A few years ago, we were treated subjected to a retail farce known as Employee of the Month, a near-witless comedy that pitted Dane Cook and Dax Shepard against each other as moronic clerks who vie for the title of (you guessed it) Employee of the Month. I knew there was a lot of room for successful comedy in this sort of premise, but aside from a stray chuckle or two, EOTM was an entirely stale and completely sitcom-level effort.

Now comes a very small, very funny, and oddly warm-hearted flick in sort of the same vein. It's called The Promotion; it stars Sean William Scott and John C. Reilly; it was written and directed by first-timer Steve Conrad ... and if it comes out in 2008, then it will definitely end up in my top ten of the year. (Conrad is a first-time director; his previous screenplays include Wrestling Ernest Hemingway, The Weather Man, and The Pursuit of Happyness.) This is a fantastic little comedy, filled with all sorts of weird little moments and strange diversions, but at its core, The Promotion is a profanely sweet-natured dual character study that doles out a LOT of laughs while actually celebrating ... small doses of actual humanity! It's a great comedy with an excellent message delivered by a bunch of actors who are clearly savoring the material. (My normal m.o. is to "champion" smaller horror flicks, but a good movie is a good movie, period. If I can turn a dozen people onto The Promotion, then I'm doing my job.)

John C. Reilly and Salma Hayek starring in a Paul Weitz semi-horror flick / adaptation of a best-selling kids book? Sounds interesting enough to me. It'll be the first movie for Ms. Hayek since she took some time off to have a baby, and she'll be co-starring opposite the Dewey Cox star in Universal's Cirque du Freak. (Check out Monika's previous report right here.)

The film, which is based on a popular 12-book series by Darren Shan, begins production this month. Variety offers us non-readers a handy little synopsis: "Reilly will play a vampire who drafts a 14-year-old to serve as his assistant. The youth is turned into a half-vampire and becomes the catalyst in a battle between vampires and the rival Vampanese. Hayek will play Madame Truska, the bearded lady." According to the IMDB, the adaptation was written by screenwriter Brian Helgeland, whom you'll no doubt remember from L.A. Confidential, Mystic River and (of course) 976-EVIL.

Mr. Weitz's most recent film was American Dreamz, but I choose to focus more on his good movies. Like the first American Pie, the fantastic About a Boy, and the seriously underrated In Good Company.

The parody subgenre once gave us comedy classics like Young Frankenstein, Airplane!, Top Secret!, and The Naked Gun. This glorious tradition has been disgracefully violated in recent years by the likes of the cleverly titled Epic Movie and Date Movie. (As for the latter -- a spoof of comedies? Outstanding idea!) Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, a parody of musical biopics like Walk the Line and Ray, marks the pretty damn triumphant return of the spoof film. The movie also marks the return of Judd Apatow, and I'm pleased to report that Walk Hard completes a 2007 hat trick for the man. It easily joins Knocked Up and Superbad to form the unholy trinity of the year's superior comedies.

Starting in fictional rock star Dewey Cox's boyhood Tennessee home and ending some sixty years later after his bouts with women, booze, and pills, the film traces the blood pumping rise...of Cox. (First and last Cox joke, I promise.) The script gets Cox making music quickly, and good thing. I'm not sure why the first ten minutes of Walk Hard were released online as part of the marketing plan, they're easily the weakest scenes of the film. But once John C. Reilly enters the picture, portraying Cox at age fourteen despite being 25 years older (a dig at Kevin Spacey in Beyond the Sea?), it's pretty much smooth sailing.

The Judd Apatow gang always markets the crap out of their movies, and the promotional blitz is in full force for their latest, Walk Hard. Posters are everywhere, they released the "R" Rated international trailer to the internets, they took out a very cool "For Your Consideration" ad in The Hollywood Reporter, and John C. Reilly is rocking the country on the "Cox Across America" tour, which I was lucky enough to check out this week. And now you can watch the first ten minutes of the film online! Head over to http://rocklikecox.com/myspace/ to enjoy. If you figure it costs ten bucks to see a movie, and the movie is 100 minutes -- this is one dollar's worth of entertainment for free!

You have to verify your age to see the clip -- the film is Rated "R" after all, but this ten minutes is strictly "PG." Sorry, folks. (By the way, has anyone under the age of 18 ever been dissuaded by an age verification? You can enter any birthdate you want! It's not like they're asking for a thumb print or something! Fools! Let's move on.) The clip mainly focuses on Dewey as a boy, played by Conner Rayburn, and it builds to a 14 year-old Dewey's declaration "Just wait 'till you see what happens now." I must say, I only laughed out loud once during the clip -- the line "How are we gonna follow that?" got to me -- but I have a feeling this is going to be a very funny movie. I'm checking it out Wednesday night, and I'm muy excitedo. How about you guys, thoughts on the opening scenes?

Monday night I had the privilege of seeing Dewey Cox -- better known as John C. Reilly -- live at The Roxy ("Coxy") Theater on the Sunset Strip. Cox and his band The Hard Walkers put on a hell of a show, tearing through all the hits from Cox's glorious career -- soon to be given the big screen treatment in Walk Hard. Reilly came out of the gate ready to rock, and stayed in character all night. He came off like a cruder, nastier Elvis Presley -- guzzling tequila, repeatedly calling us all "motherf***ers, making a downright overwhelming amount of "Cox" jokes, and asking a woman in the audience if he could grab her breast. And grab he did!

But what about the music? Cox performed nearly every track from the Walk Hard soundtrack, and considering this was his "first performance since 1984," he was in fine voice. Reilly dropped out of tune for a song or two but on the whole he sounded pretty terrific, especially on the strangely affecting Roy Orbison homage "A Life Without You (Is No Life at All)." Other standouts included the Johnny Cashtastic "Guilty as Charged," the rollicking "You've Got to Love Your Negro Man," and the hilariously offensive protest song "Dear Mr. President." Reilly played guitar and harmonica pretty well, but since the actors in Cox's movie band (Chris Parnell, Tim Meadows) don't really play, they had to watch on from the audience -- along with co-writer/director Jake Kasdan and Judd Apatow -- while a stand-in group of musicians rocked the house.

The show closed with a shirtless Cox moaning through the beguiling "Have You Heard the News (Dewey Cox Died)," rubbing his nipples, and throwing down his microphone. I can't imagine anyone leaving the theater disappointed, and if the live show is any indication, Walk Hard is going to be one hysterical movie. Wanna see Cox? There's still a few dates left on the "Cox Across America" mini-tour.

Check out the gallery below ...

Year of the Dog, the latest film by director Mike White (Nacho Libre, School of Rock, The Good Girl) is a touching, funny tale about love, loss, and finding meaning in a meaningless world. No, really, it is -- just not in the cliched, melodramatic sense. The set-up of the film immediately calls to mind 2005's comedic smash hit, 40-Year-Old Virgin, but with a female lead instead of a guy. Where Virgin gave us a peek into the life of 40-year-old guy who decorates his apartment with new-in-box action figures and plays videogames by himself all the time, Year of the Dog gives us a window into the life of Peggy (Molly Shannon), a similarly-aged woman living alone with her beagle, Pencil in her starkly neat home.

One of the strengths of Virgin was that it never stooped to mockery of main character Andy (Steve Carrell), the sad sack who's never managed to get laid. Andy wasn't ugly, he didn't have horrible breath, and he wasn't a serial killer with mommy issues; he was just a normal guy who dressed neatly and had a neurotic fear of sex after several bad experiences trying to lose his virginity. Andy was like a lot of 30-and-40-something guys living alone or in their parents' basement apartment, mired in a world where computer games and internet chat take the place of a real social life. Likewise, in Year of the Dog, Peggy is never caricatured as a miserable old maid; she's just a woman for whom the progression of a relationship to marriage never happened.

David Krumholtz is doing what everybody in comedy should be doing right now: aligning himself with Judd Apatow. Krumholtz has not one but two deals going with uber-producer Apatow, the man who directed The 40 Year-Old Virgin and this summer's Knocked Up (which I just saw and is near perfect.) Krumholtz will write and star in Attorneys at Raw, and will play a slimy record producer in Walk Hard. Attorneys at Raw will be produced by Apatow, and is said to be a comedy about two young attorneys who decide they want to become rappers. As long as Jamie Kennedy or Matthew Lillard doesn't play the other guy, that could be funny. I dig the title. We've given you lots of Walk Hard news lately, it is the mock biopic of fictional singer Dewey Cox, starring John C. Reilly, Jenna Fischer, Kristen Wiig, and David Koechner. That film was written by Apatow and Jake Kasdan and is being directed by Kasdan.

Even if you don't know Krumholtz's name, odds are you know his face. He had a memorable scene singing "Luck Be a Lady" in his tighty-whities in Slums of Beverly Hills, played a great stoner in Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle, and will next appear in Live!, a mockumentary with Eva Mendes. He also stars in the CBS drama Numb3rs, which I h3ar is pr3tty n3at. Krumholtz has worked with Apatow before, on his short-lived television classics Freaks and Geeks and Undeclared. I imagine his role in Walk Hard will be a spoof of his role as Milt Shaw in Ray, although I'm not sure anyone will make the connection.

Walk Hard, a mock biopic spoofing the likes of Walk The Line and Ray, has John C. Reilly playing Dewey Cox, a fictional musician with shades of Roy Orbison and Johnny Cash. Over the course of Cox's life, he crosses a lot of real-life music legends, and now we know who will be playing the role of the King. Jack White, singer/guitarist for both The White Stripes and The Raconteurs, will be stepping into the Blue Suede Shoes of Elvis Presley. What an awesome bit of news -- one of my favorite modern musicians playing one of my favorite musicians from the past! Will Ferrell and Jack Black (Jack Black and Jack White!) are also rumored to be doing bit parts. No word on who they'll be playing, but here's hoping for an appearance by Ferrell's Neil Diamond. "I wrote this song on the back of a Dixie cup!"

You probably know Jack White from his music, (White Blood Cells is a great place to start if you don't), but he has acted before, including bit parts in both Cold Mountain and Jim Jarmusch's Coffee and Cigarettes. Walk Hard also stars The Office's secretary Jenna Fischer (somewhat disappointing in Blades of Glory), David Koechner ("Whammy!"), and Saturday Night Live's razor-sharp character actress Kristen Wiig. The script was written by Judd Apatow and Jake Kasdan, with Kasdan directing. The pair have worked together before, most notably on two wonderful and sadly departed television programs, Freaks and Geeks and Undeclared. Kasdan's got a little film you should keep an eye out for in the coming months called The TV Set, a very interesting and funny look at the television business. Walk Hard is scheduled to rock and roll into theaters early next year, and as a fan of everyone involved, I can't wait.

While not working as Pam Beesly on The Office, Jenna Fischer has been busy. Since nabbing a role in the hit sitcom, she's getting the chance to work with a slew of Hollywood's comedic names in a bunch of upcoming comedies. She's getting her feet in The Brothers Solomon with Will Arnet and Will Forte, more Will action with Arnet, Will Ferrell and Jon Heder in Blades of Glory and then she grabbed a little Quebec with Seann William Scott and John C. Reilly. I guess each role brings her the next, as she's gearing up to co-star with Reilly in his next comedy, Walk Hard.

While the film sounds more like a Pump Up the Volume re-make for pirate speedwalkers, it's actually a comedy about a messed-up music legend, Dewey Cox. In August, Martha Fischer discussed the magic-that-is-Reilly when the Hard pitch was given to Judd Apatow and Jake Kasdan to write; and in December, Erik Davis shared that Reilly would be grabbing the lead role. Now, the comedy, which obviously gets its name from Walk the Line, has its June Carter Cash in Fischer. She'll be Reilly's love interest, and she'll also get to dazzle us with her vocal stylings.

I see Fischer going nowhere but up, if her upcoming comedies do half as well as expected -- but what about Reilly? Sure, he's got a secure hold on comedy, but will this flick finally give him some starring clout? He headlined Criminal, but no one really saw that. Hopefully Walk Hard will become Reilly's Capote, and finally give the actor some high-profile, first-billed cred.