Problem: Write a negative movie review.

Answer: 666: The Child starts as a plane crashes, the only survivor of flight 666 was a young boy named Donald (Boo Boo Stewart) who is adopted by news reporter Erika (Sarah Lieving) & her cameraman husband Scott Lawson (Adam Vincent) after they covered the incident for Channel 6 news. At first Donald seems like any normal kid but death seems to follow him around, after warnings from a Nun & Vicar Scott begins to believe that Donald is evil & the cause of all the deaths...

This straight-to-DVD horror flick was directed by Jake Perez under the pseudonym Jake Jackson & one has to say 666: The Child is really rather poor. Whenever I see The Asylum is responsible for a film I get worried, I get very worried since their track record is awful. They seem to specialise in making &/or distributing low budget horror films which are usually rip-offs of some recent successful big budget horror film & in the case of 666: The Child you don't need a degree in rocket science to realise that it's a complete rip-off to cash in on the recent The Omen (2006) which was released the same year. The script by Benjamin Henry & Austin Laurel is terrible & simply can't match the ambitions of the the Hollywood equivalent, I mean just what exactly does Donald the Antichrist expect to achieve from a middle class family in a small town? It's hardly a great starting point to bring about the destruction of thew world is it? Every character in 666: The Child is some form of the main character's from The Omen, the adopted parents, the Priest who tries to warn them & the sinister babysitter. There's a real lack of incident, there's barely any gore & the plot is poor. I mean Donald killing a dentist because they were trying to fix his teeth is just so random & needless, what were all the disgusting pictures Donald drew all about, where did the babysitter come from & there's just nothing that ties everything together & it's just a disjointed mess that just becomes very boring very quickly. The references to the number 6 also becomes annoying & are very unsubtle.

Director Perez does alright I suppose, it's competent if nothing else. There's virtually no blood or gore, there's a few sprays of blood, a cut off hand & someone gets a circular saw stuck in their face but it sounds a lot better than it looks on screen. It's certainly not scary, there's no atmosphere thanks to a throughly bland contemporary setting in a suburban house & there's no tension because we never really know what Donald is trying to do & there fore there's no threat from him.

Technically the film is alright, it's reasonably well made but since the actual film is so poor it makes little difference. The acting isn't that great but at the same time I've seen worse.

666: The Child is a poor mans The Omen rip-off, I'd sooner watch either the original or the remake over this any day of the week. Not good & definitely not recommended. Followed by the sequel 666: The Beast (2007) which also went straight-to-DVD.

Problem: Write a positive movie review.

Answer: I did not expect the performances of Gackt and Hyde to be as well done as they were, nor did I expect them to be cast in such an artistic well-developed movie with enough plot to keep you interested and enough diversity to make it original. This movie was an unexpected masterpiece for me, and I'll be on the lookout for the next movie like it. I especially like the fact that it is a vampire movie, but it wasn't a cheesy vampire flick, nor did it over embellish that fact. The characters all had human traits. The way it shows the growth of the characters was incredibly tasteful, and it makes you actually feel sorry for them throughout their lives. I give this movie two thumbs so far up. Definitely the best movie I have seen in the past five years.

Problem: Write a negative movie review.

Answer: I noticed with some amusement that in the end credits, the Detroit PD is thanked for their participation. The Chief of Police even has one speaking line playing himself (and boy, can you tell he can't act). The reason for the amusement is that in this movie the police shoot first and ask questions later. Not the kind of PR, I would think a police force would want. Other than that, this is your standard cops and robbers film dressed up for the '70's with a racial angle. Alex Rocco is given a thankless role of a lifer cop that can't get ahead and is saddled with a mentally ill wife. He makes up for this by hanging out at the local whorehouse. Hari Rhodes is his dashing partner that has a groovy wardrobe and likes to chase after suspects while wearing a trenchcoat. The movie moves along until the penultimate shootout that makes absolutely no sense (why do people that are only guilty of a robbery, take on a whole police force?). Not only do we see one shootout but since there are four bad guys, we get to see four. Then there is a twist ending that is supposed to leave one guessing what really would have happened but only left me thinking how stupid it was. Seeing that director Arthur Marks was also behind the braindead "Friday Foster" and "Bucktown", I shouldn't have wondered.

Problem: Write a positive movie review.

Answer:
The great and underrated Marion Davies shows her stuff in this late (1928) silent comedy that also showcases the wonderful William Haines. Davies plays a hick from Georgia who crashes Hollywood with help from Haines. They appear in cheap comedies until Marion is "discovered" and becomes a big dramatic star. A great lampoon on Hollywood and its pretentions. Davies & Haines are a wonderful team (too bad they never made a talkie together) and the guest shots from the likes of Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, William S. Hart, John Gilbert, Elinor Glynn, and Marion Davies (you have to see it) are a hoot. A must for any serious film buff or for anyone interested in the still-maligned Marion Davies!