Earlier this month a bunch of us came up with a list of the movie characters we'd love to have thanksgiving with. Now, here's the opposite. The title is pretty self-explanatory, so I don't need to set it up much. But as usual, we invite you to tell us of your own picks for worst Thanksgiving dinner guest. Please try to make it a movie character, though, because none of us know your annoying aunt, and plus this is a movie site.


Hannibal Lecter from Manhunter, The Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal, Red Dragon and Hannibal Rising

If you were to have Dr. Lecter (Brian Cox; Anthony Hopkins; Gaspard Ulliel) to your Thanksgiving feast, you'd want to prepare and cook all the food yourself. Otherwise, you might end up eating human flesh instead of turkey (or turducken, or whatever non-people-based meal you prefer). Then again, you might actually end up the meal, which is certainly much worse than unknowingly tasting Ray Liotta's brains. So, the best thing is to not even invite the guy.


Graham Young from Young Poisoner's Handbook

Another character who might be an interesting guest, but like with Lecter, you'll need to keep an eye on the food, or at least on the tea. Graham (Hugh O'Conor), aka "the teacup murderer" likes to play with poison, and there's a good chance he's going to spike the dinner or drinks with thallium.

The comedy villain is one of the trickiest characters to pull off. Too often, the villain's scenes are there simply to further the "plot," which, in a lot of comedies, is pretty inconsequential. If a comedy even has a true villain, and many don't, scenes focusing on him or her usually drain the movie of life and make the audience eager to get back to the laughs. But a smart comedy creates a villain every bit as funny as the hero(es). Below are my favorite movie slimeballs, in order of release date. I'd love to hear some of yours.

John Vernon as Dean Vernon Wormer in National Lampoon's Animal House

One of the best traits for a comedy villain to have is that he or she is an "Enemy of Fun." You've met people like this. They hate fun. They hate people who have fun. Dean Wormer is a perfect example. In fact, unlike the other bad guys on this list, you can't imagine Wormer ever having had fun at any point in his life. Smileless, humorless, joyless...but hilarious. The crusty, bitter dean is almost a requirement for college movies, and you can feel Wormer's influence in every flick of its type released since. You certainly wouldn't have Dean Pritchard in Old School without Wormer. Animal House is a movie brimming over with jerks, Doug Neidermeyer would have made a perfectly good choice here, too -- frat guys always make great villains. But you've got to have some sympathy for that dude-- he got killed in Vietnam by his own troops.

Best Line: "The time has come for someone to put his foot down. And that foot is me."

Ted Knight as Judge Smails in Caddyshack

Stopping just short of actually chewing on pieces of scenery, Knight's work in Caddyshack is a masterpiece of taking it over the top. A master of the slow burn, the man is made of simmering anger and rage. Knight more than holds his own against three incredible comedians: Bill Murray, Rodney Dangerfield, and Chevy Chase in his prime. In a lesser movie, Judge Smails would be a generic authority figure, enabling the three comedy stars to do their riffs around him and act out against him. But Knight's Judge is a worthy opponent, and manages to grab just as many laughs as the goofballs. Every bit as influential as Dean Wormer, you can draw a straight line from Judge Smails to say, Shooter McGavin.

Best Line: "I've sentenced boys younger than you to the gas chamber. Didn't want to do it. I felt I owed it to them."

In less than ten years Netflix has become not just a great company but also a great company model. Despite all attempts from Blockbuster and others to compete with the online rental service, Netflix continues to be the champion in its industry. But will the industry eventually be obsolete with all the other internet distribution options? Netflix CEO Reed Hastings says that DVD rentals will indeed become extinct in the next 20 years, but he says that fortunately for him Netflix is not simply a DVD rental service. "If one thinks of Netflix as a DVD rental business," he told the Wall Street Journal, "one is right to be scared. If one thinks of Netflix as an online movie service with multiple different delivery models, then one's a lot less scared. We're only now starting to deliver the proof points behind that second vision."

One of Netflix's plans for the future is a streaming video-on-demand option, which they began rolling out as a bonus to subscribers in January (I still haven't received my upgrade, which is expected to hit all members by June). Hastings claims that by the end of this year 5,000 films will be available in that format. He defended the relatively small amount (compared to 75,000 titles available via snail mail) by pointing out that Netflix originally started out offering only 1,000 titles on DVD. Netflix has also been planning for the future of high-density discs by stocking every title available on Blu-Ray and HD-DVD, though Hastings told the WSJ that the formats are not renting too well, and the competing brands are neck-in-neck neck and neck for this small market. He also said that he expects little increase on interest in the discs until one brand is declared the standard.

I haven't ever been able to actually prove it, but I swear I remember hearing, many moons ago, that the Tim Matheson role in Animal House was originally written with Chevy Chase in mind. Now, considering how slick, smooth, and smarmy "Otter" is throughout the flick, I don't find that very hard to believe. And while I'd love to see how Chevy Chase would have fit into the Animal House ensemble, I don't know how much I'd love a version of Animal House that doesn't feature Tim Matheson.

One of the undeniable classics of modern Hollywood comedy, Animal House packs a lot of familiar faces and memorable characters into the mix. Peter Riegert's "Boon" is a silver-tongued nice-guy; James Widdoes' "Hoover" strikes a great balance between maturity and childishness; Stephen Furst's "Flounder" is a lovably chubby dork; Tom Hulce's "Pinto" makes for a solid 'reference point' for an audience member ... I could go on an on: John Vernon's hilariously evil dean, Mark Metcalf's absurdly obnoxious jerk, Bruce McGill's profanely inscrutible troublemaker, and (of course) John Belushi's maniacally entertaining party animal. (And that's not even including names like Karen Allen, Donald Sutherland, Verna Bloom, and young Kevin Bacon!)