Mad Men Report: New TV with 'Roadies,' 'American Gothic,' 'BrainDead,' and 'Uncle Buck'

Previously on Mad Men Report: Brian came up with a convoluted idea for a TV review feature where he judges new shows based on their capacity to distract him from watching Mad Men.  He really committed to this idea even though somewhere in the back of his head he knew he would have to explain the concept every time.  Also, he promised to focus on good shows rather than trash bad ones but that was three months ago and he didn't expect American Gothic to be so bad.

American Gothic

Early on in CBS's new horror series a character makes a joke about his daughter's family looking like a Norman Rockwell painting.  You see, the entire Hawthorne clan seems perfect but (WARNING!!!  SPOILER ALERT!!!  DO NOT READ ANY FARTHER IF YOU DON'T WANT SPOILERS FOR American Gothic!!!) they're not.  This family has deep, dark secrets.  Like one of them is a serial killer.  The only question is "who done it?"  Wait, that's my bad.  There are two questions: "who done it?" and "why should anyone care?"  I have a feeling only one of those questions will be answered by the end of the series and it won't be the latter.  On the bright side, Virginia Madsen is fun to watch as the family matriarch.

It would be more exciting to watch this gif for an hour straight.

Mad Men threat level: 3/10

BrainDead

In CBS's defense, they also recently debuted the more than respectable political comedy BrainDead, starring Mary Elizabeth Winstead and created by the duo behind The Good Wife.  Winstead plays Laurel Healy, a struggling documentary filmmaker who enters the family business of politics to earn some cash.  Her role in her brother's Democratic Senatorial staff points her towards an infestation of alien insects who are getting inside politicians brains and taking over.  Along the way she embarks on a love/hate relationship with almost admirable Republican staffer Gareth Ritter (Broadway star Aaron Tveit, recently seen on screen in Grease: Live).  Ritter's boss, Tony Shalhoub as Senator Red Wheatus, is a slacker but he's willing to reach across the aisle until the bugs get in his brain.  That makes for a good cast and with smart writing and a quirky sense of humor BrainDead feels like it could be a cult classic, but it isn't quite exciting enough to be an instant one like Winstead's 2010 film Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.  No, if this series becomes a cult classic it will have to earn the title by standing the test of time.  Is it up to the challenge?  We'll have to wait and see.  That's how the test of time works.

Although, this is promising.

Mad Men threat level: 6/10

Uncle Buck

I didn't have high expectations for the ABC series based on a John Hughes/John Candy classic but with the very funny Mike Epps as the star I though it might surprise me.  Unfortunately, it did in all the wrong ways.  Epps is charming enough but the writing is clunky and dull.

You're better off watching the original Uncle Buck but
that's pretty much always true.

Mad Men threat level: 3/10

Roadies

I absolutely love things that are about music.  I love movies about music, TV shows about music and songs about music.  That's why my all time favorite movie is Almost Famous, Cameron Crowe's loving tribute to the world of rock in the 1970's.  That's also why I was so disappointed by Vinyl, the recent HBO series with more or less the same setting created by Martin Frigging Scorsese and Mick Goddam Jagger.  Vinyl and Almost Famous both treat listening to music as a religious experience but in different ways.  For Crowe music is radiating bliss consciousness but for Scorsese it's fire and brimstone.  Enter Roadies on Showtime, Crowe's spiritual sequel to his magnum opus.

The first episode,written and directed by Crowe, opens with a quote from Tom Petty; "I think the general public has no idea what roadies do. Bless em' all. I just play the songs. They make the show happen."  This show isn't about the hi-jinks of the drug addled rock stars who make the music you love, it's about the people behind the scenes with broken backs who make the music possible and love the band more than you'll ever know.  And their hi-jinks.

Tom Petty's words fade into Luke Wilson's tour manager Bill giving an orgasm to a 22 year old before production manager Shelly, played by Carla Gugino, barges in.  Bill and Shelly act like a married couple but as of now they're just a will-they-won't-they-they-will.  It would feel forced if Gugino and Wilson didn't have such great chemistry.  Actually, the entire cast is great apart or together, largely thanks to Crowe being a master of feel-good film making.  Imogen Poots plays the show's young protagonist Kelly Ann in the midst of a quarter-life crisis considering a move from the road life to film school in New York.  Poots exudes intelligent coolness even in her dorkiest moments.  Even her skateboarding stunt double seems cool as hell.  Everyone down to the number-crunching suit-wearing villain played by Rafe Spall is entirely endearing but the real scene stealer is Ron White's lovable loose-cannon Southern-rock cowboy Phil.

And of course, the music is great.  Where Vinyl grabs you by the throat and shouts "remember this song?!  Do ya, punk?!" Roadies uses music to create an ethereal journey.  A journey full of Pearl Jam.  All this leaves me with the question "do I love Roadies because it's good or because I love Almost Famous?"  I know this: it's certainly not a bad show.  I can't imagine anyone watching it without a smile on their face (unless I imagine watching that Luke Wilson scene with my parents, but let's just not do that).  I can't be totally objective about it but the more I think about it the more I think Roadies is genuinely a very good show.  Dare I say, it's all happening.

So cool.

Mad Men threat level: the first ever 10/10

Marvel's Villains Suck. So What?

Thirteen movies deep into the Marvel Cinematic Universe and one of the biggest problems with the franchise has yet to be fixed: the villains of the pictures tend to fall flat.  The consensus seems to be that the only foe with any heft is Loki, the malevolent God of Mischief and adopted brother to Thor, who is ironically the star of the weakest link in the chain.  The Captain America series, under the hand of the Russo Brothers, had proven to be the strongest link but has far weaker villains.  Alexander Pierce, the antagonist of the near-perfect film Captain America: Winter Soldier, was really only interesting because he was played by Robert Redford, who admittedly played the hell out of the role. The Russos barely even tried to make Helmut Zemo, the puppet-master of Captain America: Civil War, interesting.  He would have just been a distraction from the battle between heroes any which way.   Everyone else in between falls just as flat.  From the backstabbing Obadiah Stane in Iron Man to Thunderbolt Ross and his army in The Incredible Hulk to the charismatic but toothless Justin Hammer and the monosyllabic Ivan Vanko  in Iron Man 2 to the heavily war-painted extraterrestrial Ronan in Guardians of the Galaxy.  They're all little more than a speed bump for the hero to drive over.  Especially Ronan.  My question is "why does anyone give a shit?"

People like to say that the villain makes the movie but that's not written in stone, it's just something people say.  Albeit there is a precedent.  Many of the best superhero movies have the best villains: Magneto in X-Men, Doctor Octopus in Spider-Man 2, General Zod in Superman II, and of course the never duplicated but far too often imitated Joker as played by Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight.  Then there's the worst of the worst: Venom in Spider-Man 3, a cloud called Galactus in Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, and of course the entirely forgotten Lenny Luthor as played by Jon Cryer in Superman IV.  So perhaps there is a case to be made that historically a good villain is needed to make a good superhero movie, however Marvel has proven over and over again that they are not beholden to any of the old ways of film making.

Marvel loves to break the rules.  Nine years ago Iron Man was a B-list superhero, A-minus at best.  Then Robert Downey Jr. nailed the role so hard Marvel thought they could build a previously unheard of cinematic universe on that foundation and they were right.  Marvel called their shot with a few seconds of Nick Fury after everyone had already left the theater then in 2012 they knocked it out of the park.  Before Guardians of the Galaxy the world assumed that James Gunn's greatest talking animal movie would always be Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed.  Not long ago the idea of a movie about a shrinking superhero was laughable but it turns out Paul Rudd backed by some of the best comedy writers in the business proved far funnier.

Marvel's ability to make fantastic films without what has always been considered a necessity of the genre is simply another testament to their dedication to playing by their own rules.  As long as Paul Rudd is capable of quipping his way out of a paper bag maybe Corey Stoll doesn't need to be there at all.  (That's not just a turn of phrase.  With Ant-Man's powers I really think you could get a whole act out of just Paul Rudd being trapped in a sack lunch.)  As fantastic as Robert Redford is, no one went to the theater in 2014 for the Sundance Kid.  They were there for patriotic kickboxing and homoeroticism.  Did I mention that Winter Soldier is a great movie?  So, I just don't care if Marvel's villains are good or bad as long as the movies are great, although I would love to see them make an entire movie starring villains like DC's upcoming Suicide Squad just to say "you wanted villains, you got 'em, any more complaints?"

9 X-Men Movie Characters Who Don't Live Up to the Comics

Despite the poor reviews of X-Men: Apocalypse director Bryan Singer should rest easy because his batting average is still remarkable.  This is his fourth movie with the merry band of mutants and his first that wasn't an unparalleled success.  He directed the first X-Men in 2000, effectively opening the floodgates for the torrent of superhero movies continuing to this day.  Then he made X2: X-Men United, a near perfect sequel that builds on the themes introduced in its predecessor and surpasses it in every way.  After that he dropped the reins and they were taken up by Brett Ratner for The Last Stand, one of the most reviled superhero movies ever.  Five years later the franchise was revived by director Matthew Vaughn for the smart, stylish, flawlessly cast, 1960's set First Class.  Vaughn's success opened the door for Singer's triumphant return at the helm of the time travel epic Days of Future Past, bringing together the original cast from 2000 and the new guys in the 1970's.  Also, in that time Hugh Jackman starred in two spin-off movies, one of which was pretty solid, as his character Wolverine and the hilarious, self-aware, X-Men adjacent meta-comedy Deadpool was released a few months before Apocalypse.  The point of this little history lesson is that Bryan Singer and the X-Men have both gained some leeway to make mistakes.  A followup to Apocalypse is not only inevitable because superheroes are currently a good investment but it is well deserved because Singer and the mutants have earned the audience's trust.  That said, the cinematic X-Men are still far from perfect.  I have a few suggestions on how to improve the characters by making them more like their comic book counterparts.

Nightcrawler

Kurt Wagner is one of the most complex characters in fiction, with more contradictions than a debate tournament.  He looks like a demon but is devoutly Catholic, he’s seen enough cruelty to last several lifetimes but he is endlessly optimistic and whimsical, he’s been betrayed by nearly everyone he’s ever loved but is tenaciously compassionate and forgiving.  He’s kind of like if Errol Flynn had a baby with Father Mulcahy from M*A*S*H then that baby grew up and had a baby with Hellboy.  If Nightcrawler had enough fingers to play guitar he could start playing guitar at a party and still be the coolest guy in the room.  Until Apocalypse Nightcrawler’s only film appearance was X2: X-Men United.  The centerpiece of the first X-trilogy found a fantastically cast Nightcrawler in Alan Cumming but still the character was lacking.  This was a pious man, gentle and righteous but he was shy, almost meek, and rarely humorous.  Kodi Smit-McPhee's younger version is funnier and more colorful but still timid.  Fortunately, Apocalypse is just setting the stage for its young cast, including Nightcrawler.  There should be plenty of time for Smit-McPhee's Nightcrawler to grow into the brash, sword wielding adventurer fans have come to know and love

Rogue

Fittingly, Nightcrawler’s foster sister (adopted daughter of his biological mother Mystique, actually) faced the same problem he did in the adaptation process.  In the panels Rogue is a force to be reckoned with.  Not only is she the skyward bound muscle of the team, but she’s also bold, high spirited and fearless.  She’s the epitome of a contemporary zealous Southern fireball.  She fights hard and plays harder and sometimes they’re the same thing.  As arguably the secondary protagonist in the first three X-Men films, Rogue is shy and reserved; the most sullen teenager at a school full of teenagers with all rights to be sullen.  To be fair, in either iteration Rogue is entirely justified in her timidity, as is Nightcrawler.  Fate dealt her a bad hand.  In a world that hates and fears mutants she has the potential to be among the most hated and feared for no reason other than attributes given to her at birth.  Her “super power” is to absorb the life force of anyone she touches without volition, leaving them dangerously injured, perhaps fatally so, while she takes on their super powers along with a giftbox of their personality and memories.  As far as superpowers go, it’s one of the worst to be sure, almost tragic, but Rogue’s ability to be so vibrant in the face of her grim circumstances is a key to what made her a fan favorite to begin with.  Currently there are no plans for Rogue to appear in future X-Men movies, even the one starring her main love interest Gambit if it ever makes it to theaters.

Cyclops

It’s tough to be the boss sometimes.  Head honcho’s like Charles Xavier get all the glory while a midlevel bureaucrat like Cyclops (Scott Summers) gets the shaft from both sides.  Traditionally Cyclops fills the position of the X-Men’s field leader, the one who makes all the tough and boring decisions, which makes him unpopular with fans and fictional characters alike.  He’s seen as a white-bread preppy square.  A narc.  Zeppo Marx.  An L7 weenie.  That’s why a handsome eggshell named James Marsden was given the film role and he reciprocated with the least charismatic performance of his career.  In defense of both James and Scott, Cyclops’ façade is so densely milky white that it’s hard to see under the surface, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t anything there.  Scott’s had a tough, strange life.  First his parents died (kind of) in an aviation accident that left the young Scott with PTSD severe enough to rob him of control over his eye beams.  Once they manifested he had to live with the knowledge that he could maim or kill most anyone by literally looking at them the wrong way.  Then he was put in charge of a small army of child soldiers while still a teenager himself because apparently Professor X couldn't find any adults to take the job.  He’s spent the rest of life as a lieutenant and public face of a well-intentioned but technically militant civil rights group.  In the past decade or so of comics the pressure has finally started to get to him.  He’s become something of a controversial figure in the Marvel Universe.  All the Malcom X comparisons Magneto has always been saddled with are now more appropriate for Cyclops than they have ever been for the iconic villain.  Tye Sheridan's performance in Apocalypse has a charmingly dorky quality mixed with a difficult situation and new found loss that puts him closer to the comic book version but, like Nightcrawler, this is just the beginning for the new Cyclops.  Only time will tell what he will grow into.

Storm

If it were 2000 and you had the opportunity to cast one of the biggest black superstars of all time as an iconic black character of course you would jump at the opportunity.  That’s probably what Bryan Singer thought when he cast Halle Berry as Storm but apparently it’s the kind of thing that works better on paper than in practice.  Excuse the pun but in the comics Storm (Ororo Munroe) is a force of nature.  The very elements follow her command like a pious man obeys the word of his god.  In fact, when she was a young woman in an African desert she was worshipped as a deity after she developed the ability to bring rain at her whim.  Before that she roamed the streets of Cairo as a pickpocket, where she first met Professor Xavier who later recruited her into the X-Men.  Storm quickly became a tent pole of the team and eventually became the leader even though she didn’t have powers at the time.  This is a woman who commands respect by her mere existence and is a major player of whatever game she takes part in.  In the movies she is barely present.  She’s little more than the electric muscle while a romantic triangle and teen angst take center stage.  Her role in the films amounts to about as much as beautiful wallpaper that throws lightning at people sometimes.  Regal posture and a noncommittal accent does not make a queen.  The Storm in Apocalypse seems to be on the right track but, again, it's  hard to tell based on such little screen time.  As long as she keeps the Mohawk I think it will turn out alright.

Multiple Man

We tend to treat “unique” and “interesting” like synonyms but one of Marvel’s most understatedly interesting characters is just a face in the crowd.  Actually, he is the crowd.  He’s the Multiple Man and his mutant power is to create duplicates of himself.  They’re mostly exact copies, perhaps with a slightly exaggerated personality quirk or sometimes a wildly different disposition all together.  For most of his existence Jamie Madrox was hardly at the forefront of the mutant universe, notable for an interesting power but not much else, but in 2005 he opened up a private investigation firm as the lead of the X-Factor series and quickly became much more nuanced.  X-Factor delved deep into the psyche of the entire team of gumshoes but especially the identity confusion of a man who is literally many men at once.  So many that he’s lost track of some of them.  By the time he’s found them and reabsorbed them they’ve lived entire lives with years’ worth of experience and growth.  When they recombine the original Madrox takes in it all.  He’s got so many voices rattling around in his head he’s like if the United States of Tara actually made up the population of a small country.  In defense of X-Men: The Last Stand (hear me out) X-Factor had only started a year before the movie premiered.  The new and improved Jamie Madrox was still in the early stages when he made his one and only live action appearance as a thug who’s most interesting attribute was having robbed multiple banks at once.  That doesn’t nearly do justice to the quirky psychological noir that Madrox was at the center of in the years since.  It isn’t likely that Madrox will be showing up in any movies again in the near future which may be for the best because it would be very difficult for the medium to give him the representation he deserves.  However, he might be better served on a TV show like the upcoming Legion on FX.

Kitty Pryde

Part of the problem with Rogue’s cinematic depiction was that she was changed from an adult to the young audience’s proxy, a position much better suited to one Katherine Pryde.  The original X-Men were all teenagers when they were created but they grew up pretty quickly.  That’s a shame because no demographic is more drawn to the idea of outcasts than young people.  Enter Kitty Pryde in 1980; just an ordinary teen girl with a taste for pop music and the ability to walk through walls.  She was smart but not in an alienating way, levelheaded but creative and spirited, strong but far from indestructible, just intangible sometimes.  Over time Kitty grew up too, but it worked really well.  In the past few decades Kitty Pryde has matured from a relatable teenager to a relatable adult.  She’s taken on more responsibility and become as much a leader to the X-Men as Cylcops, Storm or Wolverine.  Her portrayal in the movies Last Stand and Days of Future Past might be considered relatable but only in the sense that she’s a blank slate capable of showing whatever piece of yourself you want to project onto her.  She’s missing the creativity and individuality that made Kitty Pryde jump off the page.  Another instance of an underused actor, she was played by Ellen Page who came to be seen as the epitome of a cool, clever teenager thanks to her role in Juno a year after Last Stand was released.  Eight years later Days of Future Past hit theaters with a noticeable difference from the comic book storyline it was based on.  In the iconic two-issue story a much older Kitty Pryde is sent from the future to prevent a world changing assassination but in the movie she sends Wolverine in her stead.  Many fans were disappointed to see Kitty’s big moment handed over to the already omnipresent Wolverine.  So far there don’t seem to be any plans for Kitty to appear on screen again.

Emma Frost

On the surface, Emma Frost and January Jones have a lot in common.  They’re both blonde, pretty, and they have names that suggest a coldness that can be found in their personalities, or in Jones’ case in the personality of her Mad Men character Betty Draper.  However, when Jones played Emma Frost in 2011’s First Class she exhibited an entirely different kind of coldness than the Frost fans have come to know and love to hate.  First Class Frost is cool, distant, and unshakable but comic book Frost is more of a frozen hearted witch and she would take that as a compliment.  First Class Frost is Sebastian Shaw’s doting lackey but comic book Frost would sooner call his sideburns stupid and threaten him with psychic and/or physical violence before she would put ice in his glass if she were between him and a freezer in the middle of the desert.  Emma Frost is famous for her sharp tongue but she hardly says a word in the movie.  She’s little more than Shaw’s diamond skinned, telepathic muscle but any decent version of Emma Frost wouldn’t be caught dead doing anything other than running the show or acting like it.  Unfortunately, it seems Jones won’t get the chance to redeem her version of Emma Frost since the character was declared dead before the events of Days of Future Past.

William Stryker

2003’s X2: X-Men United remains one of the most acclaimed superhero movies ever and for good reason.  It’s well made and perfectly captures all of the themes that make the X-Men interesting like oppression, prejudice, and teenage alienation.  That’s partly in thanks to the decision of loosely basing it on a fantastic comic book story, the 1982 graphic novel God Loves, Man Kills written by Chris Claremont with art by Brent Anderson.  The loosest part of the adaptation process is the villain, William Stryker.  In the graphic novel he’s a veteran turned fanatic televangelist but in the movie he’s a high-powered military scientist with little-to-no religious affiliation.  Feel free to assume there weren’t any Christians protesting against “taking the ‘God’ out of God Loves, Man Kills” but maybe there should have been.  A devout Stryker would be a perfect foil for the pious Nightcrawler, emphasizing the spectrum of influence religion can have on people.  It can be as healing as it is corrupting but no good can come from ignoring the harmful aspects.  Regardless, Brian Cox did a fantastic job portraying Stryker in X2 but the character most recently appeared in Days of Future Past as a young man played by Josh Helman who returned for Apocalypse, both times largely lacking in religion.

Beast

This is more a matter of personal preference than anything but I have a very specific idea of how Hank “Beast” McCoy should act and recently I haven’t seen much of it.  Beast is largely defined by being very smart, knowing it, and flaunting it.  Ever since First Class he has been portrayed by Nicholas Hoult who plays him as quite mild mannered.  He also displays a different kind of intelligence than I like to see from Beast.  Hank McCoy is usually shown as a brilliant scientist and inventor, which is fine but I prefer to see a Beast who is also a great lover of the arts.  He should be verbose, his speech as eloquent as his mind is sharp.  He should quote Shakespeare at the drop of a hat and reference Rimbaud upon picking it up.  Beast should be the smartest guy in any room he’s in and he should know it, but that room could just as easily be in a sports bar or a think tank.  In other words, he should be a lot like Frasier Crane.  Casting Kelsey Grammer in the role was easily the most inspired part of Last Stand save, perhaps, a brutally affecting scene in the first few minutes.  Not that Nicholas Hoult is poorly cast.  He does a wonderful job as this version of Beast.  He also seems perfect for my preferred version of Hank based on his breakthrough role in the British series Skins.  He displayed a Beastly amount of confidence as the cocky little shit Tony Stonem, and he’s British, so I assume he can recite The Merchant of Venice from heart.  Just once  I’d like to see him decked out in blue fur asking “if you prick us, do we not bleed?”

The Lonely Island's Non-Musical Greatest Hits

From 2005 to 2012 the trio known as the Lonely Island, made up of Andy Samberg, Jorma Taconne and Akiva Schaffer, was responsible for over a hundred "SNL Digital Shorts," consistently the most popular segments of each episode of Saturday Night Live.  It's not much of a stretch to say the group's viral success revolutionized both the iconic TV show and the entire Internet.  Starting with their first major hit "Lazy Sunday" many of the Lonely Island's best videos have been original songs, making them the most successful musical comedians since Weird Al Yankovic, perhaps even surpassing Cletus T. Judd as the Polka Prince of Parody's heir apparent.  Now they are releasing Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, their first movie since the 2007 cult hit Hot Rod.  The new film is a mockumentary about Conner4real, played by Samberg, inspired by the likes of Justin Bieber in Never Say Never and Michael Moore in Where to Invade Next.  Three songs from the movie have already been released, all of which are hilarious and one of which debuted on the Saturday Night Live season finale as a Digital Short.  However, not everything the Lonely Island does is so melodic.  Here are a few of their best non-musical Digital Shorts.

Lettuce

Anytime "Lazy Sunday" comes up in an interview with a member of the Lonely Island or another SNL castmember "Lettuce" is right on its heels.  It was the very first Digital Short, an odd, quiet precursor to the tapestry of boastful hip-hop and pop parodies that followed.  The light surrealism makes this sketch feel more like what would come in Hot Rod than "I'm On a Boat."  For a generation of SNL fans the image of Samberg and Will Forte sitting on a stoop, having a meaningful conversation and chomping on heads of lettuce is as iconic as John Belushi, putting on an accent as thick as his winter coat and getting English lessons in the very first SNL sketch in 1975.

The Shooting

Speaking of overshadowing things, an SNL sketch is probably the only thing that could get me to devote any thought towards The O.C.  Apparently the second season finale of the Fox series featured a dramatic death scene that inspired "The Shooting" two years later.  In the short Andy Samberg walks in on Bill Hader writing a letter to his sister and pulls a gun on him, at which point "Hide and Seek" by Imogen Heap is cued much like in The O.C.  Andy shooting Bill opens the floodgates for a tidal wave of violence and music cues.  It's possibly the Lonely Island's most memed work and is currently the most popular video on their YouTube channel that isn't an original song.  Thanks to this sketch Heap's croon of "mmm watcha say" has become eternally linked to dramatic murder scenes.  Also, that week's host Shia LaBeouf makes an appearance.  I'm not saying I have any particular desire to see the Beefster shot but if you do, this is a good place to look.

People Getting Punched Just Before Eating

Again, the title really says it all but it's amazing how much the Lonely Island can get out of such a spectacularly simple and silly premise.  Andy Samberg traverses the New York City streets punching people in the process of putting food in their mouths.  Victims include Samberg's fellow cast members, strange faces who I assume are writers and other SNL off-screen employees and three rock legends in Jon Bon Jovi and Foo Fighters' Dave Grohl and Taylor Hawkins.  Maybe two and a half rock legends.  Dave Grohl definitely counts as one whole rock legend so take that as you will.  Aside from Schaffer and Taconne's always great directing and editing, what really sells the set up is Samberg wildly lunging at the innocent diners then celebrating with a goofy dance, all set to a quirky synth rhythm probably pulled from the public domain.  The only better performance in the packed two minutes and thirty seconds is from a couple of very confused observers in a pizza place.

Get Out!

The two main characters of "Get Out!" have a very specific dynamic and we can all see ourselves on either side.  There are no winners when someone walks in on someone else sitting on the toilet.  Samberg plays the toilet occupier and Fred Armisen stars as the roommate who can not stop opening the door at the wrong time and the wrong place.  The Lonely Island does what they do best and take a common, everyday occurrence to the wildest extreme imaginable.  These guys do not traffic in subtlety yet somehow they created the funniest, mostly not gross bathroom joke ever.

Laser Cats

Star Wars.  The Avengers.  Jurassic Park.  Those Avatar sequels that are definitely happening and are going to be awesome.  "Laser Cats."  All once in a lifetime generation defining epic franchises.  "Laser Cats" is the most unique take on the iconic hero's journey in a century.  The series follows Andy Samberg and Bill Hader as Admiral Spaceship and Nitro, clear analogues to Gilgamesh and Enkidu, in the aftermath of a nuclear war that left cats with the ability to shoot lasers out of their mouths.  Thanks to a deceptively low-budget style and some clever editing Spaceship and Nitro's larger-than-life adventures feel grounded and accessible without losing any of the spectacle.  Each of the seven chapters is framed as a pitch to Lorne Michaels with the joke being that somehow the visionary producer can't see the value of the safest bet in the world.  I can safely say, without exaggeration, that if "Laser Cats" were at the movies it would be the reason we go the movies.