Vamps of all kinds.

Jonathan Rhys-Meyers has a fatal attraction problem with Scarlett Johansson in the new trailer for Match Point, directed by…well, someone unexpected. (By way of Listen Missy.) Also in the trailer bin are looks at the “remake” of Broadway’s The Producers (What? No Larry David?) and Underworld: Evolution, the unnecessary sequel to a truly terrible film. Seriously, if everyone just sent Bill Nighy $10 rather than seeing this latter flick, the world would be a better place. Catsuit-Kate notwithstanding, he’d be the only reason to sit through this drek.

Fleeing the sinking ship.

“‘The real anomaly in the administration is Cheney,’ Mr. Scowcroft told Jeffrey Goldberg of The New Yorker. ‘I consider Cheney a good friend – I’ve known him for 30 years. But Dick Cheney I don’t know anymore.'” As Cheney consigliere Scooter Libby preps for a likely Plamegate perp walk, the NYT refocuses on the broader question of our entry into the Iraq war. And, as the Scowcroft quote attests (and as Medley also notes), prominent Republicans are starting to pile on. “‘Iraq was at core a war of choice, and extraordinarily expensive by every measure – human life, impact on our military, dollars, diplomatically,’ said Mr. [Richard] Haass, a former senior State Department official under President Bush.“

Or, as former Powell chief of staff Lawrence Wilkerson puts it, “[T]he case that I saw for four-plus years was a case that I have never seen in my study of aberrations, bastardizations, perturbations, changes to the national security decision-making process. What I saw was a cabal between the vice-president of the United States, Richard Cheney, and the secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld, on critical issues that made decisions that the bureaucracy didn’t know were being made.“

Update: Jeffrey Goldberg discusses his Scowcroft piece, and Slate‘s Fred Kaplan evaluates it, noting that George H.W. Bush is also something of a Dubya critic in the article. Speaking of Scowcroft, Dubya Sr. says: “He has a great propensity for friendship. By that, I mean someone I can depend on to tell me what I need to know and not just what I want to hear….[He] was very good about making sure that we did not solely consider the ‘best case,’ but instead considered what it would mean if things went our way, and also if they did not.” Listen up, sonny…Papa just learned you.

Queen of the Blessed?

“‘I promised,’ she says, ‘that from now on I would write only for the Lord.’ It’s the most startling public turnaround since Bob Dylan’s ‘Slow Train Coming’.” Goth-lit-queen Anne Rice has been born again, and it doesn’t involve coffins or blood transfusions. Indeed, she’s now apparently halfway through a trilogy on the life of Christ, “the ultimate supernatural hero… the ultimate immortal of them all“…but she notes it won’t be like Left Behind.

Grace in Gotham.

“As quintessentially American as Ms. Part is Russian, Gillian Murphy joined ABT in 1996, instantly raising our national banner of strong, brisk, technical prowess.” By the way, my sister’s fall ABT season began on Wednesday, so if you’re in the New York area and looking to partake of some choice offerings of world-class ballet, head on down to City Center. The Fall Repertoire includes Afternoon of a Faun, Apollo, Dark Elegies, Gong, The Green Room, In the Upper Room, Kaleidoscope, Rodeo, and Les Sylphides.

Scandalized.

As Washington waits for the Plamegate endgame and the administration prepares for a possible White House without Rove and Libby, the Post offers brief primer on the major figures in the scandal. Meanwhile, fresh off his felon photo-op, the Hammer tries to get a new judge in his Texas money-laundering case, and seems to be trying every trick in the book to turn his trial into a partisan sideshow. But remember, Boss DeLay, the Abramoff case is closing in fast…