Photojournalism has often been regarded as one of the more exciting branches of the fourth estate, and if you want to see that for yourself, then it’s a good idea to check out Five Days Of War, a copy of which the folks out at Anchor Bay sent us for review. You’ll be able to get this one Tuesday, and you’ll want to see it when it hits.

Five Days Of War takes us back to 2008′s brief, sharp war between Russia and Georgia. And a group of journalists are out in the midst of the combat, filming and doing what they can to get the story. They even manage to save a school teacher caught in the middle of the horror. Things only get worse the farther in they get, and they’re recording every last scrap of it. And this diligence has drawn the attention of the various parties involved in the fighting, who want desperately to suppress the news, because when you’re fighting a war the last thing you want is CNN or the like to start screaming “war crimes”. But there’s a problem–the Beijing Olympics is going on right at the same time, so the networks are shorthanded. And that means the footage that our reporters are risking their lives for may never get out in the first place.

Part commentary on the media industry and part commentary on war, the commentaries do have a tendency to get a bit heavy-handed, but they’re going to be packaged in the midst of so much straight-up action that it’s going to be hard not to be engrossed by what you’re seeing here. If you ever wanted to see a combination of action and drama done right, look right here. The best part is it’s even going to offer a few–a very few–laughs along the way serving as a way to break up some of the tension, which is a nice bonus. You run constant tension and it stops being entertaining and starts being just plain old grueling. And Five Days Of War does an excellent job of breaking up its tension occasionally enough to where you get the full effect of it without it being too much of a strain on you.

It’s a top-notch experience that delivers up a whole lot, and is going to be hard to watch in a few places, but at the same time, will put on one impressive show for a great many reasons. If you ever wished your action movies had a bit more substance to them, or if you just want a kind-of-realistic account of war journalists, then you’ll definitely want to have a look at Five Days Of War.

The Screenhead Ten Scale gives Five Days Of War an eight out of ten–it’s going to be loud, violent, and bloodsoaked, but one thing it will not be short on is pure substance.

Impressively prolific studio Lions Gate brings us another set of terrific titles to make up the multi-review this week, and the block this week is made up of three they’ve sent out for us: Mob Rules, From Prada To Nada, and KJB.

Mob Rules gives us a dose of dramatic action, as we go out to London. A pair of felons with a penchant for Shakespeare find themselves out for revenge in a bid to get back the money they should have received from a job gone wrong years prior. And said felons have a plan to get it all back that’s going to take them from London to America and points beyond.

While there is both plenty of action and drama in Mob Rules, there’s an interesting sense of humor running throughout that crops up at unexpected points and gives a distinct note of surprise that’s very welcome. Think of this like a slightly gritty, slightly urban, slightly downsized, and very, very English version of Ocean’s 11. The end result is still very watchable, and brings together a lot of interesting and largely dissimilar (but surprisingly interrelated) plot points that make this one unexpectedly deep.

From Prada To Nada, meanwhile, takes us out to California, where a couple of Beverly Hills princesses have been living it up on Daddy’s fortune. But when Daddy’s fortune goes the way of the dodo, the duo finds themselves staying with their aunt. And in the process, they get exposed to a whole new side of life. Will the experience make them better people? Or will it break them just as much as it broke Daddy?

If this one is giving off a Simple Life with Paris and Nicole kind of vibe to you, then rest assured, you’re not alone. However, considering that this is actually a strange kind of Latino version of Sense and Sensibility (complete with mariachi band at a man’s funeral), it’s going to be a little deeper than you might think. Okay, it’s going to be a lot deeper than you might think. It’s actually a reasonable facsimile, though it’s been a while since I last read Sense and Sensibility. Fair warning, though: it will spend a good chunk of time being a total downer, but then, so did pretty much everything Jane Austen ever wrote. Still though, it’s surprisingly engrossing stuff, and you’ll likely get a kick out of it, especially if you have a literary bent.

Lastly we’ve got KJB, which here is an acronym for the King James Bible. And this is the story of how it came to be. For those of you not familiar, the story of the King James Bible is actually a deep and complex tale that’s jammed to the gills with intrigue and just a little suspense to round out the whole package. See, a lot of people had a vested interest in keeping the King James Bible out of a lot of people’s hands, and this is going to give you at least some of the story behind that.

I say some, of course, because this is actually a Dove Family Film selection. That basically means that you’re not going to get the whole story out of this, but you’ll get quite a bit of it, anyway. And considering the kind of performances put up here, you should be reasonably happy with the final outcome. Want a shot of history that doesn’t come from the History Channel for a change? Like religious history? Then you’ll be in excellent company with this one.

So there you go, another three fine Lions Gate titles; each have their ups and downs, and each one will cater toward a specific interest, but each will be worthwhile in its own way. You’ve got plenty of great options out there, and keep it right here for plenty more to come!

Easily one of the most recognizable names on Earth for the last, oh, fifty years or so has to be Hugh Hefner. And when he set out to join the reality show frenzy, it was pretty safe to say it was going to be a big deal. And so it was. The folks out at MPI Video sent over a copy of The Girls Next Door Complete Series, and this one’s going to have a lot of ups and downs.

The Girls Next Door Complete Series joins us up with Hugh Hefner and, somehow, his three girlfriends: Holly, Kendra and Bridget. The four of them will spend a whole lot of time traveling, playing around, and in the process, running a massive publishing empire. They’ll be going to a whole variety of different places, doing plenty of different things, and if that sounds vague, it is. After all, we’re talking about six whole seasons of shows here, and considering that the sextet–no pun intended–of seasons comprises two thousand ninety six minutes of footage–which breaks down into just under thirty five hours, or just shy of a day and a half of nonstop footage, it’s pretty safe to say that they’re going to be all over the map with this.

While I admit it’s actually kind of funny to look back on the older stuff–especially as Holly Madison, who got married to a completely different guy who isn’t old enough to be her grandfather, expounds on how devoted a girlfriend she is to Hef and how they were just made for each other (right up until the next guy, eh Holly? And then the guy after that?)–it’s impossible to shake a general feeling of sadness, of sheer plastic fakeness to the whole thing.

Watching The Girls Next Door is a terrifying experience to say the least. You can basically split it into three classes of segment:

1. A Girl Talks To The Camera

2. A Girl Does A Voice Over While Doing Something Else

3. A Girl Is Followed Around By The Camera

3a. A Girl Assures Us That She Is Not A Ho / Skank / Tramp / Or Any Similar Pejorative

I include 3a in the list because it seems to happen so often. And I can’t help but think that one of the big reasons is that even they’re seeing it’s hard to believe coming from Girlfriend number three of seven.  Or seven of nine–again, no pun intended–or two hundred forty eight of three thousand eight hundred and five…no, six…no seven…oh, I’ve lost count again. And it’s not like they don’t know that there’s a multitude of girlfriends in the picture. Many of them apparently live together. In fact, some of this is disturbingly like a cult, with Hef at one point calling a meeting of the various girlfriends to explain that one of them was getting into “the magazine” (which I’m sure you’re aware is Playboy) and they’re nervous. One of them actually says “Are we in trouble? Did we do something wrong?” Don’t mind telling you, I thought that was creepy.

After seeing a couple episodes of The Simple Life, I thought nothing could top that for sheer banality, but I’m amazed to discover that Holly, Kendra, Bridget et al actually managed to make Paris and Nicole look downright cerebral by comparison. They may be smart girls, degreed and everything, but watching them in the Playboy Mansion made me downright sad.

The Girls Next Door is a woefully unpleasant experience, full of empty-headed chatter backed up by a generally distressing picture that makes this show wildly uncomfortable to watch, unless you’re eager to know what goes on in the Playboy Mansion, in which case you’ll get plenty of excitement here.

Meanwhile, the Screenhead Ten Scale gives The Girls Next Door Complete Series a three out of ten for being both boring and disturbing, and with an appeal that’s largely limited to specific interests.

Have you ever taken a good look at a map of the United States and found yourself wondering just how all those various states got to looking like they did? Why aren’t all the states just split into handy squares like Wyoming and some of the others are? Well, as it turns out, there’s a reason that most of the states look like they do, and that’s just what the folks at the History Channel, who sent out a copy of How The States Got Their Shapes Season One for use to review, will be looking into as part of their new series.

How The States Got Their Shapes Season One is pretty much exactly what it says on the box. You’ll get to see just how the various states of the United States got to looking like they did, and as it turns out, there are a whole lot of forces that came together to give the states their various shapes. Politics, war, infighting, meteor strikes, and geographic factors all combined to give the states their respective shapes. And moreover, you’ll not only get information about geography, but you’ll also get a whole lot of cultural information, and, as the name implies, history.

There is a whole lot going on in here, actually, including a whole lot of things that you probably never knew. Frankly, I found myself agape half the time, seeing all the stuff I never even knew, like the tornado that socked Washington D.C. one year when the British invaded. That storm killed more British soldiery, according to the video, than the American troops did. It’s actually almost a certainty that, by the end of any one particular forty minute installment of How The States Got Their Shapes, you will learn something.

And even in the midst of all this learning, there will be plenty of great surprises, too. And there’s nothing like a good surprise to make a show well worth watching. When you spend a lot of time being surprised by television, you know you’re in for something interesting. Perhaps the best part of How The States Got Their Shapes is that, before they settle in to start talking about a state, they’ll actually offer up a set of questions that they’ll answer throughout a segment, like “How does a tree related to the shape of South Carolina” or “What does a rollercoaster have to do with the shape of Texas”. This gives you an idea of what you’re walking into, but only just an idea.

A constant string of surprises and new information makes this one a whole lot of fun to watch.

The Screenhead Ten Scale, as a result, gives How The States Got Their Shapes an eight out of ten for bringing along lots of information and plenty of great surprises to keep the audience very much engaged.

It may surprise some of you to know that there’s another Tyler Perry show on the market called Meet The Browns. And the folks out at Lions Gate sent over a copy of Meet The Browns Season One for us to tackle for you. The question of course will be whether or not this particular batch of Tyler Perry will be any better than his previous incarnations, which have largely been disastrous.

Meet The Browns takes us out to Brown Meadows, a retirement home made from what used to be a private residence, but was converted into a retirement home on the strength of a promise a man named Leroy Brown made his deceased father. But what Mr. Brown is going to discover is that running a retirement home is going to be a whole lot more complex than he first imagined. But since his son is a doctor, and his son’s wife is a nurse, he’s got the beginnings of a big undertaking. But can he survive it all with his sanity–and his house–intact?

I don’t believe I’m about to type this, but seriously, folks…Meet The Browns is unquestionably the most hilarious thing I’ve ever seen from Tyler Perry. Ever. EV-ER. I laughed. This alone should tell you something, considering I’ve referred to Perry’s previous work as everything from “godawful” “piles of melodrama” to “(a) putrefacted carcass“. But clearly, this is where all the funny that Tyler Perry could muster has gone. This is his entire stock of funny, all thrown into one package. All the jokes that should have been in For Colored Girls or anything Madea-related or that spectacular exercise in masochism known as House of Payne have all migrated to Meet The Browns.

And while everyone in the story is doing a fine job of keeping up, the clear winner of Meet The Browns has to be Mr. Brown himself, David Mann. This guy is one of the best comic actors I’ve seen in the longest time. He does a terrific job intermingling physical humor with a kind of raw idiocy intermingled with a gentle, goodhearted nature that blends so beautifully that makes this a hilarious piece of work.

I can’t believe I’m saying half this stuff about anything that came out of Tyler Perry’s endless maw of horror and misery, but Meet The Browns Season One is an untrammeled delight that proves that even a broken clock is right twice a day.

The Screenhead Ten Scale gives the endless laugh riot that is Meet The Browns Season One an eight out of ten. It’s packed to the gills with laughs, and I”m amazed to realize this is as good as it is. Bravo, Tyler Perry…you managed to get one right. For a change.

Ah, the drive-in movie theater. An immortal era in American cinema. These icons of the past can still be found in some places, if you’re willing to go looking, and you too can spend a night out under the stars in your own car, watching a movie on a giant screen in what amounts to a parking lot. And the folks out at Image Entertainment sent over a copy of Chillerama for us to review, a testament to the drive-in era. But will Chillerama manage to succeed on its own merits, or will it only be a hollow tribute coasting on former glories?

Chillerama takes us out to a sad day in American film…the closing of the last drive-in movie theater anywhere. And its proprietor, one Cecil B. Kaufman, isn’t planning to out on a whimper, but rather a bang. He’s planning to show four of the greatest lost movies ever known–or rather, unknown–to mankind, including such greats as Wadzilla, Diary of Anne Frankenstein,  Deathication and I Was A Teenage Werebear. You might think with a playbill like this there would be nothing to do but sit back with some popcorn and the biggest Coke you could smuggle in your car and enjoy the show, but there’s a little extra surprise waiting for the unsuspecting moviegoers.

Indeed, ahead of watching this one, I took the extra minute to pop up some corn. A movie so clearly geared toward the drive-in era all but demanded such accompaniment. And indeed, this was some of the most thoroughly B-movie action that I’d seen in a good long time. Some of it was so thoroughly outlandish as to be beyond belief. More than once I had to jam my rewind key to make quite certain that I had, in fact, actually seen what I’d just seen. Wadzilla alone gave me half a dozen such moments, and by the time I got to the musical beach flick-style that was I Was A Teenage Werebear, well, I knew I was in for a doozy. And I assure you, it only got bigger, louder and more utterly bizarre from there. Deathication will be one of the most disgusting things ever…but there’s a real surprise attached to this one. Strictly speaking? It’s not part of the movie. Confused? You’ll want to see for yourself. But brace yourself, because it’s a real doozy.

It’s B-movie on a scale we don’t ordinarily see, and the wraparound story that this one comes with only improves things, along with some truly terrific performances that make this one absolutely crackle with sheer filmmaking awesome. It is an utter delight of exploded or otherwise removed heads, monsters that strain credibility at every turn, and plotlines that outdo virtually every thing for sheer unaccountable baffling.

The Screenhead Ten Scale gives this one a straight ten out of ten, and Chillerama should be on every horror buff’s must see list.

All right, Doctor Who fans out there, brace yourselves, because the opportunity you’ve been waiting for since the end of the fifth series (or season, if you favor the Americanized term for a block of television episodes) has landed. The crew out at the BBC sent over a copy of Doctor Who: The Complete Sixth Series for us to review, and for those who can’t get enough of the new Doctor, well, you’ll get all you can stand and then some.

Once again, Doctor Who The Complete Sixth Series joins us with the last Time Lord. Hailing from the lovely isles of Gallifrey, the Time Lord known only as Doctor Who (or more often, the Doctor), and his selected companions, will go romping about space and time, occasionally pausing to protect Earth from rampaging hordes of otherworldly menaces who want the Doctor dead and his adopted homeworld reduced to a cinder in space lest any of those other Gallifrey types manage to show up again.

Considering that the first episode of the series will be a bizarre science fiction analogue of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, you have a pretty good idea of what we’re in for here. And considering Matt Smith’s penchant for comic glee (here, I do personally maintain Christopher Eccleston as the best Doctor, though Matt Smith has certainly done a bang-up job in the role. Great Doctor, yes indeed, best Doctor, not so much.), as well as some fine dramatic tension, you’ve got a terrific combination here that makes the Doctor seem so wildly insane. Or, of course, merely beyond our definition of sanity, as some have suggested about Batman’s Joker character.

The Doctor will do more impossible things in just one one-hour show than most people will do in a lifetime, and that may not be for everybody. But for the most part, you will have both heartwarming and spinetingling moments here, and it’s not so often I can get my entire trunk involved like that. It’s terrific stuff, in all honesty, and is going to be well worth your time to watch for any of a variety of reasons. And even better, there will often be a twist at the end that makes things even more impressive. Much like our last tangle with the Doctor, we saw the most bizarre circumstances get suddenly pulled into place, tight and clean, with a minimum of loose ends. It’s delightful fun, wildly entertaining, and very much worth your time to watch. The Doctor has legions of rabid fans out there. This is why.

The Screenhead Ten Scale gives Doctor Who The Complete Sixth Series a nine out of ten for doing a whole lot of bizarre but exciting things that will prove to be terrific in the end. The sheer bizarrity of it all will make it prove to be not for everyone, but for those willing to stomach the Doctor’s sheer epic weird level, you’ll likely have a fantastic time on board this wild TARDIS ride.

This week’s multi-review comes our way from the folks out at Lions Gate, who sent out a variety of impressive titles for us to tackle, and we’ll be looking at a real mixed bag of them today with Blood Out, Pros And Ex-Cons, and Rabbit Hole.

We kick things off with Rabbit Hole, a movie that introduces us to Becca and Howie, a young couple who kicked off life together in the grandest of fashions, together, along with their young son only eight months prior. But fast forward to eight months later and we see how much life can change in even the shortest of times. But will the loss that Becca and Howie find themselves forced to endure break their life apart again and provide them with a whole new loss, each other?

Considering that this is based on a stage play, you probably have a pretty good idea of what we’re in for here, a downer on an absolutely epic scale that some people will take the opportunity to call “powerful” or “moving” but for the most part just means is the opportunity to feel really, really depressed for ninety minutes or so. And, just as a bonus, it will feel much, much longer. That’s not to say the whole thing is bad, of course–it’s got some really nice moments in here that should make you smile–but for the most part we’re watching a movie about a couple whose kid has recently died and they’re moving apart as a result. It hangs over everything, and though this is, for the most part, the point, it still doesn’t exactly make for light-hearted entertaining fare.  Good, but not good if you’re looking for a happy, fun experience.

Next up is Pros And Ex-Cons, and now we join a pair of the titular ex-cons who’ve joined up with a crime boss who has a mysterious project in mind for them. They finish the job nicely, but discover that the job didn’t go as smoothly as they’d thought when they took it on. Now they’ve got to undertake a much more dangerous project in order to correct the first before it’s too late. And moreover, they’re going to be in the middle of a whole lot of other affairs as well.

I know I’m being a little bit cryptic about this one, and with good reason. If I go too far into it and tell you about the projects in question, I’ll actually give away large parts of the movie. And on the surface, you might think this sounds like one of those great English crime dramas like Layer Cake, Snatch, or Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. Indeed, that’s just what’s going on here. It’s actually quite fun in a few parts, very much Ocean’s 11 style as done by complete incompetents.  If you like your crime dramas with a little bit of comedy involved, then you’ll be very happy with Pros And Ex-Cons.

Lastly, we’ve got Blood Out, a movie that gives us a man who loses his brother to gang violence far too soon in life. And now, a small town sheriff is the only thing that can get justice for the murder when the big city police refuse to step in and do the job. But the further in the sheriff gets, the more he discovers that things were never really as they seemed.

Admittedly, the biggest red flag in this one is the appearance of Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson, which has never exactly been a bell-ringer as far as quality filmmaking goes. But still, the end result isn’t too bad. It’s very much an action title, but without the comic edge that we got from Pros And Ex-Cons. Straightforward and predictable were the watchwords for this one, but still, it’s reasonably likeable. It’s got something of the Walking Tall vibe in it, though without the fun that one put up thanks to the unusual styling that The Rock brought along in the role of county sheriff. Blood Out takes itself substantially more seriously than it probably should, and this is to its detriment, but the end result is still of fairly good quality.

And there you have it, another three choice titles from Lions Gate to make up our weekly multi-review. Some better than others, of course, but no matter what your taste there was likely something in here for you today.

Retro TV buffs, brace yourselves for a thrill as the classic Robert Wagner action / mystery series comes back out our way with the It Takes A Thief Complete Series box set, a copy of which the folks at E One sent out for review. And the good news: it’s going to be some exciting stuff if you’re willing to accept some basic issues.

It Takes A Thief Complete Series is the compilation of three seasons worth of the old series which ran from 1968 through 1970, and joined us up with Alexander Mundy, a master thief who finds himself dragooned into service with the SIA, given a parole from prison to engage in thievery on behalf of the United States government. They figured out that most of espionage is essentially larceny and homicide, and realized in turn that the best people most skilled at larceny and homicide are thieves and murderers, and thus, they pick up said thief. And he’s got a whole lot of stuff to steal for the United States government, including the hearts of most any woman who gets in his way.

While there are plenty of great jokes in this series, you’ll also be abundantly surprised to know that Leslie Nielsen is in this one…but here’s the kicker. It’s a SERIOUS role. Yes, Frank Drebin himself, the most hilarious cop known to mankind, is actually playing a serious role. And he will be doing so in the midst of an action thriller with its share of laughs! And not only that, there will also be plenty of good old fashioned suspense tossed in for variety. Laughs, suspense, action…it’s hard not to enjoy this series.

And lest you think that all old television is a badly dated and utterly irrelevant affair, don’t–this actually manages to do a pretty fair job of staying pretty exciting. Sure, you can tell that it’s pulled whole and breathing out of the sixties, but the plots are actually rather impressive for a show filmed that far back. One follows a jewel heist perpetrated to collapse a country’s economy–seems the currency is backed by the country’s crown jewels–and Mundy will have to try and join the thieves boosting the jewels in order to keep them safe.

It Takes A Thief Complete Series is a whole lot more and a whole lot better than you’d likely expect, and despite its clearly dated look, it’s still going to pack plenty of quality action into its proceedings.

The Screenhead Ten Scale, meanwhile, gives the massive and impressive It Takes A Thief Complete Series an eight out of ten for being intensely fun but a little dated.

It wasn’t so long ago we tackled the first three Spy Kids titles in a big old multi-review over the weekend, and all that was building up for what we’re about to hit today. The folks out at Anchor Bay sent over a copy of Spy Kids 4: All The Time In The World for us to review

Spy Kids: All The Time In The World kicks things off by introducing us to Marissa Cortez Wilson, who’s gotten married to reality show host slash quasi-legendary spy hunter Wilbur Wilson, and now has two stepkids to her credit. Marissa happens to be a former spy herself, but finds herself called back into the fray by the appearance of the Timekeeper, a maniac with designs on world domination. But Marissa can’t tackle this alone–she’s going to need the whole family, husband, stepkids…and a couple other, more familiar Cortezes…to step in and help out to put the Timekeeper on a permanent pause.

And in the grandest Spy Kids tradition, it’s going to be full of thoroughly wild yet reasonably family friendly action in which no one gets shot or even seriously hurt but most everybody will be in mortal danger at some point. There will even be a few good shout outs here to earlier work like Shorts (there’s a great sequence you’ll miss if you’re not careful featuring the two stepkids engaging in a breath-holding contest), as well as a sequence that’s a lot like the first movie in which the kids have to hit a panic room at the last minute.

It’s also got that same immature humor vibe going on–wait until you see what the Wilson kids use to fend off three henchmen flying around on Green Goblin-style flying wings, not to mention the offensive weaponry (in every sense of the term) that the dog can bring to bear–that makes this clearly geared for the kids.

Still though, it’s an improvement over the third one, which is a distinct surprise, but at the same time, it’s quite a bit of a retread given the earlier versions we’ve seen so far. It’s great fun if you like the Spy Kids franchise, and though it likely won’t win very many new fans, it’s still reasonably fun and can be endured for the most part. It’s even got some rather nice twists, some of which you might see coming, and others you might not. But I definitely have to respect a movie that does this much twist in its script. It’s a bit heavy handed in its morals, but still, not half bad.

The Screenhead Ten Scale gives Spy Kids: All The Time In The World a seven out of ten, for succeeding in the design of its script but failing in the content, and making what is overall a worthwhile package.