Alec Baldwin and Russell Brand in Adam Shankman’s musical adaptation of the Broadway smash Rock of Ages, and will play a part in Adam Sandler’s I Hate You, Dad, also with Samberg. Now let’s just hope Schaffer has room for all of the funny people he has poured into Watch, which is working from a Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg screenplay as it shoots for a July 27, 2012 release date.

Great movies are built on great ideas, or amazing performances, or the perfect script. Maybe they're best remembered as a completed whole, a piece of art which doesn't come together until every single frame has unspooled on screen. But more often than not, it's the moments we remember most; those special, singular places in time where everything comes together on screen for a few brief seconds or minutes to create something so indelible, so perfect, you'll carry it with you for the rest of your life.

Maybe the rest of the movie doesn't really work or maybe you're in the middle of watching one of the year's best films. Whatever the movie, in that moment, for those seconds, you're carried away by unstoppable laughter, soaring on waves of emotion, or left sinking into the pits of sadness and despair. For a few specific seconds some films are able to capture lightning in a bottle. 2010 had more than its share of those unforgettable, lightning in a bottle moments on film. These are the ones we'll remember most.

SPOILER WARNING: The following discussion contains major spoilers from each of the films involved. If you haven't seen the movie, skip it and go on to the next one.

Aron Ralston Smiles in 127 Hours

The most unforgettable moment in 127 Hours isn't the now infamous five minutes James Franco's Aron Ralston spends cutting off his own arm, it's what he does afterward. Trapped for days with his appendage wedged between a boulder and a narrow canyon wall, Aron has had little to hope for except a quick and painless death. Dehydrated and hopeless, he finally begins tearing at his own flesh. It seems clear that when he starts he never hoped to actually survive but suddenly after hacking and tearing and suffering, suddenly he's free.

Aron stumbles back against the canyon wall and stops, almost surprised to be moving under his own power, and when he stumbles backwards he looks back at the spot where he'd been imprisoned, he looks back and the remains of his severed limb... and smiles. It's that moment, more than any other in 127 Hours which you'll never get. It's the smile of pure freedom, it's the smile of someone who suddenly has a chance at life. For that one second, he doesn't feel the pain of his missing arm or the stiffness in his water-deprived muscles. There is only freedom.

Unfortunately that particular scene from 127 Hours isn't available to view online. Check out a different clip below instead, as a reminder of the circumstances from which Ralston freed himself.

Obliviate in Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows

We've never really seen much of Hermione's home life in the Harry Potter movies. All we've been told is that her parents are, well, normal. In a few brief seconds at the start of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 1 though, we learn all there is to know about the Grangers. They are normal, very normal and judging from the pictures on their mantle they deeply love their daughter.

But they're in danger and to keep them safe, Hermione erases their memory of her. As she raises her wand behind unsuspecting parents, the pictures on their mantle filled with happy times spent doing things with their daughter fade away. Her parents hunch over on the couch, as if all the happiness has just been sucked out of their lives. Hermione will remember their life with her, but they won't.

Watch Hermione sacrifice her past to keep the people she loves safe, with a small part of the obliviate scene in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 1 embedded below.

MacGruber Blows Up Heroes in MacGruber

The best Saturday Night Live movie since Wayne's World may have been slandered by critics and underappreciated by fans, but it's still responsible for one of the better misdirection scenes in comedy history. After tracking down and reassembling his imposing gang of professional wrestlers, MacGruber takes pause to ridicule Ryan Phillippe, as half a dozen or so American heroes with over one hundred years of combined combat experience chant "fuck the brass" from inside their specially-equipped van. And then it explodes, taking all their brotherhood and expertise with it.

As MacGruber frantically checks the wreckage for survivors and screams for someone to call 911, viewers finally get a taste of what they might be in for. It's surprising and strangely brilliant and far more clever than most people give it credit for. What can you really expect out of the jackass that just blew up his entire support network? An hour and a half of unconventional, foul-mouthed hilarity. Don't bother disagreeing. MacGruber will just head butt you in the face until you reconsider.

Watch MacGruber blow up his own team embedded below:

Albert's Penguin Story in The King's Speech

Before he becomes embroiled in matters of state, we first meet Albert as a family man who never really expected to take the reigns of power. He loves his children yet because of his stammer finds himself often utterly unable to communicate with them. In what is without a doubt the film's most moving, human moment Albert comes in to kiss his daughters before bed. They beg him to tell them a bed time story, and the sadness in Albert's eyes at that moment is so great, that it threatens to take on a life of its own.

Knowing he's unable to tell a proper story Albert attempts to compensate and, wearing the tuxedo he'll need for his late night engagement, gets down on his hands and knees to imitate a penguin for his daughters, while stuttering out a penguin story. The story is simple and his delivery is halting and unsteady, but Albert loves his daughters and attempts to compensate by flopping around the room, without hesitation or embarrassment. They love him for it.

The King's Speech is only recently in theaters, so this scene isn't available to watch online. Do yourself a favor and whether or not you've already seen it, buy a ticket for The King's Speech right now.

Nina Dances The Black Swan in Black Swan

Unable to find the darkness inside herself necessary to dance the dance of the Black Swan for her performance in Swan Lake, Natalie Portman's Nina spends most of the film slowly driving herself mad in pursuit of perfection. Backstage between dances, she slowly gives in to the madness and it gives her power on stage, the power to pull off the greatest performance of her career. Nina steps on stage to dance the black swan and while the audience simply sees an amazing dance, in Nina's mind she's slowly beginning to transform into a bird as the darkness she's had bottled up in her is suddenly released.

Director Darren Aronofsky shoots the entire thing beautifully and Portman, who worked tirelessly to transform her body for the role, actually performs a lot of the moves herself. The result is perhaps one of the best ballet sequences ever captured on screen.

Here's the first part of Nina's dance of the black swan, embedded below. It gets weirder and goes further, shortly after this clip ends.

Allen Gets His Wooden Gun Back in The Other Guys

In The Other Guys Will Ferrell's loser cop Allen is so incompetent that he's given a wooden gun. Except he can't even hold on to that, and it's soon taken from him by the movie's bad guys. Allen and his partner (Mark Wahlberg) are called into the Captain's office to be chewed out for their actions where the Captain informs them that in a move of ninja-like humiliation their attackers have returned Will Ferrell's wooden gun and we learn, for some reason, have also improved it by staining the wood and rubbed it down with linseed oil. Allen is impressed by the attention to detail. It's a scene so ridiculous that it probably couldn't have happened in a proper movie, but that's just how The Other Guys rolls. The plot may not work at all, but the sheer absurdity of what's going on makes this moment, along with a lot of the others in this film, one of the funniest of the year.

Will Ferrell's admiration of his gun's new finish isn't available online, but here's what happens later when he loses his gun again:

Henley Sequence in The Social Network

For those who row crew, there are few events more hotly anticipated than the Henley Royal Regatta on the River Thames. Rowers from around the world go every year and future Olympians Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss are no exceptions. Standing 6'5” and weighing in at 220 pounds, the twins work year round to try and bring home the top prize for their beloved Harvard University.

Starting quietly, we hear the sound of Edvard Grieg's “In The Hall of the Mountain King” and as the camera pans around the town of Henley-on-Thames, England, the tilt shift camera work making everything look miniature. The music grows as we see the boats for the first time, slowly moving towards us from a distance. The rowers' oars move in perfect synchronicity, silent coxswains calling out orders to their teammates. Grieg's masterpiece gains volume and tempo as we get closer to the rowers as they grit their teeth, flex their arms and try to keep their breath. As the two boats get closer and closer to the finish line, staying neck in neck, the music becomes deafening and the rowers look more and more exhausted, but never give up. Finally, one boat crosses the finish line and… it's the Hollandia Roeiclub from the Netherlands that finishes first by less than a full boat length. The Dutch rowers are jubilant though bushed, and the Winklevosses appear to be near tears. From high above the race, the Winklevoss' business partner, Divya Narendra, turns away. It's yet another second place finish.

Relive one of the most brilliant moments from David Fincher's The Social Network below.

Hiccup And Toothless Touch in How To Train Your Dragon

It happens in incremental moments, this connection between a Viking boy and the dragon he's been taught to fear and kill his entire life. Of course, since it started with Hiccup shooting down Toothless in the night sky during a battle, it was obviously going to take some time for these two to warm up to each other. First Hiccup brings a fish, and Toothless coughs up a bit of the tail so Hiccup can share-- making sure he swallows, of course. At that point it's too early, though, and Toothless runs away the moment Hiccup reaches out his hand. Then Hiccup draws Toothless in the dirt with a stick, and Toothless imitates him, sketching circles in the ground around Hiccup with a giant tree branch. All the while we come to see Toothless as less fearsome dragon and more eager housecat, trying to understand and communicate with his new friend.

Finally it happens-- Hiccup reaches out his hand to Toothless's nose, eyes averted to the ground, and Toothless presses into the boy's palm. It's the beginning of a friendship that will define each of their lives as well as this lovely, adventurous movie, and it starts with a simple touch between creatures trained to kill one another above all else.

Revisit the start of the friendship between Hiccup and Toothless below:

Drinking With Terry Hoitz in The Other Guys

When Will Ferrell's Allen has trouble at home with his way too hot to be with him wife, Mark Wahlberg's Terry Hoitz has the solution: Drinking. Not just any drinking, drinking with Terry Hoitz. Drinking with Terry Hoitz, as it turns out, involves such highly entertaining antics as pouring beer on bar patrons, firing off guns in a crowd while shotgunning vodka, and peeing on pool tables. It's all told in a pretty eye-popping, single-take still image which the camera weaves through while The Black Eyed Peas “Imma Be” blares on the soundtrack providing a funky beat to their antics.

For those of you keeping count, that's the Black Eyed Peas second appearance on this list. 2010 was their year, and probably with good reason. This scene just wouldn't be as good without their vibe.

Watch Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg go drinking Terry Hoitz style, embedded below:

Big Daddy Takes Down A Warehouse in Kick-Ass

While he doesn't know it yet, Kick-Ass is screwed. Tricked by a guy he believes to be a fellow superhero, he's being driven to his doom and all he can do is sit in the passenger seat jamming out to “Crazy” by Gnarls Barkley. Or at least that's what Red Mist thinks as he alerts the men at the warehouse that they are on their way. Fortunately for Kick-Ass, Big Daddy beats both of them there.

Sneaking in like a ninja, the hulking former cop dressed up like Batman lays waste to every man in the building. In the background, John Murphy's “In The House In A Heartbeat” from the 28 Days Later score slowly rises as the superhero glides around. Knife slashes throat. Kick guy in the chest. Knife stabs chest. Shots fired with pistol. Use human shield. More stabbing, more shooting. Ascend the stairs, dodge the bullets. Shoot a guy, throw a grenade. Hop down, steal shotgun and fire away. In less than a minute, a warehouse filled with trained killers becomes a warehouse filled with corpses. After that, there's nothing more to do then to set it all aflame.

Watch Big Daddy bring all the baddies down in the video below:

John And Cyrus Discuss Panic Attacks in Cyrus

Mothers are like the Godfather's Luca Brasi. They're fiercely devoted, unwaveringly intense and usually the worst possible people to piss off. Cyrus and John at least agree on that. Their seething hatred for each other has evolved into open warfare, but they both know no good will come out of telling Molly, John's girlfriend and Cyrus' mom. For fear of evil eyes and more nights on the couch, they take to a spare bedroom to whisper vicious threats before the woman in their lives enters, setting the stage for a delicate, back-and-forth, overly nice verbal manipulation about the best way to handle panic attacks.

Cyrus claims he's been having them and needs to move back home. John invents a bullshit, heart-wrenching story about how overcoming his fight with them in college without help turned him into the man he is today. And on and on it goes, a brilliant one-up battle of back-and-forth fabrications before Cyrus turns up the heat and shyly asks John if he isn't allowed back. Internally weighing the pros and cons, John decides to give up the battle to continue the war. The whole thing is ridiculous, yet it's still strangely authentic. Where lesser films would have devolved into over-the-top improv, Cyrus treads lightly, letting the humor come from the men's conniving dislike rather than the absurdity of individual phrases. To paraphrase David Merrick, it's not enough to win if your enemies don't lose.

This scene isn't online yet, but the movie's on Blu-ray and DVD. Run out and pick it up now.

Black Widow's Fight in Iron Man 2

Until Iron Man 2 no one had ever really thought of Scarlett Johansson as an action star, but in a little under two-minutes of battle her character, the Black Widow, delivers a series of roundhouse punches and mace to the face with such ferocity that it's not only easily the best scene in Iron Man 2 but one of the best straight up action sequences of the year.

While Tony Stark is off fighting more metal robots, Black Widow aka Natalie Romanov goes with Stark's driver Happy (Jon Favreau) to break into a secure facility and shut down the metal monsters demolishing the city. To get in she'll have to strip down and slide into a slinky catsuit, then demolish a veritable army of security guards while Happy stands around getting his ass kicked by one dude. Favreau's sense of humor about himself in the scene is a lot of fun, but not as much fun as watching Scarlett go nuts on a bunch of henchman.

Revisit Black Widow's fighting skills below:

I've Got A Dream in Tangled

Though he likes breaking femurs, you can count Brad Garrett's hook-handed thug amongst the dreamers. The same goes for all the other Barbarians Rapunzel meets in the scariest saloon this side of Dodge City. They may not have clean consciences (or hands), but below the gruff exteriors, they're just grown-up kids with unfulfilled aspirations. For almost a century, Disney has thrived on littering its films with these goofy, idealistic side characters and perhaps none have ever been given a better musical tribute than Tangled offers its ragtag band of loveable miscreants.

A lesser film would have laughed at these Philistines, but directors Nathan Greno and Byron Howard eschew mean-spirited finger pointing in favor of well-deserved giggles. Anyone can laugh at the fish out of water or the Barbarian out of key, but Rapunzel gleefully joins in, seeing the Brutes as partners rather than enemies. Her decision serves her well later, as it does the audience. “I Can See The Light” may be the film's emotional center, but “I've Got A Dream” is far and away its most charming. Walt Disney would be proud.

Sing along with the first part of “I've Got A Dream” from Tangled in the video below.

Tell us about your favorite movie moments of 2010 in the comments below.

To get more of Cinema Blend's Best Of 2010, click here.

It's no secret that, up until the release of Toy Story 3 last weekend, the summer of 2010 had been a massive disappointment. Box office totals are down and suddenly, spending time in the summer sunshine seems far more appealing that lining up to sit inside a crowded movie theater. People aren't showing up for what Hollywood has to offer and critics seem to loathe this summer mess even more than usual.

This summer's been a mess and we think we know why. There are lessons to be learned here. More importantly we want to keep it from happening again. Summer's movie going is supposed to be fun, and before we have to sit through another one like this one, we're hoping Hollywood will take our advice on how to do it right. We know why this summer's movies are a bust, and here's how to fix it next time.

Come Up With An Original Premise

Some ideas are eternal. We'll probably never get sick of James Bond movies. But others, like Robin Hood, we can only watch so many times before we're ready to move on to something else. If you want to play it safe, come up with something original. Or you can make the same, endless string of movies in which a single man is forced to take care of a child. Or you could do what both Knight & Day and Killers did in the same summer by reusing the tired, old, spy teams up with an average woman and drags her into the spy game premise. It was pretty awesome back when True Lies did it. In fact it was so awesome that Cameron's movie had it covered and we never really needed to see it again. Yet here we are in the summer of 2010 with not one, but two movies using that same old, worn out premise. Next summer we'll probably have two more. Come up with a new idea. Or, if you're incapable of that, try coming up with a new variation on that same idea. Here's a thought: Make the spy a woman and turn the awkward, fish out of water into a man. See? It's not hard.

Stop Stroking Star Egos

Adam Sandler's movies have made so much money that he now has the power to round up some of his buddies, stand around a lake with them goofing off, hire pal Dennis Dugan to film it all and call it Grown Ups, a movie he expects people to pay and see. It'd be one thing to fund their summer vacation if the movie were actually funny, but apparently Sandler, Kevin James, Chris Rock, Rob Schneider and David Spade figured they were above putting together a screenplay and actual characters, and chose just to fall down and make fart jokes instead. Sandler has made some good movies, sure, but Grown Ups is a clear instance of a studio letting a star do whatever he wants and figuring they'll make a profit anyway. Memo to Sony and Sandler: that's how you start losing the audiences you worked so hard to build. Stop stroking star egos and letting them take advantage of moviegoers in the process.

Enough With The Superhero Daddy Issues

It's one thing to keep making superhero movies, it's another to keep making the same superhero movies. John Wayne made a lot of westerns, but he didn't play a one-eyed alcoholic US Marshall in all of them. This summer Tony Stark made the jump from carefree inventor to son trying desperately to live up to the expectations of his dead father. Sound familiar? Maybe it's because you've seen Spider-Man, Superman, Wolverine or Batman. And if you haven't seen those, don't worry, it'll sound familiar later when you see Green Hornet, Green Lantern, or Thor. Yep, they all have issues with their dads too. It just seems like there should be something else to explore there. Maybe if someone had found it, Iron Man 2 would have been the crowd pleaser the world was hoping for, instead of just this movie everyone saw and then sort of forgot. Easy to understand, they're all starting to run together.

Video Games Don't Make Good Movies, Even If You Spend A Bunch Of Money On Them

We didn't need this summer to tell us that movies based on video games suck. But it was reasonable to wonder if, perhaps, it was only because no one had put much effort into them. Enter Prince of Persia, shot on location with lavish sets, big stars, and big special effects. Disney spent more than $200 million on their Jake Gyllenhaal game adaptation. It didn't matter. We'd have all been just as well off re-watching Doom. You can't fault them, it was worth a shot. Now we know. Lesson learned. It doesn't matter how you do it, it doesn't matter how much money you pour into it, it doesn't even matter who you get to star in it: video game movies suck. It'll never work. Let's stop doing them. Moving on.

Studio Interference Can't Make A Bad Movie Better

We first started hearing hints of trouble with Jonah Hex late last year, and eventually it was sent back for reshoots to fix a movie that the studio didn't think was good enough to release as is. Instead of going through all that trouble, they probably should have just shot it out of a canon. Whether Jonah Hex was any good before the studio started meddling is anyone's guess, but what's certain is that studio interference, and reshoots of any kind for that matter, almost never make it better. Odds are if the movie wasn't good, and if the studio didn't like it before the reshoots, they won't like it after. Jonah Hex was an unforgiveable mess by the time it hit theaters, everyone saw through it, and nobody bothered to show up to see it. Next time don't bother to release it. We're better off at home watching Hell's Kitchen.

Action You Can't See Doesn't Count As Action

The A-Team marketed itself as an action movie, but does it really count as action if all I see on screen is a bunch of jumbled limbs moving back and forth while the camera shakes around? Does it count as an action movie if the big finale revolves around watching a CGI crane move a bunch of CGI boxes back and forth for twenty-minutes? If so then dock workers are all action heroes. No, I'm pretty sure that's not an action movie. I think what you have there is a bunch of mildly comedic one-liners interspersed amongst a bunch of meaningless confusion. If you're going to make an action movie, rule number one should be letting your audience see a bunch of really awesome, wildly cool, action. The one-liners are nice, and we're glad to have them, but mostly we want to actually see someone punched in the face. I don't think that's too much to ask.

Stop Making Sequels No One Asked For

Just because a movie makes a lot of money doesn't mean it needs a sequel. Even then, it needs to be the right sequel. There's a reason it took Pixar more than a decade to follow-up with Buzz and Woody, and it's the same reason nobody showed up to see Sex and the City 2. Pixar waited to let interest build for Toy Story 3, and while they waited, came up with a good story. Sex and the City rushed another sequel out the door as soon as some Arab prince wandered over the studio and offered them a bunch of money to trivialize the mistreatment of women in the middle east by reducing it a bunch of shoe-shopping clichés. Is it any wonder no one showed up to see it? Sex and the City used up all its potential juice after the first movie. Worse Shrek used its up after two, yet didn't seem to notice even after everyone hated the third one. Before making a sequel ask yourself this simple question Hollywood: Does anyone who doesn't stand to profit off it, actually want to see it?

People Don't Want To See You Stick Celery Up Your Butt

I love a good shit joke as much as the next guy. I laughed my ass off when Austin Powers mistook poop for coffee and then wondered why it tasted a bit nutty. But I need more in my movies than a series of bits revolving around a mulleted idiot shoving things up his butt. If I want that, that's why they make the Jackass movies. MacGruber had a pretty good thing going for it on SNL as a MacGyver parody but when it came time to turn him into a movie, all that went out the window in favor of increasingly less funny scat jokes and ass produce. I suppose it was in its own stupid way funny, but shit veggies and Cunth jokes aren't enough to get people into a movie, at least not unless you work in few more boobies. Welcome to America.

You Gotta Have Heart

You know what doesn't work, here's what does: Making a real, genuine, emotional connection with your audience. Toy Story 3 and The Karate Kid seem to be the only two movies this summer that people agree on being pretty good, and they've been rewarded with solid box office attendance. What do they have that all of this summer's disappointments don't? Heart. Make an emotional connection with your audience, give them a few real, honest to god feelings, and they'll respond. Toy Story 3 does it with layered, heart-wrenching complexity, but it doesn't have to be that hard. Karate Kid does it simply with a teacher, a student, and a few life lessons. Sure you could shake your camera around and tell everyone something cool is happening, but why bother when that almost never works. Keep it real Hollywood and we'll walk out smiling.

More wily than Batman, more deadly than Superman, less of a creep than The Shadow and the same amount of awesome as the Most Interesting Man In The World, MacGruber is the ass-kicking, throat-ripping, homophobic hero that pessimistic, cynical assholes like myself have been waiting for. He’s great. He’s that dick without a filter, a refreshing throwback who never got the politically-correct memo. He says all the things Chuck Norris and his code of honor can’t. He’s a girlfriend-stealing, C4-making, fly by the stem of his celery American hero who instigates fights when he’s bored, defaces corpses when he’s feeling swirly and uses devoted allies as human shields when he feels like living.

I know what you’re thinking. I didn’t know there was an R-rated Tim ‘The Tool Man Assassin Scientist Badass’ Taylor out there. Yeah, there is. And instead of knowing that exists, you’re busy just discovering it exists. I’m only playing the math here, but if MacGruber made less than five million dollars last weekend and the average movie costs over five dollars, there’s less than a million of us out there who know that exists. You’re probably not one of them. Usually, I’d blame this sorta thing on operator error, take responsibility for your own actions and all that jazz, but, no, if I’m forced to choose one single entity culpable for you not knowing the awesomeness of MacGruber, it’s the man who made MacGruber possible in the first place: Lorne Michaels.

When Saturday Night Live first came on the air, it was edgy, provocative and daring. Its first few seasons featured stand-up comedy from the likes of Pryor, Carlin and Kaufman. It had musical guests like Frank Zappa, a Howard Shore-fronted house band that occasionally dressed up like nuns, and a staff of writers led by the legen---wait for it---dary Michael O’Donoghue. It may not have always been funny, but it was always doing something original. Hasn’t been tried before? Let’s put it on the air and see if it works. That was the attitude. It’s not that the original cast never repeated characters, the bees and the samurai were on enough, but they were by no means an every week thing.

In fact, it was the Blues Brothers, long used by John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd to warm up that crowd before shows, that were the first to get their own feature film. They weren’t the most famous or the most popular characters, but from a creative standpoint, that was actually a bonus. The audience had no preconceived notions about where the movie would go or what form it would take, but when Wayne’s World, the second SNL film to be released, made a hundred million dollars using a more generic launching point, Lorne Michaels mistakenly saw an opportunity to lather, rinse and repeat.

From 1993 to 2000, eight more films based off Saturday Night Live sketches appeared. Most were unequivocal failures; a lucky few barely broke even. Disaster isn’t even a strong enough word to describe the savage beating SNL’s credibility took. It was merciless. The once ground-breaking show became a laughing stock, a pathetic brand catering to Middle American teenagers who thought it was funny when Mary Katherine Gallagher smelled her armpits. Instead of buoying an idea, a film with a credible seal, the SNL stamp became one of tarnish, of tired mediocrity, a sad National Lampoon co-conspirator with enough name recognition to garner a few million rentals and a few million more I’ll-see-it-at-some-point’s.

So, Lorne Michaels gave up. He put the kibosh on the SNL film jugger-not and played for another day, waited for another idea worthy of its own film. Well, that idea has finally come and, as expected, the general public isn’t so much luke-warm to the idea as they are apathetic. I can’t say as I blame them. They have no reason to expect MacGruber to be anything other than recycled drivel, given the last decade-and-a-half of steady normality, given Lorne Michaels’ shaky track record, but this film is so much more than a thirty second sketch extrapolated to sell tickets. It’s original, it’s unique--but, more importantly, it’s fucking hilarious.

Let’s put this another way. Let’s say you had a party and beforehand, a buddy of yours asked if he could bring a few hot chicks. You obviously said yes, and when he showed up, these chicks he brought were bombshells. Prime Elizabeth Shue’s. They all knew how to have a good time, and instead of congregating in a little group, they all mingled and charmed the pants off everyone. Now, let’s say you had another party and this same friend asked if he could bring hot chicks again. You obviously said yes, seeing how things went down before, but this time, the girls he brought were only decent. They had a few laughs and maybe one of them even let herself be felt up in a closet, but on the whole, they didn’t really bring much to the table. At the next party, the chicks were slightly below average. Then they were downright ugly with bad personalities and phobias about looking anyone directly in the eye. And on and on it went until all parties involved just agreed to give up. You stopped having parties and he stopped associating with women entirely. For the good of decent society and all things right and true, you just had to sever your relationship by mutual agreement. But now it’s ten years later, and this dude says he’s got some hot chicks he wants to bring to the party. You know you shouldn’t trust him. God knows he’s lost that a long time ago. But it’s been ten fucking years. He’s come through before. Maybe he’s onto something now? Maybe these chicks are gorgeous. Maybe, in spite of it all, he’s rediscovered the touch. Well, spoiler alert: MacGruber is the hottest chick Lorne Michaels has brought around since The Blues Brothers, a solid 8.5, and you’re only depriving yourself by holding on to past grudges.

Lorne Michaels has given you every reason not to see MacGruber. It’s Pat, Stuart Saves His Family, Superstar, they have ruined what was once a hip mark of approval. It doesn’t matter. MacGruber is awesome, a future cult classic to be discovered by Netflix ninjas with a yearning for R-rated obnoxiousness. You’re gonna discover it at some point. Don’t let your lack of confidence in Lorne Michaels keep you off the ground floor.

You might have thought it was kind of dumb for Lorne Michaels to try and make a movie out of the MacGruber sketch, something that worked only in 90-second bursts and ended every time with the main character exploding. Would it make you feel any better to know that the sketch's creators feel the same way? Director Jorma Taccone and writer/star Will Forte both admitted they had to talk themselves into the notion of a MacGruber movie, but things started moving along once, they say, they threw out enough insane ideas to make the whole thing work.

And that's how we get the movie MacGruber, which is the best SNL movie you've seen in a long time, and just as insane and funny as you'd expect for a movie about a guy with a mullet who carries his car stereo with him everywhere he goes. I got the chance to talk to Taccone and Forte about how they expanded the character of MacGruber, all the hidden tributes to 80s action movies, and the unpleasant surprise awaiting Forte's mom when she visited the set.

Will, is it true that your mother visited the set on the worst possible day?

Will: Well, there were several worst possible days on this movie. But yes, she was there for the scene where I'm naked involving celery. And she was not alone. She was with two friends. We were shooting in Albuquerque, and they very quickly decided to go to Santa Fe for the afternoon.

Are any of you big fans of the original MacGyver? And what other 80s TV shows and movies were an inspiration?

Jorma: We all grew up in that era. I'm a little younger than these guys, but I would say all of us are huge fans of the original MacGyver series, and obviously we found that inspiration for the original pitch for MacGruber. In terms of the inspiration for the movie, that really came from our love for late 80s/early 90s action movies. The whole Lethal Weapon series, and Rambo and Die Had, every single Schwarzenegger and Stallone film. Road House there's obviously a little nod to with the throat rips. When you first see MacGruber working on the bomb, in the initial opening credits, that bomb was a replica of the Die Hard bomb. The love runs deep for 80s action movies.

What about the Naked Gun spoofs?

Jorma: We were in a lot of ways trying to not be so spoofy, in a way. This was our attempt at making our own ode to late 80s, early 90s action movies. A lot of the acting in it, we were trying to have it be as deadpan and serious as possible. All of the characters surrounding MacGruber, it was our intention to have them be maybe a little less goofy than you would expect maybe from an SNL movie. Powers Booth, when we were first interested in hiring him, he was like 'What is this? Am I Leslie Nielsen?' And we were like, 'Oh no. Pretend you're in a real action movie. When he's offering to fellate you, it's heartbreaking for you. It's the worst thing imaginable. To have your protege at his lowest point is really heartbreaking.'

Will: It's a lot different from the sketch. I think people were expecting it to be the sketch over and over again for 90 minutes. I think they'll be pleasantly surprised by how different it is.

How did you even go about pitching this movie, when it's so ridiculous?

Will: We had to sell ourselves on the idea first. Lorne approached us and we were as skeptical as anybody else. We also thought that it would be stupid of us to not at least see if we could come up with some ideas. When we sat down to write it, the first thing that was clear was that we couldn't do that, we couldn't just run the sketch over and over again for 90 minutes. We just started throwing out all these insane ideas and soon had enough of them that we thought, man, this is really fun, let's keep going. Every step of the way we kept thinking that someone was going to come in and say, oh, you cannot do that. That step never came. We had so much freedom on this, and really were able to make exactly the movie we wanted to make. We're really happy with how it turned out.

You guys had free reign to do what you wanted this character--- how did you even decide what MacGruber would and wouldn't do?

Will: That was the trickiest part of the process. Figuring out just how good he was at certain things and just how bad he was at certain things.

Jorma: Because he's weirdly capable. And you know from his back story that he's thought of us this hero beyond all heroes.

Will: The celery thing does work! He's an out of the box thinker.

Who's idea was it to make Val look like Steven Seagal?

Jorma: I think that was Val's idea. He had that ponytail already, and he asked us if we wanted him to keep it. All of our hair people were like, 'Please make him cut it! Make him cut his hair!' And we were like, 'Absolutely not.'

Is this what it's like behind the scenes of SNL? Without the network would we be getting weekly comedy like MacGruber?

Jorma: I think the advantage we had with MacGruber is the speed we had to put it together. We were moving so fast. It's almost like the way that the show works, where everything is happening so fast you basically have to go with your gut. We're just so thrilled that we can even be sitting here with you guys. From this very stupid pitch as the impetus for this thing to this character we really grew to love to putting him in this crazy action move. It's been such a dream that we're just happy it exists.

Will: We're really proud of how it turned out. Filthy, disgusting proud.

The Saturday Night Live-based MacGruber hits theaters next Friday and with it will come a cavalcade of lists ordering the movies based on the sketch comedy show. Presents under the tree for Wayne's World, stockings of coal for Stuart Saves His Family. We get it. Most SNL films have blown. Turning a three minute sketch into a feature length film usually doesn't work. In fact, the proposition frequently fails abysmally from conception. How Mary-Katherine Gallagher got her own movie before the Land Shark is anyone's guess, but endlessly slandering The Ladies Man doesn't tell the whole story. Saturday Night Live has always been a stepping stone. Put in five or six years of writing and character work and Hollywood will come calling. From A-list stars like Bill Murray to reliable cogs like Bill Hader, SNL has provided the stars and featured players for hundreds of movies during the last three and a half decades. It's time we started celebrating those.

And why shouldn't we? Saturday Night Live may not have penned Elf, but would we even know who Will Ferrell was without it? Would it have been half the movie if it starred Adam Sandler? Err…I mean Ben Stiller? What about Chris Farley or Chris Rock or Chevy Chase or Jason Sudeikis or Phil Hartman or Robert Downey Jr or Anthony Michael Hall or Dan Akroyd or Eddie Murphy? Goddamnit. Would it have worked if it starred Jack Black? That's the dude I was looking for. No. Take away SNL and its cast members and the majority of memorable late 70s, 80s, 90s and 00s comedies would either not exist or require significant recasting. And its not just lighter fare. I can't think of a single genre which hasn't been affected. Lost In Translation, Iron Man, even Satan's Slay featuring Bill Goldberg had a Chris Kattan cameo. Here are 25 great movies we wouldn't have without Saturday Night Live.

Ghost Busters

Ghost Busters was more than a movie. In a way it stood for something. "Back off, I'm a scientist!" shouted Bill Murray's Peter Venkman. In the process he staked his claim as part of that new wave of 80s movies which said being smart was cool. Ghost Busters was a product of a brighter time; a time when science trumped everything and where, occasionally, being smart meant getting the girl. It's a movie, quite simply, about science kicking the supernatural's ass; blasting it to bits with homemade proton packs, turning the unknown into just a speed bump which can be easily conquered with the application of brainpower. Venkman, Stantz, and Spengler were the direct forbearers of rock star geniuses like Jurassic Park's Ian Malcolm and the inspiration for millions of nerdy kids pulling back the curtain on the superstitions of their parents with homemade chemistry sets in their basements while other kids wandered around worrying about black cats crossing the path. Thanks to Murray, Akyroyd, and Ramis, we ain't afraid of no ghosts.

Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery

The first Austin Powers is brilliant, brilliant in a slap-happy, overly confident, cock-sure, zany kinda way, a byproduct of uniting ridiculous men drunk on their own goofy confidence and commanding they continually ask but how can we take this further?. The plot itself is ludicrous, an over-sexed, 1960's super spy frozen in time, laying in wait for a bald-headed evil genius frozen in a Bob's Big Boy crypt of delicious menace and solitude, so ludicrous, in fact, that it almost commands itself to push further, as if Mike Myers thought “well, we've come this far”. An angst-ridden son who attends counseling with his evil genius father, a ransom call for one million dollars, a cat who's mere irritation causes his owner to kill without mercy, a corridor not quite wide enough to turn vehicles around, and a nefarious henchmen deftly played by SNL's Will Ferrell who refuses to die quickly. Austin Powers, like Clue, like The Princess Bride, like so many other perfectly constructed comedies, grows more charming with each re-watch. It is an amalgamation of the absurd, a cross-every-line, pull-no-punches, tribute to what can happen when a brilliant comedian at the top of his game fully invests in material that works. Watch out for the mutated sea bass, I hear they're ill-tempered.

Tropic Thunder

The number of A-list comedians Saturday Night Live has propelled to stardom is stunning, but perhaps more stunning are the scores of featured players who languished before ultimately finding success elsewhere. Chris Rock, Larry David, Sarah Silverman, Dave Atell, Jeanine Garafalo, and of course, at the center of Tropic Thunder, Ben Stiller and Robert Downey Jr. Neither lasted more than a season, but the initial thumbs-up Lorne Michaels gave to their talent was spot-on. Who else but Robert Downey Jr could have pulled off blackface? Who else but Ben Stiller could have gone full retard? Throw in SNL's Bill Hader enthusiastically singing rap lyrics to a gyrating Tom Cruise, and you've got three wonderful comedic turns from former or current products of the variety show. Ben Stiller started the screenplay for Tropic Thunder nearly a decade before production finally began. He thwarted early offers before waiting on the perfect opportunity. SNL may not have made Robert Downey Jr or Ben Stiller, but its early offer set the wheels in motion to make opportunities like Tropic Thunder happen. It may not be Satan's Alley, but it's certainly funnier.

Animal House

There are few pure comedic talents in history like John Belushi and never was he better than as John "Bluto" Blutarsky in John Landis' Animal House. The quintessential college comedy, it set the bar for raunchiness back in 1978 and has been a reference point for hundreds of comedy films and directors in the decades since. In many ways the film is an ensemble piece that gives all of its principals ample screen time, but it's hard to argue that the movie isn't Belushi's. Though his character is never fleshed out in the slightest – he might as well have been called Frat Guy #3 – Bluto steals the movie and creates some of comedy's most iconic moments. With scenes such as using a ladder to spy on sorority girls, filling his cheeks with mashed potatoes to imitate a zit, inspiring the troops with lessons about Pearl Harbor, and smashing a hippie's guitar, it is, simply put, one of the greatest comedic performances of all time. Landis' original choices for the characters Boon and Otter were Bill Murray and Chevy Chase, which would have made the film one of the more SNL-powered features of all time, but while the actors turned down the roles due to scheduling conflicts, Belushi provides all of the Saturday Night flavor needed.

Wayne's World

Wayne's World is one of only two movies on this list actually produced by Saturday Night Live and based on one of the show's sketches. SNL's big contribution to entertainment has been in discovering and promoting new talent, without it we wouldn't have had any of the movies on this list. But in Wayne's World SNL made a direct contribution, helping Mike Myers and Dana Carvey break the bonds of late night television to create one of the best rock and roll comedies of all time. Wayne Campbell and Garth Algar are iconic characters, but the movie works in large part because Myers is brilliantly talented and Wayne's World is really just all about giving him a place to show that. Carvey, meanwhile, is the perfect sidekick and the movie's so good that even the sequel kind of works. It's unlikely that SNL will ever produce another cultural phenomenon like this one, but even if there were only this one, it's enough to justify the late night staple's contribution to movies.

Elf

Eight years after his debut on Saturday Night Live and after significant supporting roles in movies like Zoolander and Old School, it was Elf that solidified Will Ferrell as more than just comedic side character. Elf is brilliant, not just because Ferrell's funny, but because he's just as good at sympathetic and sweet. It's Ferrell and Ferrell alone who makes Buddy Elf work and in the process, with a little help from director Jon Favreau and Zooey Deschanel's soul-shakingly beautiful singing voice, Elf became an instant holiday classic. It's on the shortlist of movies we watch every holiday in my house alongside greats like It's a Wonderful Life, White Christmas, and a healthy dose of Christmas Vacation. Like those movies it's timeless, the kind of film we'll all be watching twenty years from now; old and gray, huddled in a dimly lit living room on a snowy night with our children and our children's children, laughing as Ferrell battles angry elves and indifferent New Yorkers, and feeling Christmas chills in that final sequence where New York gets together and sings Santa's sleight into the air through sheer force of will. Thank you Saturday Night Live and thank you Will Ferrell.

Mystery Men

Before Kick-Ass there was Mystery Men, an underrated and woefully underwatched comedy about real people with only minor talents becoming superheroes. “God gave me a gift. I shovel well. I shovel very well.,” declares William H. Macy before grabbing his best spade and tromping out the door to fight evil. They're not your classic heroes, they're the other guys. From Ben Stiller's epic turn as the ticking time bomb of fury Mr. Furious, to Paul Reubens first attempt at a comeback role farting his way through as The Spleen, to Geoffrey Rush as the bizarre Casonova Frankenstein, to Hank Azaria's silverware obsessed Blue Raja, Mystery Men is packed with more genuine entertainment and more flat out perfect absurdity than any superhero movie before or since. It's more than just laughs, of which it has plenty, in a weird way it's more about camaraderie and friendship and people who've found a way to stay sane in an insane world by embracing whatever it is about them, no matter how mundane it might seem, that makes them special.

Groundhog Day

We never really know just how long Bill Murray's Phil Connors is trapped in Puxatawny and the great thing about Groundhog Day is that in the end, it doesn't matter. Groundhog Day is a movie smart enough to know when to stop asking questions, smart enough to know when to leave well enough alone. When it's over, after Phil has learned to become a brilliant piano player, after he's learned French poetry, after he's given Ned Ryerson his much deserved punch in the nose, after he's won the heart of Andie MacDowell, he walks away a better man. We walk away without answers, you never know why he was stuck there, but we're utterly satisfied simply to have been there to witness a beautiful, magical, one time only confluence of fate and filmmaking magic. After his start on Saturday Night Live, Murray went on to make a lot of great movies, many of them are on this list, but there's none better than this simple, mysterious tale in a tiny, dead-end town on a single, snowy day which went on forever and ever. And even though Phil Connors finally got out of town, I like to think that whether or not he's there, it's still snowing in Puxatawny.

Step Brothers

The first time I saw Step Brothers, I thought it was a B- at best. The story too frequently devolved into goofing off, the father's alcoholism came out of nowhere, and the ending was absurd. I remember Roger Ebert's review asking when comedy became so mean-spirited, a fair critique considering the audience is expected to laugh at an attempted drowning and a botched buried alive scheme, but you know what, Step Brothers is hilarious. (Boats and Hos) It's goofy, it's fun, it never pretends to be anything more than it is. Take Horatio Sanz's turn as the lead singer of a 1980s Billy Joel cover band who refuses to sing anything not released in said decade. Take Rob Riggle's performance as Ferrell's coworker who screams “pow” unnecessarily loud during business meetings. (Boats and Hos) And take the amazing improvisational work of Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly. Everything may not work, but there's fifteen or twenty laugh out loud moments, thirteen or eighteen more than your average, run-of-the-mill comedy. Besides, like Chewbacca masks, it's okay if things aren't always movie quality. (Boats and Hos)

Tommy Boy

If Chris Farley hadn't been taken from us before his time, then it's possible that he'd have topped Tommy Boy and we'd be talking about some other film. But Chris flamed out too fast, too soon, and what we're left with is a very funny movie called Tommy Boy in which Chris Farley is at his best. Together, Farley and David Spade are like a modern day Abbott and Costello at the top of their game. Chris is the floundering, sweating, master of physical comedy and accidental absurdity. Spade the sarcastic straight man forced to endure his antics. Tommy Boy would deserve a place on this list for Farley's Fat Guy in a Little Coat bit alone, or for his hilariously resonate “Take a Dump in a Box and Mark it Guaranteed” speech. But the film is carried by the amazing comedic chemistry between Farley and Spade, of the kind that just hasn't been duplicated by anyone else since.

Chaplin

When Charlie Chaplin first began his comedy, his whole body was a performance, often set up to achieve one laugh. He had no dialogue to supplement his movements—after all, in the beginning, there were no talkies. It's funny how audiences now barely tolerate montages lasting more than several seconds before scenes get buried in quick dialogue. When SNL started, there was an entire sketch to get to a single laugh, but now, like most comedy, SNL has evolved into quick and pithy punchlines, often regurgitated to loving familiarity. The film Chaplin fails when it plays out like these jokes, focuses on personal failings and broken relationships that would now be splattered all over Entertainment Magazine. But when it works, when it focuses on Chaplin's legacy, on the lasting images of him evolving from Charles into Charlie, tramp into director, pantomime into sound, it leaves little doubt why Robert Downey Jr. became the first former SNL cast member to be nominated for a Best Actor Oscar. Aykroyd's great, too, as Mack Sennett, turning a furrowed brow and a straw hat into a trademark as apt as Jon Lovitz's characteristic cigar in A League of Their Own. The film is good because the acting is excellent, and because Chaplin leaves us with the greatest punchline of all: the world still waits for the tramp to speak, and in keeping that secret, the tramp becomes immortal.

Punch Drunk Love

Barry Egan is the role Adam Sandler was born to play. Adam takes what he's best at, quiet timidity mixed with insane, mind-bending rage and uses it to create one of the most realistic, touching portrayals of a social anxiety and shyness ever seen on screen. Your heart aches for Barry as you watch him, struggling to deal with a life that keeps kicking him in the balls, letting the frustration build up as he internalizes everything until he at last explodes in a boiling cauldron of rage. It's the quiet ones you have to watch out for, and Barry is the quietest. Amongst all the complexity of Barry there's a love story too, one that seems unconventional only because we've seen too many bad romantic comedies. Barry's struggle to find his own voice in a life full of disappointments is brilliant and affecting, one of Paul Thomas Anderson's best films, and who'd have thought it would star the guy from SNL who used to sing songs about pudding cups.

The Blues Brothers

Virtuoso musicians, lifelong best friends and steadfast devotees on a mission from God, Jake and Elwood Blues destroyed more cop cars than Ice-T, ate more chickens than the Fantastic Mr. Fox and negotiated to buy more women than Genghis Khan, all to save an orphanage and beat the shit out of some Illinois Nazis. In an age when unfettered lawlessness, glorified obscenity and the independent spirit were being stamped out like union autoworkers, the Blues Brothers carved out their own path of seedy autonomy, unwilling to compromise for an uptight society both fearful and incredulous of their behavior. It had to be the bedraggled, decaying road less traveled for these two outlaws. Some men nobly side with the law, others chart their own course of mayhem. Had they been born in a simpler time, they would have been bootleggers or Mafioso or buccaneers. Instead they'll go down as miscreants, two guys who just don't give a fuck about what you have to say. Heroes are bound by codes of honor; legends take what they want by any means necessary. Jake and Elwood Blues may not be heroes, but for at least one inner city orphanage, they'll always be legends.

City Slickers

City Slickers is one of those rare movies which, if it shows up on your television, you have to leave it on. It sticks with you and even all these years later it sucks you in and won't let you go. Billy Crystal had a career before SNL as a stand-up and on sitcoms like Soap, but it wasn't until he joined the cast of Saturday Night Live that he became a film star. He's had a career of great moments, maybe his best is as Miracle Max in The Princess Bride, but City Slickers is without a doubt his biggest achievement in a starring role. It's a film that send thousands of middle-aged suburbanites running to Texas looking for cattle drives, moving audiences with genuine humor against an amazing backdrop. Crystal's love for the material is obvious and the film won Jack Palance an Oscar. Maybe unlike a lot of the connections on this list Billy Crystal would have been Billy Crystal even without SNL. His kind of talent can't go unnoticed forever. And maybe not. I don't want to find out. Hey look, City Slickers is on.

Beverly Hills Cop

Eddie Murphy entered SNL as an unknown and left the cast as one of the world's biggest movie stars. He's never been better than he was in 1984 as Axel Foley in Beverly Hills Cop. In an era were all cop movies seemed to be buddy cop movies Eddie stepped up and carried his own film as a fish out of water Detroit detective stuck dealing with the Beverly Hills police department. Eddie Murphy's so good here he makes Judge Reinhold seem talented, proof that Beverly Hills Cop must be something truly special. Axel Foley's laugh alone is iconic to say nothing of the character, whom audiences loved so much they paid to watch him in two more films, even though neither of them was ever as good.

This is Spinal Tap

This Is Spinal Tap features four former or soon-to-be Saturday Night Live cast members, five if you're counting band leader Paul Shaffer, twelve if you get bored and start counting deceased drummers instead. It would probably make more sense if, like their amps, they'd given up at eleven, but apparently, people are less concerned with common sense and rationality on the sex farm. Who knew? Probably anyone who bothered smelling the glove. Lead singer David St. Hubbins and lead guitarist Nigel Tufnel certainly aren't self-aware enough to understand these implications, which is maybe why they have more brilliant and documented quotes than anyone since Oscar Wilde. It's such a fine line between stupid and clever. This Is Spinal Tap never even brushes against the median.

Caddyshack

Perhaps the only major comedy to ever truly feature four evenly-billed leads, Caddyshack is a clusterfuck of altering comedic styles. Like an episode of 30 Rock, it traipses from Rodney Dangerfield's motor mouth schtick to Bill Murray's insane irreverence to Chevy Chase's brash aloofness to Ted Knight's white collar elitism. Yeah, it occasionally falls apart when it stops to develop the plot, but unrestrained mayhem is no good. You need a few short breaths on occasion before you plunge back into gopher-killing, grass-smoking, candy bar-crunching, pregnancy-scaring chaos. Regardless, the true test of a film like Caddyshack isn't how well its plot holds up; it's how many scenes you remember with near absolute clarity thirty years later. I count at least 5 I always laugh about in retrospect. Bill Murray caddying for the Llama. Chevy Chase ad-libbing dirty songs about women being born to rub him first. Ted Knight explaining he sentenced teenagers to the gas chamber because he felt he owed it to 'em. Rodney Dangerfield barreling through an entire dinner service with rapid fire insults. And of course, the candy bar with the Jaws score. 4 brilliant dissenting comedians on top form and one shit-joke sight gag. Like I said, clusterfuck.

Mean Girls

When Tina Fey decided to adapt the nonfiction book Queen Bees and Wannabes into a movie, it would have puzzled everyone if anyone cared at the time about the bespectacled SNL head writer. But not only did her movie help launch what could now fairly be described as the Cult of Tina, it also became one of the sharpest, most hilarious and honest high school comedies we've ever seen. You can watch it for the one-liners-- "I will keep you here until four!" "I want my pink shirt back!" "You go Glenn Coco!"--you can watch it for the weirdo characters-- Tim Meadows' downtrodden principal, the "I just have a lot of feelings girl," Fey's math teacher who moonlights at the cosmetics store-- or you can watch it for the painfully true insights it has about how awful we can be to each other, whether we're high school girls or not. It's got Lindsay Lohan's last great performance, and Amanda Seyfried's first great one. It gets funnier every time you watch it. No offense to 30 Rock or the Palin impression, but Mean Girls may be the best thing Tina Fey ever gave us.

The Wedding Singer

Some might argue Happy Gilmore is funnier or Spanglish is more charming, but for me, The Wedding Singer is the best example we have of Adam Sandler playing the immature, charming, loveable Adam Sandler character an entire generation learned to laugh with. Penned by SNL scribe Tim Herlihy and featuring Kevin Nealon and Jon Lovitz in brilliant supporting turns, the retro-80s comedy is formulaic, sure, but also crass and heartwarming with enough Puerto Rican prostitute jokes to satisfy the Billy Madison demographic and enough Buddy Hackett references to entertain ignorant forty-somethings who mistakenly thought this was a J-Lo movie. It's not. J-Lo movies don't have Billy Idol cameos, nor do they have jokes about nipple twisting or wannabe transsexuals who only know the words to one song. Those are lowbrow moments reserved for the likes of Adam Sandler and his buddies, and goddamnit if those of us without sticks up our asses don't love them for it.

Dirty Work

Easily the most critically-despised film on this list, Dirty Work is shoddily-acted, hastily-put together and downright awful on every conceivable level, save one. It's really fucking funny. Like Norm MacDonald's tenure as Weekend Update host, Dirty Work is unpolished and arrogant, a cocky grin which evokes home movie more than motion picture. If Mike Myers' total commitment to Austin Powers and Dr. Evil is on one end of the spectrum, Dirty Work most assuredly bookends the other flank, an embankment of shit-eating grins and we're-too-good-for-this-shit shoulder shrugs. Take Chris Farley as a YMCA border whose nose was bitten off by a Vietnamese prostitute. Take Chevy Chase as a doctor with a gambling problem telling a patient's son he should bet everything on death. Take Don Rickles as a movie theater manager who tells employees to buy a horse and go live in the mountains by themselves. Take SNL writers Fred Wolf and Jim Downey as homeless guys, philosophical about losing the will to live. These are men who know they're funny, know they're in a B-movie, but perhaps seasoned comedians and writers with tongues in check in their cheeks are better than those with delusions of grandeur. Some people hate the cocksuckers who goof off and fly by the seat of their pants; I love them; especially when they're all mocking each other in the same film.

Iron Man

Iron Man would probably have been made with or without Robert Downey Jr., but it's hard to imagine anyone else getting the character of Tony Stark right. In a superhero movie world full of angsty brooding characters and whiny teenagers, Downey's hard-drinking, hard-living, stripper-banging superhero is a breath of fresh air. He's a man's man, mustache, flaws, foibles and all. Even in Stark's most excess driven moments there's a layer of brilliance and complexity to him that another actor might not have captured. In some ways Robert Downey is Stark, right down to his own battles with excess and addiction. It's been the comeback role of a lifetime for an actor who rose to greatness after a soon forgotten stint on SNL, only to plummet into the darkest depths of addiction. But most of all, thanks to Downey, Iron Man is a lot of fun.

Happy Gilmore

Happy Gilmore is Adam Sandler at the height of his comedic powers, which he uses to air hump a creative assortment of objects and yell at uncooperative golf balls. Any movie can take the most boring sport in the world and turn it into classic, almost violent comedy is worth of praise and that's exactly what happens in Happy Gilmore. We all know Sandler's great as the outburst prone Gilmore but he's not the only SNL alum on the putting green stealing scenes. Kevin Nealon delivers one of the greatest lines of the film as a random spectator (Doin' the Bull Dance. Feelin' the flow. Workin' it. Workin' it.) and Saturday TV Funhouse fixture Robert Smigel cameos. It's a comedy so packed with memorable quotes they're almost cliché. Mention Bob Barker to anyone and the first words out of their mouth are almost certain to be, “The price is wrong bitch,” and I'm sure at some point every golf course on the planet has had to deal with a mildly inebriated club member showing up on the course with a hockey stick. I've played putt putt just so I can stand next to the windmill and scream, “Why you don't you just go HOME? That's your HOME! Are you too good for your HOME?” People stopped laughing some time around 2003, but I keep right on yelling.

Vacation

You know that moment when you realize your parents aren't really grown-ups? For some, it's patently obvious from the beginning, but for most, it's a slow realization that crescendos in watching your hopelessly inept father fail at a basic task. For me, it was seeing my dad, enraged at not being able to assemble Ikea cabinets, grunt, shake his head, and flick off my mother who was nagging from the couch. It was a moment both hilarious and sad, a defensive act from a bewildered man infuriated by his own incompetence. National Lampoon's Vacation is that moment, slowly played out over an hour and a half car ride to Wally World. Dead aunts, seductive fellow travelers, skinny dipping in ice cold water, the last cries of a desperate man zealously trying to maintain control over a family who no longer sees him as a superhero. All he wanted was one more family moment, a vacation to prove he could still make his children smile. It's a miracle they didn't end up in jail. Chevy Chase became famous playing smug and arrogant; here, he peaked playing out-of-touch and perpetually confused. Don't believe me? I'd like to see Dane Cook get laughs out of dragging a dog to death.

Grandma's Boy

The only film on this list not featuring one of SNL's alums in a starring role, Grandma's Boy is here because its sole reason for existing is the mega-fame of its producer Adam Sandler. Long featured in memorable supporting turns in his best friend's movies, Allen Covert is the best and most reliable player in the Adam Sandler world, and after co-writing the script and enlisting the help of other Sandlerites, his buddy gave him a few million dollars to finish the project. The result may have been a commercial failure, but its willingness to let characters cum on people's moms, jerk off Abbott and Costello, behave like jealous robots and drunkenly lick their own boobs to Salt N Peppa guarantees its place in the sick, disgusting hearts of perverted cocksuckers like myself. High score? What's that mean? It means the witch doctor just farted, Jonah Hill just sucked on his first boob for 8 hours and Ray Barrone's mother just made ice cream sandwiches on whole wheat with lettuce. Tease David Spade's vegan waiter if you want, roll your eyes at Rob Schneider's bong-destroying landlord if you must, but do not, under any circumstances turn Grandma's Boy off at three A.M. when there's an hour and a half of fresh weed in the bowl.

Lost in Translation

I want to hate Lost In Translation. I want to hate its pretentiousness, its lack of plot, the aura of sadness which malaises over the entire thing. I get it. Lots of people can't connect with their spouses. It's sometimes easier to have fun with someone random than your significant other. It's about isolation, magnified by a language barrier, by age, by a lack of effort. These are the reasons I want to hate Lost In Translation; unfortunately, I'm writing about it on a best of list because it's somehow really good. I know. God, I want to hate it so badly. It's like going to some bullshit, trendy Vegan restaurant with new wave art on the walls, only to find out the soy pretzel you begrudgingly ordered is really good. Lost In Translation is a soy pretzel, its mere edible-ness an affront to common sense. Maybe it's Bill Murray. Maybe it's Scar-Jo. It's definitely not Anna Farris. Whatever the reason, Lost In Translation just works. Its creepy sadness is kind of endearing. Its muffled whisper ending is kind or romantic. I own Lost In Translation. I bought it almost seven years ago. I've watched it twice. Someday, I may even watch it again.

This week MacGruber and Shrek both hit the big screen as movie franchises heading in decidedly different directions. The fact that I am even considering MacGruber as a possible franchise is a miracle in itself, but those guys from Saturday Night Live might be on to something. Meanwhile Shrek begins his big green walk off into the sunset.

Let's take a look at what this Rotten Week has to offer.

MacGruber

I think the biggest shock in movie history might be that critics actually like MacGruber. Saturday Night Live spin-off movies historically have been notoriously miss or miss with such works of critical acclaim as Ladies Man, Superstar and Night at the Roxbury representing in the last decade or so. Really only Wayne's World and Blues Brothers have ever successfully taken SNL characters out of Studio 8H, Rockefeller Center and on to the big screen with any great results. What's great about MacGruber compared to Leon Phelps, Mary Katherine Gallagher or the Butabi brothers is the MacGyver rip off has the least depth of any character ever produced on the SNL small screen. His skits involve sitting in a room, saying something outrageous, and then blowing up. Even the guys from Roxbury at least went clubbing.

Maybe that's why the MacGruber thing is working so well. A bunch of SNL writers/actors Jorma Taccone, John Solome and of course, Will Forte got together and were able to basically create a character from scratch behind a flimsy premise (the guy couldn't figure his way out of a paper bag), rather than write a movie for a well known character(s) with a flimsy premise. And by all accounts, the MacGruber team got it right. As of today it sit at a perfect 100% on the TomatoMeter after eight reviews. It won't stay perfect, but how many negative Nellies are out there?

Another promising aspect of MacGruber, assuming we knew nothing of the early reviews, is that guys like Val Kilmer and Ryan Phillippe, guys that just don't do comedies, read the script and decided to jump on board. Using that as the sole litmus test means the thing has to be good right? Right? The Rotten Watch for MacGruber is 83%.

Shrek Forever After

Think about eating cheesecake. The first bite you think, “Wow, this is amazing, rich and delicious. I'd like some more of this.” The second bite you think, “Man I could get used to this. Still sumptuous, a little sweet, but I like it.” On the third bite, all of a sudden the sugar is getting to be a little much. You think, “I don't know how many more of this I can take. I am starting to feel sick.” On the fourth bite you wonder why you ordered it at all in the first place. Now it's just gross. You just stare at the unfinished slice wondering why anyone would cheesecake at all. That pretty much sums up Shrek.

Dreamworks hit a homerun with the original tale of the Jolly Green Giant Ogre. It was a critical hit and killed at the box office. From a money standpoint, the franchise has done something I'm almost at a loss to describe. They've hit the equivalent of a game-winning grand slam where the batter gets to home plate and gets to bang a bevy of supermodels while signing a new multiyear contract. The Shrek franchise has grossed almost $1.5 billion at the box office alone. You read that number correctly. That doesn't even include DVD sales and the like. Shrek is, and has made, a ton of green.

But that doesn't excuse the franchise from sliding down the critical slope with its last movie. Where the first two hovered in the 90% range, Shrek the Third rang it at 41% on the Tomatometer. At some point there are no more stories to tell. And yet here comes Shrek Forever After with the fourth and final installment (originally five were planned, but mercifully they scrapped that idea). Those critics who have seen it already have panned the flick (33% after six reviews) and I don't see it making any big push towards respectability. People are just ready for something new. The Rotten Watch for Shrek Forever is 39%.

This poll is no longer available.

Recapping last week: Robin Hood rode out of Sherwood Forest and into theaters where more than half of reviewers wanted him to ride away again (Prediction 67% Actual 45%). Cinemablend's Katey Rich was one of the naysayers. I can't get upset about this prediction, the trailer looked awesome. My other two predictions Letters to Juliet (Prediction 37% Actual 43%) and Just Wright (Prediction 52% Actual 47%) were almost dead on. Any Rotten Week where I'm not subsequently pelted with tomatoes is a good one. Next week we head to the desert when Samantha and her girls take their man-crazy act out of the city and Jake Gyllenhaal battles the sands of time. It's going to be a Rotten Week!

Summer’s coming and when it kicks off with Iron Man 2 this May, there’s no looking back. The exciting thing about this summer movie season is that, unlike the last few years, it’s relatively free of sequels and shockingly, it’s also more than just a collection of “let’s see who can spend the most money on a superhero” movies. In fact Iron Man 2 is the only summer month superhero movie this year and as for sequels, you’ll only find two or three of them. Instead this year the summer months are a healthy mix of original ideas and first time adaptations.

Hold on, don’t be frightened by all the unfamiliar movie titles without numbers after them. Hollywood will get back to churning out sequels later in 2010. For now, sit back and prepare to watch major movie studios spend ridiculous amounts of money to entertain you. Summer’s coming and we’re here to help you find your way through it. Use this as your guide to the biggest movies blowing up in theaters this summer. These are the movies you don’t want to miss. Click the titles below for more detailed information, images, and trailers from each Summer must see.

Iron Man 2

Why you should care: It's Iron Man and everything that made the first movie great is back unless of course, you were a big Terrence Howard fan. Better still this is the first step in a massive, intertwined Marvel, superhero franchise which will eventually lead to a team-up in the Avengers movie. Get in on the ground floor with Iron Man 2.

Robin Hood

Why you should care: I know, we're all a little tired of seeing movies about Robin Hood. But Russell Crowe has the ability to make even the most tired material seem fresh and this time no Bryan Adams.

MacGruber

Why you should care: It's been a long time since SNL produced a movie that mattered, but this has the chance to be the first one since Wayne's World which doesn't suck. Early word is surprisingly positive and even though it does not contain a cameo from Shia LaBeouf as MacGruber's recently outed, gay son, the SNL crew may finally have a hit on their hands.

Sex and the City 2

Why you should care: If you're a woman, you're interested. If you're a guy… at least it's not another Katherine Heigl movie. It's better than the estrogen alternatives.

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

Why you should care: Movies based on video games have a pretty dismal track record, and maybe this will be no better, but at least for a change it seems like Hollywood has put some effort into adapting a console game. Maybe the video game to movie thing will finally work.

Get Him to the Greek

Why you should care: It was made from what is literally the funniest, raunchiest, most ridiculously awesome script I've ever read. It's also sort of a spin-off from Forgetting Sarah Marshall, a brilliant film, puppet vampire opera and all.

Ondine

Why you should care: Colin Farrell is off drugs and headed for a career renaissance. Have you seen In Bruges? Pick it up. In the limited release Ondine Farrell fishes a mermaid out of the ocean and falls in love.

The A-Team

Why you should care: Though it's hard to imagine the A-Team without Mr. T, the trailers are surprisingly fun and they make good use of the show's all-important themesong. If enough people find them, this could be one of the biggest, surprise hits of the summer.

The Karate Kid

Why you should care: I'm still not convinced Jaden Smith can act but Jackie Chan may be giving the best performance of his career here. About time too, because when it comes to stunts, he's out of gas. Maybe it won't live up to the original, but the remake deserves a shot.

Toy Story 3

Why you should care: Pixar can do no wrong and it's Toy Story. Be there.

Jonah Hex

Why you should care: Megan Fox in a corset? Josh Brolin in a cool hat? Battle to unleash hell? I'm in.

Knight and Day

Why you should care: By all rights, any movie with trailers in which Cameron Diaz does this much screaming should be terrible, but Tom Cruise seems to be having so much fun with his role as a rogue super-spy that it's hard not to have fun right along with him. Don't let Cameron Diaz ruin it for you.

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse

Why you should care: For some it's a good time to stay away from the theater, for others it's a reason to start lining up right now. Wherever you stand, mark June 30th on your calendar.

The Last Airbender

Why you should care: M. Night Shyamalan adapts someone else's material instead of coming up with his own story, which means we won't have to put up with more killer plants. It's based on the popular anime cartoon Avatar: The Last Airbender and it should push M. Night into a new and hopefully more interesting direction.

Despicable Me

Why you should care: The trailers are so weird it's hard to know what to expect from Universal's new animated movie. Steve Carell voices a super-villain who seems a lot like Dr. Evil.

Predators

Why you should care: It's been a long time since anyone's done Predators right, but this new Robert Rodriguez movie is a direct sequel to the original Predator, ignoring all the mistakes in between. The trailers are dark, scary, and promising. This could be the Predator movie we've been waiting for.

Cyrus

Why you should care: It was a big hit at Sundance this year, where great comedies are often too few and far between. John C. Reilly competes with Jonah Hill for the affections of his mother, played by Marissa Tomei.

Inception

Why you should care: What's it about? Nobody really knows except that it's some sort of sci-fi and it looks ridiculously cool. Who's directing it? Christopher Nolan, the genius who brought you The Dark Knight.

The Sorcerer's Apprentice

Why you should care: Nic Cage's weird hair finally finds a home as a somewhat mad sorcerer training a new apprentice. Jay Baruchel is no Mickey Mouse, but I hear he magics a mean broom. Think of this as a way to tide you over till the next Harry Potter.

Salt

Why you should care: Angelina Jolie is back in the spy genre in another action thriller. Though she doesn't always find the right script (Tomb Raider), Angie's killer at playing a badass killer. Salt could be the female Bourne.

Dinner for Schmucks

Why you should care: Paul Rudd and Steve Carell are back together for the first time since 40 Year-Old Virgin and they've brought The Hangover's Zach Galifianakis along for the ride. Steve and Zach are losers invited to a dinner competition to see who can bring the worst guest.

The Other Guys

Why you should care: Mark Wahlberg and Will Ferrell team up for an utterly weird, potentially brilliant buddy-cop movie. They're not the cops you usually count on, they're the other guys. At least Ferrell finally stopped doing sports movies.

The Expendables

Why you should care: It may be a few years too late, but The Expendables is an action fan's dream come true. Jason Statham, Mickey Rourke, Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Steve Austin, Eric Roberts, and Bruce Willis all in one blow it up first and ask questions later movie.

Eat, Pray, Love

Why you should care: After The Expendables, you'll owe your wife a little something. This one's for the ladies. Julia Roberts goes on an around the world journey to change her life after a divorce. Bring a hankey.

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World

Why you should care: Based on a popular comic and directed by Edgar Wright, Scott Pilgrim pits Michael Cera in a battle to the death against seven ex-boyfriends in an attempt to win the heart of the woman he loves. Slacker power!

High-profile movies that didn't make the cut, and why we don’t think they’re worth your time. Sorry Shrek!

Shrek Forever After

Why you shouldn’t care: I know the last one made a lot of money and this one may too, but this is a franchise long past it's expiration date. Where once Shrek catered to both kids and adults, these days he's mostly doing birthday parties. I hear Donkey really likes being the piñata. Kinky.

Marmaduke

Why you shouldn’t care: Garfield, Alvin and the Chipmunks, and now Marmaduke. They seem pretty interchangeable. Some dude plays host to a computer generated, furry animal and attempted hilarity ensues. This genre needs to be dead.

Grown Ups

Why you shouldn’t care: Chris Rock doesn't make good movies. Even though he's teamed up with Adam Sandler who has made a couple of sort of good movies, I see no reason for him to start now. This movie needed Chris Farley and Kevin James, you are no Chris Farley.

I'm holding out a lot of hope for MacGruber after everyone seemed to go nuts for it at SXSW, and come on, it's been almost two decades since Wayne's World-- we're due for a decent SNL movie sooner or later. But this new red-band trailer that debuted at MSN Movies is just... not good. Most of the jokes have been seen in previous trailers, and the ones that are added are homophobic (crossing a guy off your team because he might be gay?) or totally lame (MacGruber telling Kristen Wiig he's about to take her virginity).

Maybe I'm in a sour mood because I'm totally burnt out on April Fool's pranks, but I'm just not feeling this one. Check it out below (you've got to get past an age gate first) and tell me what you think.

MacGruber is not, even for a second, half as clever as the SNL sketches it’s based upon. Instead it’s an unending string of easy scatological jokes which, despite being easy, it executes really, really well. There’s a sex scene in the latter half of the film that’s sure to be discussed endlessly, and it doesn’t hurt that all the shit references are set to a score composed primarily of perfectly hilarious light rock. Still, it’s hard not to be disappointed that they didn’t find something cleverer to do with this character. I’d have been happier with a movie comprised entirely of 90 second vignettes in which MacGruber gets inexplicably blown up again, and again, and again. That doesn’t happen; in fact almost none of the things anyone who’s seen the sketch is hoping for occur (though the theme song, at least, does cameo in a much less entertaining theatrical form). MacGruber doesn’t even attempt to defuse a single bomb. He does however rip out a few throats, and that’s enough to make MacGruber funnier than any SNL movie since Wayne’s World 2. Ok, it’s not exactly a stiff competition.

It stars a mulleted Will Forte as MacGruber, the character he originated on SNL, a pseudo-MacGyver clone who seems permanently trapped in a particularly bad 80s action movie. In the sketches MacGruber’s entire life consisted of trying to diffuse something, only to be distracted just long enough for the bomb to go off and kill them all. In the movie, he’s some sort of uber-commando hired to stop an evil plot by a villain named Cunth (Val Kilmer). That’s right, Cunth. That’s about the level most of the jokes in MacGruber work on. See it’s funny because his name sounds like a rude name for a woman’s vagina.

At least I know why Val Kilmer is in the movie. He’s there to look angry while people make fun of his name. I can’t, however, explain the presence of Ryan Phillippe who’s about as important to the film as a block of wood. I mean I guess he has a character arc, if by character arc you mean that at some point he discovers a new, disgusting use for celery. But really, his job is a thankless one, the useless straight man who stands around and looks angry while MacGruber does something dumb. In the sketches the third part of the MacGruber/Vicki triangle was essential. Shia LaBeouf’s turn in the part on SNL is legendary. Phillippe is, however, given absolutely nothing to work with.

It’s also worth noting that, though he appeared in the SNL sketch and though there was a part written for him into early drafts of the MacGruber script, Richard Dean Anderson does not make a cameo in the film. When questioned afterward director Jorma Taccone was reticent to explain his absence. If I were Anderson, I wouldn’t have done it either. The movie trades mostly on shock humor, and the primary question occupying Taccone’s mind seems to be what’s inside MacGruber’s ass. It’s less a MacGyver parody than Lethal Weapon with anal play. Still, as dumb as most of the jokes are, they play well in a big crowd. Taccone and Forte took a completely lunatic, ridiculous, concept and turned it into a bunch of dick jokes. It’s funny, and you won't regret seeing it, but I think enough of them to believe that they could have done better.

When a leaked test screening review back in December labeled MacGruber as “the best SNL film since Wayne’s World back in 1992”, I was skeptical. I love the SNL sketches but the trailer really seemed to fall flat. But maybe the reviewer was dead on. Universal Pictures at least, seems to think that MacGruber may have captured something. In what could be a show of confidence, they’ve bumped its release date from the April 23 into the middle of the most hotly contested movie month of the year, on May 21st.

Just to put that in perspective, by moving it to May they’re choosing to go up against Shrek Forever After. Even the previous Shrek movie Shrek the Third, which was widely regarded as a cinematic blight, had an opening weekend of $121 million. Shrek Forever After is bound to open at somewhere around the $100 million mark. And yet Universal has willingly chosen to go toe to toe with it. Does Universal think MacGruber can defeat Shrek? Could MacGruber really be that good? Doesn’t even matter? Even if Shrek 4 sucks it’s going to absolutely destroy it. It’s Shrek. No matter how much we might hate it, no matter how sick we all are of it, that Ogre’s dynamite.

There’s an alternative possibility here, one which is far less rosy. On April 23rd, MacGruber would have been up against The Losers. That film is hardly a juggernaut and it’s easy to envision a fair fight between the two. The big difference here is that as an action movie, The Losers is probably geared towards precisely the same audience as MacGruber. Shrek Forever After on the other hand, is a family movie and caters primarily to a different crowd. So it’s possible that Universal could be hoping for some sort of second place finish against Shrek using counter-programming, rather than winning a contested first place against a weaker movie in The Losers. That might seem like a smart move except for one, small detail: Counter-programming almost never works. MacGruber, you’re no Mamma Mia.

If this video didn’t reek of Saturday Night Live skit failure and include a very quick movie plug, I would have never known “Hotties with Bodies” had anything to do with MacGruber. Director Jorma Taccone’s introduction and the background drone is a little on the disturbing side and not very funny.

This only reinforces my concern that MacGruber could be downright stupid. The trailer is amusing, but just as in a number of the SNL skits, some of the jokes fall flat. If this is what the film’s viral marketing campaign is going to be like, my expectations are going to need some major re-wiring.

Will the MacGruber movie be another in a long line of SNL-inspired flops, or will it be that rare Wayne's World to stand out from the pack? Nobody knows yet, and to be honest, the new restricted trailer doesn't answer too many questions. There's a handful of good jokes in there, and Will Forte has the hilarious MacGyver-esque swagger perfected, but it's easy to cut out all the good jokes in a movie and make it into a decent trailer.

But hey, I'm a skeptic. Watch the trailer below (along with new images from the film) or in HD on the MacGruber official site. Then check in and tell me if you also laughed when you learned the meaning of a "double decker." MacGruber comes out April 23.

Now that SNL digital short helmer Jorma Taccone is locked in to direct the MacGruber movie, that means it’s time to start looking for a cast. Will Forte will of course, play MacGruber and Kristen Wiig is still involved as his helpful assistant. But guess who they’re bringing in to play the villain? Val Kilmer. No really. Also in negotiations to join the cast, Ryan Phillipe.

Clearly this is going to be more than just the usual shitty SNL movie. This is not Night at the Roxbury. Here’s how THR says Phillipe and Kilmer fit in to MacGruber’s master plan:

“The legendary, much decorated MacGruber is pulled out of retirement as a monk in Ecuador by a colonel, who needs him once more to fight on behalf of his country. This time the mission involves going up against the evil Cunth, who has a nuclear warhead; the mission is personal because Cunth killed MacGruber's bride.” Phillipe will play Piper, an Army officer forced to pair up with MacGruber. Kilmer will of course, be a total Cunth.

Sounds great, the only thing missing is a variety of mid-life crises to distract MacGruber from disarming various bombs. Someone needs call up Shia LaBeouf, bring him back as MacGruber’s gay son. While you’re at it, get on the phone to Pespsi. Pepsuber needs feature film sponsorship.

We’ve heard rumors of this, but tonight SNL star Will Forte confirmed that not only is a movie version of his popular “MacGruber” sketch happening, he’s already finished writing it.

Forte appeared on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon, introed with a MacGruber clip and played on stage to the tune of the MacGruber theme song. Fallon wasted no time in asking whether there’d be a MacGruber movie and Forte confirmed, “John Solomon, Jorma Taccone, and I just finished writing it. We’re gonna make it in Albuquerque. It’s me and Kirsten Wiig and cast to be determined.”

So this means bad hair and plenty of explosions right? Maybe not. Forte says “It’s maybe a little different than people are thinking.”

There was a time, back in SNL’s 90s golden age, when they cranked out movies based on popular characters at a ridiculous pace. Sometimes it worked and we got Wayne’s World, most of the time it didn’t, and we got Stuart Saves His Family. But it’s been more than ten years since we’ve had a real Saturday Night Live movie. Now that SNL is suddenly relevant again, it looks like Lorne Michaels has the big screen bug up his ass again.

In case you’ve missed out on the genius that is MacGruber, I’ve include a few of his best moments embedded below. It’s hilarious as a short sketch but a MacGuyver parody doesn’t really seem like something that lends itself to a feature length movie, and besides, doesn’t MacGruber stop being funny when Will Forte fails to kill himself in the first sixty seconds? For MacGruber to work, Will Forte must die, and die fast.