In celebration of the release of Summit Entertainment’s crime thriller Snitch, opening in theaters February 22nd, we’re proud to bring you seven of the greatest undercover badasses in movie history.

Leonardo DiCaprio, The Departed

By the time the American remake of Infernal Affairs rolled around, DiCaprio was already widely-celebrated for his skills; but it wasn’t until audiences saw him doing push-ups between prison bunks that he carved out his first proper badass. Given the circumstances, it could have been easy for any actor to overplay the role of William Costigan, but DiCaprio brings a level of grace and sadness to level off the character’s grit and ferocity. Even more badass: DiCaprio actively declined campaigning for any awards for Best Supporting Actor that year as to avoid stepping on the toes of his co-stars.

Johnny Depp, Donnie Brasco

Getting in “too deep” is a common theme in many undercover films. After all, putting yourself at risk is what going undercover is all about. But what happens when you form a legitimate friendship with the men you’re supposed to be infiltrating. Things quickly get complicated for Donnie Brasco when he realizes that doing his job will most likely result in his friend’s death.

Toshiro Mifune, The Bad Sleep Well

Mifune’s performance as Koichi Nishi is a rarity in that it doesn’t employ the slam-bang tactics of many of his cohorts seen on this list. His stoic nerd slowly unveils the vengeance of a son scorned by one of the most powerful corporations in Japan through tactics of seduction, espionage and psychological torture. Mifune played numerous lively punkers in his lifetime, particularly in the realm of samurai lore, but this character seethes in his rage, striking only after his prey is at the brink of madness. Case in point: Nishi corners one of his targets on the window ledge from which his father died, calming the man down by offering whiskey that he later reveals is “poisoned”. The mark collapses, driven insane by the ordeal. Nasty!

Keanu Reeves, Point Break

This is simple story about a former Ohio State quarterback named Johnny Utah. For an F-!B-!I!-Agent!, Johnny maintains the most suspicious bromance with Patrick Swayze’s Bodhi this side of “Brokeback Mountain”. He allows his bleach-blonde nemesis to escape an aqueduct face-off, jump out of an airplane and eventually surf himself to death. At various points in the film, Bodhi’s potency in performing extreme sports counteracts the hobbling ethics of Reeves’ lawman. Johnny, like, totally buries his heart at wounded knee.

Kevin Spacey, The Usual Suspects

Have you ever seen Kevin Spacey try to act like a badass? It doesn’t work. But Spacey as a schlepp? That’s Oscar gold. The writing/directing on “Suspects” lay formidable groundwork for Spacey to perform as the keystone for an impeccably oddball cast. His bumbling Verbal Kint acts as a tender foil to a constant stream of roughneck freakouts. With little more than his wits, this badass knows that the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing Chazz Palmenteri that he didn’t exist.

Chevy Chase, Fletch

Light years ahead of the Twitter-quip generation, Chase is at the peak of his powers, dishing out maximum smarm before turding up his career with JTT movies. What makes this role fairly badass is that it is one of the last of a dying breed: that of the snoopy, investigative newspaper reporter. What makes it particularly badass is that Chase has a ball conjuring up characters with names like Dr. Rosenpenis, Dr. Babar and Mr. Poon. The actor has gone on record as saying this was his favorite role, given that director Michael Ritchie often took multiple takes and allowed Chase to riff with whatever came off the top of his dome.

Nicolas Cage, Face/Off

“Castor Troy” is a pretty distinct – if not altogether awful – name. Despite this and other cringe-worthy moments that face-swipe to show affection, Nic Cage keeps John Woo’s ‘97 hit from teetering into cornball territory. Cage’s Castor Troy is the kind of guy who can talk an undercover agent into sucking his tongue. He poses as a priest so he can plant a dirty bomb and goose choir members. He switches sunglasses for no reason. And he delivers a more badass John Travolta impersonation than Dana Carvey.

The new script, from creators Ed Solomon and Chris Matheson, finds Bill and Ted having been “crushed by the responsibility of having to write the greatest song ever written and to change the world. And they haven’t done it.”

“So everybody is kind of like: ‘Where is the song?’ The guys have just drifted off into esoterica and lost their rock.”

“We go on this expedition, go into the future to find out if we wrote the song, and one future ‘us’ refuses to tell us, and another future ‘us’ blames us for their lives because we didn’t write the song, so they’re living this terrible life,” Reeves said. “In one version we’re in jail; in another we’re at some kind of highway motel and they hate us.”

Makes sense seeing as “Trapped in the Closet” already exists as the greatest song ever written.

For moments like this, people.

As co-star Keanu Reeves had said in an interview a while back, the script is done, but the project hasn’t yet gotten the go-ahead, so we’re stuck in a state of limbo, not unlike Bill and Ted were in their Bogues Journey. It‘s been 21 years since the last Bill and Ted film, so where the writers decided to pick this one up is anyone’s guess. Fortunately, Bill and Ted seems to be a pretty forgiving franchise when it comes to leaps of logic, so whether or not the two actors continue to play high school version of themselves or middle-age men is pretty much irrelevant.

The important thing is that they conduct another presentation to the students of San Dimas and really dive into Bill’s Oedipal complex.

Hardened Electronics

I am going to start off by stepping out of the Matrix world for a second to explore something equally as iconic; James Bond. I am going to guess that if you have not been living off your own excrement for the past 20 years, you have at least a passing knowledge of the movie Goldeneye.  If you do, you might remember part of the plot involved a pre-”Jean Grey” Famke Jansen stealing a helicopter using her thighs. The whole reason she and the other villains took it was because it was “hardened”, meaning it was built with electronics that could shrug off the radiation ionization caused by a sudden pulse of electromagnetism… otherwise known as an “EMP”, the human resistance’s sole weapon against the machines in the real world. I mention this because Goldeneye came out years before the first Matrix movie, and the ideas behind that whole thing have been around since the Cold War was actually a thing, meaning that the machines would probably A) have a working knowledge of hardening and B) would probably work that shit into every last piece of hardware they built. Think about it, you have access to technology that makes you essentially impervious to your enemy, why not use it?

Packet Sniffers

For anyone who has ever set up a network, home or otherwise, we all know security is a big deal. Even if you just know that “they” can sneak around your network if you don’t secure it, you are at least somewhat aware of the fact that there are programs out there that let people look at information passing from computer to computer and analyze it. Given the right kind of thinking and hardware, they can pull your personal information right out of thin air, right? Like maybe a giant godamn hovercraft broadcasting information into your network? The basic idea is that the machines likely could have looked at the data passing between these ships and their own network to find out who is poking around in their system and kill them. Or, you know, use a freaking firewall.

If history is any indicator, this could go either way. Hollywood stars have always been the subject of paternity suits, whether ludicrous or with merit. No one will really know if Bieber is the dad until he submits for DNA testing. And no using hypnosis to change the results, Justin. That’s cheating.

At any rate, here are nine celebrities that feel Justin Bieber‘s pain.

Mel Gibson

Back before he morphed into a sputtering, hate-fueled mess, there were many who were happy to align themselves with Mel Gibson. In 2006, a 29-year-old woman came forward claiming to be his love-child, saying that years earlier (30 years, I would guess) Mel had picked up her hitchhiking mother and then gave her more than just a lift. Gibson has not submitted for DNA testing.

Eddie Murphy

After dating Spice Girl Mel B., Eddie Murphy was skeptical when she told him that she was pregnant with his child. He commented, “I don’t know whose child that is until it comes out and has a blood test.” Murphy then refused to take a paternity test until the courts got involved. The results proved he is the father of their little girl. However, he has made no attempts to be in her life. Mel B. later went on to marry Stephen Belafonte, a celebrity mooch who is wanted in New Jersey for killing a duck with a brick.

Marc Anthony

Marc Anthony was accused of fathering a child with a Miami waitress while still married to his first wife. However, test results proved that he is not the dad. Despite this fact, he should probably not go back to that restaurant. Lord only knows what will end up in his food.

Can we just start by talking about Swayze? This cigarette-chomping centerpiece of Point Break is one of few actors to successfully unite the roles of heartthrob and legit bad ass. The Point Break remake was originally a sequel, something we can be cautiously optimistic about. Apparently Warner Bros. couldn’t wait until his corpse was cold to start violating it. It doesn’t matter who you get, WB — they won’t be Swayze.

It’s Already Licensed

They haven’t just made plans for a film. Warner Bros. has already licensed the film for television and games. Get ready for a sub-par USA Network weekly starring Matthew Lillard and Jamie Kennedy and an MMORPG where you can decide which ex-president you want to be.

Ex-Presidents

Not to put too fine a point on it, but the idea of bank robbers in Bill Clinton and George (H.)W. Bush masks is… well, stupid. Part of the charm of the original is the sheer Americana of the masks. Nixon, Reagan and Johnson are defining men of an era. While this is also true of Clinton and Bush the younger, it’s hard to see a man in a Bubba mask being anything other than comical, even when he’s holding a gun in your face.

Instead of making a joke here, I’m just going to go on record as saying this is a very bad idea.

The scribe behind Salt, Kurt Wimmer, will be putting together a film that incorporates a bunch of contemporary bullshit into a movie that was just fine to begin with. Whoever is behind this clearly holds nothing sacred and will put together a film that falls way short of the original, but I would like to chip in my two cents to make sure the remake is as ephemeral and awful as possible.

Cast:

Johnny Utah – Tobey Maguire

Bodhi – Dax Shepard

Tyler – Katy Perry

Pappas – Jon Cryer

featuring an original soundtrack by Bruno Mars.

In closing, I leave you with this quote from producer Michael DeLuca. Feel free to read it then go take a shower: “Point Break wasn’t just a film, it was a Zen meditation on testosterone fueled action and manhood in the late 20th century and we hope to create the same for the young 21st!”

Ted Logan – Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure/Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey

If you wrote off Ted Logan and his Wyld Stallyns bandmate Bill S. Preston, Esquire, as a couple of dumb teens whose band would never amount to anything, you would be half right. Though they aren’t the sharpest kids in San Dimas, they are the most important as it is their music that will go on to become the core of the future’s Utopian society. Much in the same way that Nickelback will be man’s undoing. This high-concept sci-fi comedy wasn’t supposed to be that big of a deal, however, audiences loved it and it spawned an animated series, a sequel (with another on the way), and vaulted Keanu to heartthrob status. As for co-star Alex Winters, we always appreciated him for his mind.

Johnny Utah – Point Break

Reeves toed the water of action films with Kathryn Bigelow‘s Point Break. His intuition paid off as the film was a massive success thanks to his pairing with Patrick Swayze.  We’d like to think that Gary Busey had a little bit to do with it too, but he probably was really more of a liability. I can’t believe they allowed him on a set with firearms and aerial stunts.

Despite these setbacks, the film is still being fasttracked, so expect the studio to find another helmer as soon as possible. Also expect the studio to match Hughes to another project in short order. Sounds like both the studio and director bounce back nicely, but what of the film?

Not much is known about the ever-evolving Akira, as producers changed both the direction of the film and the budget, opting to go with Reeves instead of a younger, less-proven star. While the script may be firm, it would appear that every other aspect of the project is back to square one. Not exactly the direction you want to be traveling in on a fasttracked production.

Expect the casting rumors to circulate quickly for this project, as it has the attention of not only the US, but the world on the venerable property. Two months ago, the shortlist consisted of Robert Pattinson, Andrew Garfield, and James McAvoy, so their names are likely to pop back up in the discussion.

Warner Bros. has insisted that Keanu’s decision hasn’t sidetracked production, as it’s in development and has yet to be greenlit. So don’t worry about this event offsetting progress on the film – they haven’t made any yet. Way to cover your ass, WB. (Coming Soon)

While the talks aren’t far along, Reeves has demonstrated he can carry a big-budget franchise with The Matrix trilogy, so his involvement could give the film weight enough to find another A-lister for the role of Tetsuo, Kaneda’s best friend. Keanu is now wrapping up the samurai film 47 Ronin, so perhaps the studio wanted to catch him while he was still in a Japanese state of mind. Because once those sword skills fade, they’re gone for good. (THR)

Henry’s Crime is one of those quirky indie movies. It probably ranks on the higher end of that scale, just by the A-list cast and cinematic production value. I don’t think it’s great or memorable, but as one of the unorthodox releases this weekend, it may interest some of you.

Henry Torne (Keanu Reeves) gets tricked into driving getaway for a bank robbery, and he’s the one who does the time for it. When he’s free, he decides he’d like to rob the bank for real, since he already went to jail for not robbing it. He gets his prison buddy Max (James Caan) out to assist him.

The hook is that there’s a tunnel leading from the local theater to the bank vault, from Prohibition era. So Henry strikes up a relationship with local actress Julie (Vera Farmiga) and ultimately ends up playing a role in their production of “The Cherry Orchard.” Isn’t that quirky? A bank heist AND a local theater production. Oh, the hilarity.

I’ve always been a Keanu defender. You would not have loved The Matrix so much if he weren’t playing it like a kid discovering his first Nintendo. Henry’s Crime allows him to be more understated than ever, because he’s a stifled sad sack. It’s the bland guy coming to life, a formula as trite in the indie world as the rom-com is in mainstream movies.

Max and Henry case the bank and the theater while Henry romances Julie. They have some technical problems to figure out, like dealing with the dirt from the tunnel. Along the way, more characters horn in on their scam. Ultimately Henry is torn between acting and going through with the plan.

It’s so mellow, it’s hard to get excited about Henry’s Crime, but maybe you want to see James Caan as another badass mastermind, or Reeves stretching from stoic leading men. There’s actually a good production of “The Cherry Orchard” in there, until Julie and Henr break character to deal with their actual relationship. Director Malcolm Venville makes the film look professional, so it will certainly stand out in an arthouse theater surrounded by first time foreign features.

Of course, whether they actually GET anymore famous to play Robocop is another matter entirely, given that the part requires you to basically hide every part of your face except your chin for the bulk of the movie. I guess Tom Cruise has kind of a recognizable chin, but the others? Couldn’t pick ‘em out of a chin line-up. And Depp would probably base his Robocop on Freddy Mercury or something. (MovieHole)

“I call it a story of revenge and impossible love. The samurai become outcast and decide to enact revenge on the person who is responsible for the death of their lord.”

Reeves plays  “an outsider, a kind of half-breed with a mysterious past, who’s in love with the princess and she’s in love with me, but we can’t be together.”

Now, swords.

“[I] just finished a sword fight a couple of weeks ago with a great actor named Hiroyuki Sanada. He’s fantastic.”

He IS fantastic. You probably know him best from swor fighting with Jackie Chan in Rush Hour 3 or beating the crap out of Jack and Sayid on the final season of “Lost.” What? I didn’t say he was fantastic at selecting projects. (MTV)

Keanu conveys to MTV, from the last he’s heard, that the third installment will pick up with Bill and Ted still attempting to write a song that saves the world. Which apparently takes about 20 years. And there’s some time travel, too.

You know what? Let’s not overanalyze this. It’s a Bill and Ted movie, and it’s going to be pretty damn cool if all the pieces fall into place.

Director: Malcom Venille

Cast: Keanu Reeves, Judy Greer, Vera Farmiga, James Caan

Synopsis: An aimless man is sent to prison for a crime he did not commit.

Release Date: 2010

Babel‘s Rinko Kikuchi, Hiroyuki Sanada, Kou Shibasaki, and Tadanobu Asano have all joined the cast. Four down, forty-three to go.

Directed by Ridley Scott‘s ward, Carl Erik Rinsch, the 3D blockbuster tells the story of forty-seven samurai who force their master to commit ritual suicide after attacking a court official. They then spend years planning revenge on the official and take their own lives after his. Seems… productive? (Variety)

I guess this means I also have to retract my report that Keanu Reeves is an idiot. This is so embarrassing.

That might sound like a half-way descent premise, but don’t let it fool you. The subplot involves a love interest (Vera Farmiga) and a local theater troupe lead by an old-Russian guy. If I wanted to listen to some old commie spout platitudes, I’d rent a Susan Sarandon movie.

From Antoine Dodson getting his people snatched up, to the infamous “Double Rainbow,” it’s been a hell of a year for Internet memes. Countless man-hours have been wasted both creating and consuming these pointless, yet hilarious endeavors. And while meme topics are as varied as the Internet itself, film and television are continual sources of inspiration. With that in mind, here are the 10 greatest entertainment-related memes of 2010.

Selleck Waterfall Sandwich

Selleck Waterfall Sandwich is exactly what it sounds like: a website with various pictures of actor Tom Selleck standing next to both waterfalls and sandwiches. Apparently the site’s creator knew there was a need for such a thing on the Internet, and the Internet thanked him with tons of traffic. The meme also managed to bring Tom Selleck back into the limelight in a way that no cheesy CBS cop-drama ever could.

Selleck Waterfall Sandwhich 1 – “Blue Bloods” 0

Prancing Cera

People have a love-hate relationship with Michael Cera. On the one hand, “Arrested Development” was fun to watch. On the other, Michael Cera getting bludgeoned with a pipe would be fun to watch, too. This meme fills the void between those two extremes.

A picture of Cera jumping between two platforms in Norway was the inspiration, and since it hit the net, hundreds of people have used Photoshop to make the actor prance through odd and often dangerous situations. Why is he running? Is he in danger? Will he die? The lack of a definitive answer only adds to the intrigue.

Sad Don Draper

Literally speaking, it was a pretty sad year for Internet memes. Pictures of actors looking sad struck a chord, and led to some incredibly creative content. One example is Sad Don Draper. Once this still of the”Mad Men” character made the rounds, it was only a matter of time until Draper’s face ended up in all sorts of weird places.

The Snooki Crasher

Is “Jersey Shore” still on the air? Is Snooki dead yet? Yes and no? Oh, then while we wait, let’s enjoy these Photoshopped images of America’s favorite guidette troll popping up in places she doesn’t belong. It’s not as dirty as it sounds.

Isaiah Mustafa: Old Spice

Unlike the other items on this list, Isaiah Mustafa‘s Old Spice ads are less of an organic outgrowth of the Internet and more of an ingenious marketing ploy to sell deodorant. Even so, a good idea, is a good idea, and the various videos the company made in reply to Twitter and Facebook questions became more popular than the original commercials. It also led to Mustafa landing movie and television gigs. If that doesn’t pan out, he can always work at county fairs charging $10 a pop to say “Hello Ladies” on people’s voicemails. It works for the “Wussup” guys.

Hugh Jackman Can Ride Anything

When actor Hugh Jackman was injured while using a zip-line on “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” you knew it was only a matter of time before the net responded via Photoshop. After all, that blue-sky background might as well be a green screen. This meme is a relative newcomer, so we may not even see it peak until 2011.

Inception Multi-Panes

Did the serious acting and bizarre dreamscapes of Inception lend itself to the multi-pane format, or did the film’s popularity simply cause a flood of these comic-style jokes? Who gives a shit. Either way, they’re really funny.

LOL Mel

2010 saw Mel Gibson lapse back into his old ways. A series of violent, racist voicemails were released to the tabloids, in which the actor demanded blowjobs from and threatened to kill his now ex-girl friend. Sounds like a typical day at the Screen Junkies office, but I guess it made for a pretty big P.R. problem for ol’ Mel. However, on the plus side, people used the tapes as an excuse to spice up dialogue from Gibson’s older films.

Strutting Leo

This is the second Inception-inspired meme to crack the top ten. When a random picture of Leo walking confidently around the set was posted on line, it didn’t take long for the actor to turn up strutting his stuff in some very peculiar locations.

Jesus, how many different ways can I say the same thing? Photoshop + Weird Places = Meme.

Sad Keanu

Show of hands: how many of you have actually seen a Keanu Reeves film made in the past five years? Now, raise your hands if you’ve seen a picture of Sad Keanu? Exactly.

Sad Keanu was arguably the biggest meme of the year, and it’s easy to see why. From eating birds to hanging out with Ro Paul, Sad Keanu took the net on amazing journey. Plus, he also inspired this song, which never fails to bring a tear to my eye.

^{Linkin Park?}

Alex Winter has corroborated Keanu Reeves’ story from earlier this week. William S. Preston, Esq. himself, told MTV that a third Bill & Ted film is in the works. They were struggling to find the right plot for a while, but now writers Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon have hatched a plot that they’ve begun writing.

The big issue, however, is what to do about George Carlin‘s character? Winter assures there’s no way they would re-cast the part, so the trick now is to delicately work around his character. I’m hoping this means they’ll use sophisticated Coke commercial CGI technology to bring him back to life. If I know Carlin, that’s definitely what he would want to happen. (MTV)

MTV caught up with Keanu Reeves at the Toronto Film Festival and asked him the pressing question that everyone’s dying to know the answer to: What up with another Bill & Ted? The interview takes place at a bench, where I’m guessing moments before Keanu was finishing up a meal all by his lonesome.

The recently "sad" actor says he’d love to do another Bill & Ted (duuuuuuuh), they just have to get the story right. For a story that never made sense in the first place, this is lofty goal. Keanu also says he’d love German director Werner Herzog to add his flair to the project. Now that I would pay to see. They’ll need to get this project off the ground soon though or it’s going to follow Bill and Ted‘s excellent adventure of applying for a AARP membership. And Werner tackling ageism will be a dark tale indeed.

Check out the interview after the jump…

(Deadline)

The "Sad Keanu" meme has taken the Internet by storm. But who has time to sift through the thousands of pics of sad Keanu Reeves to find the real gems?

Thanks to Screen Junkies (and whoever made this video), you don’t have to! Now you can sit back, relax and watch the best of the "Sad Keanu" goodness come to you, all while listening to a parody of a the Plain White Ts "Hey There Delilah." What an age we live in!

Enjoy "Hey There Keanu," the "Sad Keanu" meme compilation video, after the jump.

Keanu Reeves has signed on to star in Gabriele Muccino‘s Passengers, a date-rape love story with a sci-fi bent. Set in the future, Reeves is a member of a crew on board a spacecraft making a 100-year trip to a new planet via cryogenic sleep. 10 years into their journey, he is woken up and doomed to spend the rest of his life on the craft. So what does he do? Well, when fapping gets old he commits the ultimate dick move and wakes up the hottest chick with the hope that she’ll want to join the 200,000 Mile High Club with him. But will she want to knock moon-boots once she finds out it was he who woke her? Not if she doesn’t find out.

We got our hands on an exclusive script excerpt. Check it out: