Andy Samberg and Adam Sandler in That's My BoyTHAT'S MY BOY

Lord knows I don't want to encourage him, but if Adam Sandler absolutely must continue to star in comedies released under his Happy Madison Productions banner, could the rest of them at least have the good sense, and bad taste, to be rated R?

Paul Rudd and Jennifer Aniston in WanderlustWANDERLUST

If I could pick one show-biz personality with whom I could be best buds, I'm pretty certain I'd choose David Wain, the director of Wet Hot American Summer, The Ten, and the new fish-out-of-water comedy Wanderlust. Can you imagine how awesome a Wain-hosted party must be? Even if there were awkward moments, and draggy moments, and things weren't quite as wild as you hoped, he'd still invite the likes of Paul Rudd, Justin Theroux, Ken Marino, Michaela Watkins, Malin Akerman, Kathryn Hahn, and Joe Lo Truglio. Whatever your qualms, wouldn't the hilarity they provided make the experience totally worth it?

Rob Schneider, Chris Rock, Kevin James, Adam Sandler, and David Spade in Grown UpsGROWN UPS

In basic outline, director Dennis Dugan's Grown Ups is similar to last autumn's Couples Retreat, that witless, odious comedy in which a gaggle of Hollywood stars enjoyed a luxury weekend on a tropical isle and demanded that audiences pick up the tab. (More than $100-million worth of ticket buyers actually did. Staggering.) Beyond their locales, though, the main difference between them is that Couples Retreat starred Vince Vaughn, Jason Bateman, Jon Favreau, Faizon Love, and Malin Akerman, while Dugan's film top-bills Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Chris Rock, David Spade, and the entertainment vacuum known as Rob Schneider. Was this Happy Madison production - written by Sandler and Fred Wolf - going to pull off the borderline-miraculous feat of being the lesser of the two movies?

Carlos Ponce, Vince Vaughn, and Malin Akerman in Couples RetreatCOUPLES RETREAT

The trouble-in-paradise comedy Couples Retreat may be criminally inane, yet you can't say that co-writers/co-stars Vince Vaughn and Jon Favreau aren't smart as tacks. Together with collaborator Dana Fox, they scripted a breathtakingly lazy and insipid vehicle that guaranteed them a two-month vacation on locales in Bora Bora and Tahiti, and somehow convinced Universal Pictures to pick up the tab. How ever did they do it? And how can we ensure that they never, ever do it again?

Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds in The ProposalTHE PROPOSAL

"All right, you've got five minutes to sell me your pitch. Go."

"Well, it's a romantic comedy - I'm thinking about calling it The Proposal - and it's about this bitchy, selfish book editor in Manhattan who learns deeper values and becomes a better person after falling in love with her assistant."

"That doesn't sound very funny."

Billy Crudup in Watchmen

WATCHMEN

In writer Alan Moore's and illustrator Dave Gibbons' graphic novel Watchmen, there's a sequence in which two of its costumed heroes, Silk Spectre II and Nite Owl II, break a third - the masked paranoid Rorschach - out of prison. And near the end of the intensely violent rescue, Rorschach delays their escape with a quick trip to the men's room.