Fox has released a teaser trailer for this summer’s remake of THE OMEN, which is coming out on 6/6/06 (you wonder if they greenlit the thing just to take advantage of the release date).

There’s not much here, other than a spooky atmosphere and a creepy kid. That’s all a teaser trailer needs to do. Of course, it might generate even more buzz if only they’d put the name of the movie on the damn thing. I can see people in the theater watching this and then going, “HIS DAY WILL COME looks kinda good.”

First off, allow me to go on the record for saying I never thought I’d see the day where something with the title “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp” would be recognized as a Best Original Song nominee. But that’s what happened for the catchy HUSTLE & FLOW tune, and this shows that the oft-stodgy Academy has come a long way. Next year I hope to see something like “‘Tis Sore Being a Whore” do the same.

There were few surprises, save for a strong showing for Steven Spielberg’s MUNICH, which has been all but ignored in other awards races. It was nice to see nominations for JUNEBUG’s Amy Adams, HUSTLE’s Terrence Howard and, in Best Documentary Feature, the almighty MURDERBALL.

As far as predictions, BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN looks to be a Best Picture and Best Director lock, while it’d be a safe bet to pick Philip Seymour Hoffman and Reese Witherspoon for the top acting prizes. The supporting categories are where the surprises usually happen. I’d love to see Amy Adams win for Supporting Actress, but she’s probably too young; then again, stranger things have happened. I think the newly thrice-nominated George Clooney could upset Paul Giamatti for Supporting Actor and thus be awarded for all his work this year, in both SYRIANA and GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK.

I’m still kind of pissed that SYRIANA’s last-minute eligibility change from Adapted to Original Screenplay shut out THE 40-YEAR-OLD VIRGIN’s dark-horse shot at a nomination. Oh, well. You can see the full list of nominees in all the categories here.

* I have yet to see an acceptance speech where Philip Seymour Hoffman doesn’t cover half his face.
* The strangest shot of the night was seeing Eva Longoria sitting on the lap of Marcia Cross, much like a child, or at least a ventriloquist’s dummy. I suppose it was just for show (”Really, we like each other! See, we sit on our laps!”) because real people just don’t act like this. And not that I was ever on the Longwhoria train before, but her new short hair aged her about 15 years.
* Speaking of the cast of DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES, I’m beginning to tire of Felicity Huffman speeches. Yes, we know you’re married to William H. Macy. We like him more.
* Paul Giamatti said “it’s a hell of thing” four times and “shoot the shit” once. And he said that he likes donuts, but we kinda figured that already.
* Rachel Weisz has awesome pregnancy boobs.
* The biggest thing to come out of CRASH’s upset win for Best Ensemble Cast is that Ryan Phillippe gets to stay married to Reese Witherspoon for another year. Because when she won for Best Actress, it cemented her front-runner status for an Oscar, so you know he just started feeling a little like the new Chad Lowe. But then CRASH’s win gave him a statue, too, so they were on equal footing for the night. Next year, though, he’ll be crossing his fingers for a cameo in CRUEL INTENTIONS 4 and she can trade up husbands.

Apparently in the comedy world, the joke known as “The Aristocrats” is one that comedians have told to each other for decades. Paul Provenza and Penn Jillette put a camera in front of 100 comedians (well, 99 comedians and Robin Williams) to tell their version of the joke and their stories related to it. THE ARISTOCRATS is the resulting documentary about that joke, which goes something like this: A family walks into a talent agent and says, “You’ve got to see our act.” The agent asks, “So what do you do?” And the family members engage in vile sex acts with one another. The agent says, “What do you call yourselves?,” to which the father answers, “The Aristocrats!”

The big problem with THE ARISTOCRATS is that the joke itself really isn’t funny. I like the punchline, but I’m not a big fan of the scatalogical. Therefore, if you’re not one trained to burst into laughter whenever a dirty word is uttered, you’re not going to laugh a lot. And I didn’t. However, I was never, ever bored by it.

This isn’t really the joke told 100 times, although you do get it thrown at you a lot, including a wordless version by Billy the Mime and an animated version courtesy of the SOUTH PARK kids. For me, the funny parts were when the joke was flipped, twisted or blended into something new, like Wendy Liebman’s take, Doug Stanhope and Andy Richter’s telling of it to their infant sons, Kevin Pollak performing it as Christopher Walken and (it pains me to write this) Richard Jeni intentional flub. Or the humor came from throwaway lines unrelated to the joke, when Taylor Negron argues how the nation needs comedy “after the tragic events of January 3″ (the day he lost his Visa card).

But Drew Carey, Whoopi Goldberg, Bob Saget, George Carlin, Gilbert Gottfried, Bill Maher, et al.? Stop, I’ve heard that one before.

Back in 1996, I was working a horrible, soul-sucking job. It didn’t last long before I moved on to another horrible, soul-sucking job, but I had Wilco’s A.M. album to help get me through the day. Centro-matic’s FORT RECOVERY reminds me a lot of that one, minus the foot-stomping rouser on the level of “Casino Queen” (oh, and minus the horrible, soul-sucking vibe to which it provided a soundtrack). This album is red dirt-dirty and gravel road-gravelly, full of raw, unpolished, mid-tempo ballads and rockers courtesy of the plaintive, pained voice of Will Johnson. It’s introspective rock infused with the spirit of the South, which means equal doses of hope and heartbreak. ‘Tis best to drown your sorrows in it than a mug of suds, though that might enhance the experience even further.

Hey, kids! Let’s play THE 40-YEAR-OLD VIRGIN: THE HOME GAME!

This fun online doohickey allows you to replicate the film’s most infamous scene, in which Steve Carell’s hairy chest undergoes a painful hot wax. OOOOHHHH, KELLY CLARKSON!!!

I really wish I had caught THE FOG remake in theaters. That way, I could’ve included it on my worst of 2005 list. Oh, boys and girls, does this movie suck.

From the very beginning, as Selma Blair’s lighthouse DJ blares Fall Out Boy, it’s painfully obvious that the filmmakers are going all out to hip this up. This entails casting the so-bland-he’s-invisible Tom Welling as the hero and LOST’s Maggie Grace as his love interest. She may have won the role because she’s cute, but here she reveals herself as incapable of acting. Of course, despite a lack of previous experience in battling demon fog, they’re the ones who are going to save the town from the murderous mist that’s moving against the wind toward their coastal Oregon town.

Like Raid, the fog kills upon contact. First we see it fry a dog, and then it moves on to annoying, expendable supporting cast members, like those way-cool young people having a “Booty on the Boat” party. I have to say I rooted for the fog, even if it’s so one-note and predictable by breaking a lot of glass. No pane survives that dareth crosseth its path. Except your TV screen, dammit.

THE FOG succeeds mightily on one aspect: Reminding me how good the John Carpenter original was. In every way that film was effective, this is not. For example: the 1980 FOG creepily whipped up man-made fog, but the remake – which actually had to shut down production when real fog plagued the set – seems content to let CGI do all the work. As a result, it looks terribly fake, which immediately destroys the terror factor. The ending is laughably bad, not that you’ll have the patience to reach it.

Parents are upset over the children’s book POTTY TIME WITH ELMO, because one of the sound buttons, when pressed, plays a clip of what sounds like Elmo saying, “Who wants to die?”

Yeah, and? Every time my daughter watches SESAME STREET and I pass through the room, Elmo whispers that in my ear. I thought that’s all he could say, like it was his catchphrase or something. I’m sure its inclusion here is totally innocent; perhaps Elmo is simply warning kids about the potentially fatal consequences of holding in your poo-poo.

James Frey made a return appearance to Oprah’s show yesterday in an attempt to answer charges claiming his memoir A MILLION LITTLE PIECES is largely fabricated. I was critical of Oprah for her defense of Frey on LARRY KING LIVE, but she redeemed herself at the show’s start, saying her judgment had been “clouded” and that she had sent the message to the nation that truth doesn’t matter.

I’m sure Oprah doesn’t feel she’s wrong very often, so to admit that not once but numerous times throughout the broadcast is brave. But not as brave as Frey, who took such a beating from the host, the other guests and the audience members that I hope he didn’t start using shortly after exiting Harpo Studios. He owned up to some of the charges, but seemed awfully wishy-washy on others.

The best line of the hour went to Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen, who asked about the scene where a bloody, vomitous Frey boards a flight, “How’d this guy get on an airplane? I can’t get on with a third piece of luggage.” I won’t recap the entire show since others already have done so, but I must take offense at publisher Nan Talese for trying to save her own reputation by saying that a memoir is an author’s “remembrance” of events. Which is true, Nan, until they actively create falsehoods; then it’s a novel.

Lessons learned from this ordeal: You can’t trust a drug addict, and you do not make Oprah look like a fool. Who knew?

If the record for the longest touchdown pass (85 yards) is broken in the upcoming Super Bowl, Papa John’s Pizza will give you a free, large, highly alliterative Perfect Pan Pepperoni Pizza, so long as you register beforehand. By doing so, you can earn some free Coke, with a street value of about three bucks. (Ha! I made a funny.)

Now, I don’t watch football (or any sports, for that matter, outside of the occasional Olympic event), but even I know 85 yards is a looong way. I have a better chance of watching the Super Bowl than we do of getting free hot pies. Because I don’t watch football, you see. (Refer to three sentences ago for proof.)

The past couple episodes of LOST have bored me to near-tears. I’m not counting last night’s better-than-usual one, which is ironic, since it focused on perhaps my least favorite character, the junkie rocker played by Dominic Monaghan, who my wife says “looks like he has teeth from the 1600s.”

What makes LOST appointment viewing? (It wasn’t the screwdriver I enjoyed while watching.) I argue it’s the mystery and suspense of the goings-on on the island and not the flashback-of-the-week crap that shows how dysfunctional this person is back home. That’s what made the first two episodes of this season so good: Because they more or less stuck to the island and – here’s a novel idea – actually advanced the story forward. The past few weeks, however, gave way more to the flashbacks that – let’s be honest – had very little to do with the actual plot. Oh, so Jack is apparently attractive to more than one woman? Huh, what a revelation. Thanks for spending 40 minutes to tell me that. Now what about the fuckin’ polar bears and killer boars? Remember those plot threads that’ve been hanging all this time? They should be mentioned in every episode, even just in passing dialogue. Example:

RANDOM CASTAWAY #1: Anyone one seen (insert character name here)? I’m going to look for him.
RANDOM CASTAWAY #2: Okay, but geez, watch out for those fuckin’ polar bears and killer boars! Remember them?
THE KOREAN GUY: 극지 곰 ! 왜 아무도는 나에게에게 말하지 않았는가 ? 신성한 crap !

People complained all the time about TWIN PEAKS‘ baffling stories, but at least they’d sew something up before throwing you something new to set your head scratching. Offer some closure on something before you start introducing new condundrums, like the fart mist from THE ABYSS last week. Or at least cut down on those increasingly dull flashbacks, unless each one of them ends – surprise! with someone in a wheelchair. Five minutes of plot a week is not compelling TV; it’s lazy. Because teasing me with island monsters and ghost kids and crazed murderers but giving me family drama instead is like that time in junior high when a classmate asked if you wanted to go to a pizza party and when you got there, they wanted you to convert you into a Baptist.

Is it possible for an actor to be charged with theft? Because Amy Adams totally steals JUNEBUG out from under the entire cast. If she’s not nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar next week, it will be a crime.

JUNEBUG tells the story of a British art dealer (Embeth Davidtz) who impulsively marries George (Alessandro Nivola) after meeting (and doing) him at her gallery one night. She accompanies him to North Carolina to meet his family and begins to realize she has no idea who he really is; their connection seems awfully thin beyond their hot and heavy sessions of intercourse. Dad is a bit of a non-entity, absorbed in woodworking. Mom does little more than chain-smoke and pout. George’s brother (The O.C.’s Benjamin McKenzie, far better than expected) seems withdrawn and depressed at his lot in life, having to live with his parents, work a dead-end job and be married to the eternally optimistic Adams, who’s so pregnant she’s about to burst.

There’s a subplot about Davidtz trying to acquire the paintings of a local, seemingly senile artist (apparently, canvases portraying Civil War battles with oversized phalluses make a mint on the East Coast), but I found that part of the film uninteresting compared to the family dynamics. When Adams’ super-sunny, super-clingy, super-naive character is offscreen, the life tends to deflate out of it. She’s that good. Also really good is Scott Wilson, who plays the partiarch. He’s so convincing walking around all sleepy-eyed and quiet-like that I thought he might be a non-actor; I was surprised to learn he’s the same guy who plays Marg Helgenberger’s asshole casino-magnate dad on CSI. He disappears into his role that I didn’t even recognize him.

JUNEBUG is one of the better indie films of 2005 I’ve seen. It’s quirky and funny without being condescending, anchored by a truly magnificent performance from Adams. She’ll make you wish the entire movie was about her.

How far has Armand Assante’s star fallen that he can shoot a movie in a highly public area less than 10 miles from my house and I didn’t even know about it? The once-busy star of PRIVATE BENJAMIN and … well, I’m hard-pressed to come up with another without cheating with the IMDB, is the star of SURVEILLANCE, directed by the guy who did CHILDREN OF THE CORN and teaches film at a nearby community college. (A few years ago, we once asked Mr. Director, Fritz Kiersch, if we could interview him about his career on films like GOR and TUFF TURF, and he gave us the brush-off. We won’t hold that against him.)

It was shot at Oklahoma City’s Penn Square Mall, which holds many special memories for us here at Hitch. For me, it was the site of my recent mullet experiment (to appear in the forthcoming issue of Hitch). For Louis Fowler (who sent the link below), it served as a perpetual site of employment, at nearly every store except Victoria’s Secret and Hot Dog on a Stick. For another staffer who shall remain nameless, its two-story elevator served as a location for an after-closing quickie.

But I’m getting off track. Armand Assante (say it loud! Say it proud!) in a thriller in a mall in Oklahoma City. I can’t wait to see this work of genius. In the meantime, enjoy and enjoy and enjoy the trailer.

In the latest fake trailer, see what it would be like if TOP GUN were re-edited into a love story between two men. (In other words, TOP GUN.) Thanks to Dan for the link.

Because the Hasselhoff is “Hooked on a Feeling.” And he’s high on believing. And flying and snowboarding and riding motorcycles standing up and wearing a safari hat that looks more Peter Pan than Indiana Jones.

As the Sundance Film Festival plays out, last year’s Sundance hit is now available on DVD and poised to earn possibly one Oscar nomination. HUSTLE & FLOW is the story of a low-rent pimp (Terrence Howard) wanting to go legit as a gangsta rapper. From that description, I fully expected to hate this movie, but it’s surprisingly skillful and moving. But be warned: You’ll be spouting pimpspeak and saying “Whoop dat trick!” for about a day afterwards.

Howard’s DJay scrapes through life pimping out his one whore (the other one’s pregnant, you see), and she has vertigo so they can’t operate out of a hotel, but have to sit in his car. He realizes how dead-end his world is and decides to put his misery on paper. Then a chance meeting with an old classmate (Anthony Anderson, thankfully downplaying it for once) results in him laying those rhymes down on tape. The dreams get bigger as his raps get better. And an opportunity for him to cash in on those dreams arises when famous rap star Skinny Black (real-life rap star Ludacris) is scheduled to come home for a visit, so long as he doesn’t blow it. That’s when you begin to see how much of his confidence is merely swagger.

No offense to the fine work of writer-director Craig Brewer, but Howard is this movie. His performance is outstanding and every bit the breakthrough as it’s been hyped. A Best Actor Oscar nomination is certainly deserved, but not a foregone conclusion in this very competitive year of gay cowboys, gay novelists and Johnny Cash.

No surprise: Chris Parnell and Andy Samberg’s NARNIA rap/Internet phenom “Lazy Sunday” from SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE has started sparking imitators.

There’s the West Coast version featuring actual recognizable actor Mark Feuerstein, from big movies like WHAT WOMEN WANT, IN HER SHOES and RULES OF ENGAGEMENT. It’s not great, but the references to Splenda, NPR and Discover Card’s 1% cashback program show their hearts are in their right place. But I look at Feuerstein and think, “Um, shouldn’t you be … I dunno … working?”

At least it’s well-done, which is way more than I can say for “It’s Wal-Mart Time!,” the white-trash version. Though I appreciate the line about “sick votive candles for five-ninety-fo’,” these two girls should be doing their homework instead of embarassing themselves with the built-in microphone on brother’s Dell. Thanks (?) to Louis for that link.

But doesn’t anybody remember that while Samberg was still wetting his pants, Tom Hanks and Dan Aykroyd blazed the “white-guy rap” trail? Their “City of Crime” song was one of the best things about their DRAGNET movie. I can still sing the whole damn thing to you on cue: “See that, Streebek, we’re just in time / We have stumbled into a major crime…” Watch the whole thing here and marvel at how much fun the pre-Oscar Hanks could be (or, for that matter, the pre-extra-100-lbs. Aykroyd). Why isn’t this gem on the DVD?

Apparently the United States Postal Service celebrates becoming debt-free by raising rates, as anyone who’s visited the post office in the past couple of weeks has noticed. I found out what that extra two pennies buys you: a longer wait!

I know there’s always a line at the post office, but there’s no excuse to have one person open when the line is 20 people deep at out the door. Especially when at least one of those people is the old guy who’s coming in to mail two books. Not a package containing two books, mind you, but two books he’s holding, no envelope or packaging material of any kind. Though he looks about 70, this is presumably his first trip to the magic depot where all the mail goes in and out! “What? You mean I have to supply the envelope? Huh. Address? Oh, it’s right here in my pocket. Somewhere. On one of these scraps of paper and gum wrappers. Oh, you want money? Say, while I’ve got you here, how about I launch into a discussion about gas prices?”

Geez, mister, didn’t fighting in the Battle of Chester Station teach you to be prepared?

At the ripe old age of 43, actor Chris Penn has just been found dead. No foul play is suspected, but my gut tells me clogged arteries; I remember thinking how unhealthy he looked in the STARSKY & HUTCH movie.

With a lack of good roles in recent years (not to mention being in the shadow of a more famous brother), it’s easy to forget how good he was in films like RESERVOIR DOGS, TRUE ROMANCE, SHORT CUTS, RUSH HOUR and FOOTLOOSE. Well, I don’t know that anyone can be accused of being good in FOOTLOOSE, but he was certainly memorable.

UPDATE: Looks like my instinct was correct, based upon this quote from a Reuters article: “It appears to be a natural death,” MacWillie said. “He died in bed.” Examiners were trying to determine if weight was an issue because Penn weighed over 270 pounds (122.5 kg), she said.

Or, in these economically questionable times, a look at what’s in my Netflix queue:

• The week’s biggest new release is FLIGHTPLAN, starring Jodie Foster. It did pretty well at the box office and looked like it was worth seeing, even if it did resemble PANIC ROOM on a plane. Funny story: One night while I was out with the guys, my wife watched COMING ATTRACTIONS on E! and they showed the FLIGHTPLAN trailer. Our daughter, who had just turned 5, saw it and was so freaked out about the idea of the disappearing little girl that she cried for hours until I got home. For days, she kept asking us, “What happened to the little girl? Where did she go?” Even last week, she was still posing that question to us, so we had to make up an answer: “Oh, she was just hiding in the suitcase bin, playing a trick on her mommy.” I hope that the movie has a better ending than that.

• I also didn’t see THE FOG, the CGI-enhanced remake of the John Carpenter horror classic. Judging from the box office, not many people did. Critics hated it. But, hey, Maggie Grace from LOST walks around in her underwear and screams a lot, so tell me that’s not worth 90 minutes and four bucks.

• Then there’s THE ARISTOCRATS, the documentary of every working comedian today telling their version of the same dirty, filthy joke. That the film is reportedly stolen by the appearances of Gilbert Gottfried and Bob Saget blows my mind, so we’ll see.