Besides being a wonderfully inventive remake of James Toback’s Fingers, meaning that it fully honors the Toback while creating its own French-ified fissures and peculiarities, Jacques Audiard’s The Beat That My Heart Skipped (Wellspring) has a track that plays over the closing credits that I can’t get out of my head. It’s by The Kills and is called “Monkey 23” and is off their Keep on Your Mean Side album. It’s purchasable for 10 cents at www.allofmp3.com, or you can click on this Randall Pullen link and download it.

Well, at least there’s one thing that works in Bewitched (Columbia, 6.24), and that’s Steve Carrell‘s third-act cameo as Paul Lynde’s “Uncle Arthur.” If only director-cowriter Nora Ephron had decided to weave Carrell into the film as a major character, things might have turned out differently. Lynde played the Uncle Arthur character (as a bitterly witty gay warlock, natch) on the original Bewitched series off and on from ’65 through ’71, and Carrell does Lynde quite well. Known mainly as an off-and-on Daily Show correspondent as well as one of Will Ferrell’s better friends (he previously costarred with Ferrell in Anchorman and Melinda and Melinda), Carrell has an obvious knack for playing acutely hyper alien-visitation characters. He’s the star of Judd Apatow’s The 40 Year-old Virgin (Universal, 8.19) and is currently shooting Little Miss Sunshine. Apparently those reports about him starring as Maxwell Smart in a feature version of Get Smart have some basis in fact.

Two Tom Cruise items have just broken that are going to enrage certain parties. Radar Online is reporting that Cruise made repeated calls and made certain overtures to Scarlett Johansson “weeks” before he began his relationship with Katie Holmes. (Johansson was reported by Upcoming Movies as being firm to costar with Cruise in Mission: Impossible 3 in July ’04.) The item, which quotes Johansson directly and says her publicist didn’t respond to calls or e-mails seeking confirmation, claims Johansson not only declined Cruise’s offer of a Scientology-fortified relationship, but that Cruise then made similar relationship pitches to Kate Bosworth (22) and Lindsay Lohan (18) “before settling on the 26-year-old Holmes.” The other item is from N.Y. Daily News gossip columnist Ben Widdicombe(i.e., “Gatecrasher”), and it says the following: “So here’s what I’m hearing about that relationship. A source VERY close to the deal is saying there’s a contract. It’s worth $5 million. It’s for five years. There will be no sex. The deal was sealed June 7. That’s what I’m hearing.” Hold on…only $5 million for five years? If I were repping Katie I would insist on at least $2.5 million per year (more?) with all kinds of extras and stock options and you-name-it.