Fixin' Towards a Bloody Outcome

Motor Trend
For those of you who have been following my car trouble saga (and I know very well that there are none of you), they appear to have finally fixed the Jetta.  Tomorrow I face the melancholy prospect of returning the lavender Kia Spectra loaner, a car that has fixed for itself a wide and spacious place in my heart, and has made itself indispensable both for trips to the video game store and in the purpose of pulling in major babes.

The Omen
Dreary, overlong remakes seem to be the highest new star in Hollywood’s firmament.  There are a few good points: Julia Stiles has just the right mixture of cheekbones and upper-class entitlement to play Damien’s disaffected mother, and the fact that she tries to deal with her son’s literally Satanic evil by seeking therapy is the movie’s only interesting point.  Stiles gets about half an hour of screen time, spending most of it in WASPy catatonia, failing to enjoy her colossal British mansion and focusing on her own (legitimate) misery.  So much for the good.  The director inexplicably gives most of the rest of the film to Liev Schrieber (AKA Liv Tyler), a dour flounder of a man who has practically no face at all.  Schrieber reacts to his wife’s death and the, again literal, revelation that his son is the Devil with the level of irritation you would expect from a business traveler who has been bumped off the concierge floor.  Pete Posthelwaite appears as himself yet again, and a bearded man plays a photographer who apparently also does some freelance crime scene investigation.  Honestly, the movie was so 3 out of 5 mediocre that I can barely write anything about it. If you didn’t get enough scary bible-themed conspiracy from The Da Vinci Code, by all means see The Omen.

Veronica Mars Update Watch 2K6
The first season of Veronica Mars was totally sublime, but was so television-y that it can only be described as a chimera of other shows: Twin Peaks plus The O.C. with, as the box copy says, a dash of Buffy.  Charming, funny, and with a full-season plot so convoluted that it would fill almost a quarter episode of The Wire.  Thoroughly worthwhile.

Deadwood season premiere
Since it generally takes me four to five viewings to make sense of any given episode, I’ll confine myself to remarking that it looks just about as good as always, and seeing Bullock and Swearengen come together against Hearst is going to be amazing.  The New York Times recently reported that HBO has killed the show after this season, which is disappointing but perhaps timely, since Deadwood’s vertiginous forward motion is one of its signal virtues, and nothing can kill original plot like a few unnecessary seasons.