Trailer Blazer: 'Harold and Kumar 2,' 'Walk Hard'

Poor Kal Penn, he keeps getting mistaken for a terrorist. First, there was 24, where — d’oh! — it turned out not to be a mistake, and he really was a terrorist. Then there’s this teaser trailer, below, for Harold and Kumar 2 (due in 2008), in which one-half of our favorite pair of New Jersey potheads gets racially profiled by an airplane passenger. (Question: Is making fun of terrorism funnier when you make fun of bigotry at the same time?) I know this is just a one-minute teaser, but it’s going to take more than that gag and the reappearance of a wild-eyed Neil Patrick Harris to convince me that it’s worth taking another long, strange trip with these jokers.

More promising is this clip for Walk Hard (Dec. 21), a delicious-looking parody of recent musical biopics. Fictional star Dewey Cox (the reliably goofy John C. Reilly) interacts hilariously with some real-life stars (Elvis, the Beatles) played by some well-disguised comedy pros, and with some real-life celebs playing themselves — Eddie Vedder and (WTF?) Patrick Duffy. I wanted to see more of Jenna Fischer, but Kristin Wiig looks like she’ll steal scenes in the stock role of Dewey’s first wife (you know, the one he discards on the way up because she doesn’t believe in him). Judd Apatow’s name in the writing credits certainly doesn’t hurt, and the music even sounds decent, in an homage-to-Johnny-Cash way. This clip has me not only eagerly anticipating the movie, but the DVD extras as well.