Hello, and happy SNT.
A few weeks ago, I picked up "The Complete Omen Collection" -- a pretty nice DVD box set containing each and every film from that very devilish umbrella, including the obscure made-for-television fourth installment and the 2006 remake.
I've already written about the first Omen flick here, but now that I've seen the rest, I'm giving The Omen II the nod as my personal favorite. Not that it's some great movie that changed my life or anything, but there's something oddly cool about a movie with a storyline that could best be summed up as: "Satan's teenaged son comes of age."
And now that I've seen last year's remake, my fears were confirmed: It's a pointless shot-for-shot retelling of the original, where everyone goes through the motions and absolutely nothing new is brought to the table. Watch this movie and you'll appreciate a lot of the so-called "reimaginings" that've hit the horror market in recent years, because at least those movies made some attempt to do their own thing.
Plus, what was with Damien in the remake? What worked about the original (and even Part II, to a degree) was that Damien was seemingly nice and normal, and almost damned by his parentage. Here, right from the start, he's a total freak and there's no way to justify why his parents didn't have him committed. Speaking of his parents, Liev Schreiber was more bored than annoying as dear old Dad, but Mother Julia Stiles gave a performance that made me go out and kill her family afterwards. The remake isn't entirely difficult to sit through, and that's something, but it's still a shit movie.
Naturally segueing from Satan to Valentine's Day, there's a whole heap of candies that celebrate the almost-holiday with vanilla flavors and edible love notes. One of my favorites are heart-shaped Ring Pops, which sadly forgo the notion that customers are sucking on expensive edible jewels, but make up for it with a Ring Pops that are much bigger than the originals. Plus, all of the Valentine's Ring Pops are strawberry, so I don't have to spend the extra minute sifting through the display box to make sure I don't skip town with grape.
Posted by Matt on 02/03/2007. E-mail me!
Chestnuts roasted by 
“Valentine’s Day is a day invented by greeting card companies to make people feel like crap.”