The folks out at TLC sent us out a copy of Sister Wives 2 for review, and though this is easily one of the more controversial titles on TLC right now, it’s also surprisingly dull for the kind of sheer alien nature of what you’ll be watching here.

Sister Wives 2 follows the Brown family, a highly unconventional family in their own right. See, the Browns are a family of polygamists, meaning that there’s one husband Brown, and in this particular set of episodes, four wives. They just tacked on a fourth wife recently, and as such, it’s made a whole lot of problems in the home. A bigamy investigation, police matters, and plenty of internal struggles make the Browns’ life a difficult one. But will the sheer power of love–even a wildly unconventional love–be enough to overcome the variety of issues they’ll face?

Leave aside your feelings about polygamy–or bigamy, if you favor that angle–and just focus on the presentation itself. Sister Wives 2 is almost disturbingly boring. I know, it’s hard to imaging a show about polygamy being boring, but the problem is the way it’s set up. Large portions of the show are either the adult Browns sitting around and talking to the camera, or the Brown family doing something, but with a voice over from some of the various adult Browns. Basically, you’re going to listen to these five people talk. And for the most part, agree with each other. Talk and agree, talk and agree…over and over again for about forty minutes an episode. By the end of the first episode, I was getting so sick of that room and that couch where the five Browns are sitting and yammering about their family.

The politics of the situation are of course a bit bizarre–naturally the show is almost vociferously in favor of polygamy, and listening to the Browns talk about how high their morals are while they’re actively breaking laws that have been in existence off and on in one form or another since the mid-1800s or so is a trip in its own right (though the defense they seem to be using is in itself bizarre as only one marriage is a legal marriage while the rest are mere “commitments”)–and naturally, most people have an opinion about all this which is going to color their perceptions about this one. I’m just having a hard time getting past how dull and preachy the presentation is. They might as well stamp on the shows opening frame “WE BELIEVE IN POLYGAMY, AND IF YOU DON’T, YOU ARE AN INTOLERANT BIGOT” for all the preachiness of the show.

Sister Wives 2 is a deeply politicized presentation, and will in turn find you likely polarized in your response. But while polarization does well for inciting discussion, it isn’t exactly entertaining. And that’s the biggest problem with Sister Wives 2: it’s simply not entertaining.

And as such, the Screenhead Ten Scale gives Sister Wives 2 a three out of ten for offering up some heavily biased information and a whole lot of political leanings packaged in a shell of nearly endless conversation.

The folks out at Image Entertainment shipped us  out a copy of Money Matters to cover, and if you thought yesterday’s entrant, The Littlest Angel, was heavy handed, then brace yourself for a fist made of iron with this one. It only just hit shelves today, but chances are there won’t be a whole lot of interest going on unless you already enjoy this kind of thing.

Money Matters follows the title character–yes, it’s about a girl named Monique “Money” Matters–who finds herself neck deep in a whole lot of very urban problems. Her mother’s trying to keep a roof over their head, which isn’t easy since she often finds herself living with a series of less than sterling men, and daughter Money is having plenty of girl-growing-up problems of her own in the midst of a Catholic school that is often less than supportive. But as mother and daughter struggle toward their own ends, never really knowing just how similar said ends are. But when Money ends up meeting a new girl that offers up a surprisingly friendly posture, that friendship will push a few boundaries in its own right. How will it all end up? Well, you’ll find out.

This is the kind of movie that made Don’t Be A Menace To South Central While Drinking Your Juice In The Hood possible in the first place, a movie so thick with lessons and morals that it might as well have some guy come by the camera, look into it, and shout “Message!” every time they try to make a point. The only problem with that approach, however, would be that by the end of the movie the poor schmoe assigned to the role would keel over from exhaustion, because he’d be shouting every couple of minutes.

Money Matters is thicker than hip-deep caramel and moves just about as fast. It’s dull, pompous and spectacularly preachy. It’s clearly trying to be a powerful independent movie, and that is, in a nutshell, Money Matters’ biggest problem. It’s trying, it’s clearly trying, it’s trying so hard that it’s next to impossible to take it seriously because it’s so busy taking itself seriously that there’s no room for anyone else. Even better, it’ll be another one of those movies where pretty much every guy–from the drug dealing boyfriend to the rapist ex-boyfriend to the child-molesting Catholic priest–is a complete waste of skin who exists for no other reason than to give Money and her mother yet another Challenge to Overcome. It’s every inch as bad as Tyler Perry, but almost worse for its clear lack of a shooting budget.

The Screenhead Ten Scale gives Money Matters a three out of ten for trying way too hard and taking itself way too seriously. Being “indie” is not an excuse for building a half-decent narrative and making a story more than a handful of people want to hear about.

With Christmas rapidly approaching–it’s about six weeks out, if you can believe that–it’s not surprising to see Christmas movies and, in general, angel-related fare start emerging. And as such, that’s why the folks out at Anchor Bay sent out a copy of The Littlest Angel for us to review. You won’t be able to get your hands on this one until this Tuesday, though, but once you do, you’ll be reasonably impressed, providing you either have kids or you have a particularly high tolerance for schmaltz.

The Littlest Angel is based on the children’s book of the same name, the fifteenth best selling children’s book of all time. It follows a boy who dies young, who is then dragooned into service in the afterlife as an angel.  The problem here is, he rapidly proves himself incompetent at pretty much every other angelic task that one can be set to do. And while normally an angel must complete three good deeds before he can be returned to Earth to do the Lord’s work. But the title character wants to get back a little ahead of schedule as he’s looking for his box of earthly treasures. Now with a celebration about to take place in heaven, and one angel gone missing, things are about to get potentially disastrous across both heaven and Earth.

First off, it is incredibly disorienting to hear Ron Perlman serve as the voice of God. Admittedly, not quite as weird as Alan Rickman doing the job back in Kevin Smith’s Dogma, but still pretty creepy in its own right. But the key point here is that it’s going to a very niche title. Basically, most will probably not be able to get behind this one. Most will find the presentation a little on the low end, but it’s going to be pretty nice for the younger set. Of course, you’ll have to have a parent standing by on this one because the theology is such a chopped salad that it’s virtually unrecognizable. It’s about seventy percent Catholic and twenty percent Hallmark, with a smattering of “who knows any better” tossed in seemingly for variety. And then there’s the bizarre anachronisms like the solid wood Ferris wheel cropping up somewhere around about .5 BC, give or take a week or two.

Still though, a good message for the kids put on at just the right time makes The Littlest Angel one for at least a rental, especially with the kids’ various school vacations coming up in a matter of weeks. Plus, of course, there’s a little shot of moral in here too, about kindness to others and all the great schmaltzy messages. A little heavy handed, but considering the audience, good enough.

And that’s pretty much the stance the Screenhead Ten Scale can take with this one: good enough. Good enough for its audience, good enough for a watch, and good enough for a seven out of ten. It’s not going to be for everyone, and it’s a bit of “message” movie, but it’s not without its charms.

The folks out at Lions Gate sent out a copy of the Bratz 3-Movie Collection, for some reason, and I consider it a point of professional integrity to tackle whatever’s sent my way. And as such, I tuck into this very, very niche product with predictable results. The Bratz 3-Movie Collection is comprised of three movies–much as the title suggests–and we’ll be tackling each in this week’s multi-review.

First we kick off with the first such Bratz movie ever–Bratz: Starrin & Stylin. More about that title in a minute. This one follows a group of girls who have been best friends for a long time. And just before their prom, they’ve been hit with an unexpected assignment on the topic of self expression, and with their prom coming up, this assignment promises to make their lives very difficult, at least until they discover that their primary mode of self-expression also fits into prom clothes, which is handy to say the least.

Never mind that the characters aren’t just in the Uncanny Valley, they’re sufficiently in it to own a time share. It’s the plot of this one that gets me. It’s reasonably acceptable–nothing particularly wrong with it–but it’s a pretty weak plot all the same. I mean, we’re talking about four girls who are trying to complete an assignment in high school. What’s the sequel, they go to the grocery store to buy a chocolate bar? Oh, no, wait! In the next one they mow the lawn! Actually, the next one in the series will make up for the first’s frightening lack of vision, but will replace a lack of vision with a lack of plausibility.

Bratz: Rock Angels brings us back to Bratz turf, where now they’ve started a fashion magazine. And with that, they set out to get backstage at a rock concert and deliver the first post-concert report, thus drawing much-needed attention to their fledgling publication. But when the concert proves impossible to get into, the Bratz are going to have to carry out a little inventiveness to save the day.

This one is actually worse in terms of plot. See, I’m supposed to actually believe that a bunch of teenage girls started a fashion magazine? Really? Where did they get that kind of cash? And while this is a startup magazine–outlandish enough in its own right–now we’re supposed to believe that that their twenty minute old magazine is sufficient to get them backstage at what is said to be a fairly major rock show? And then, when they find out that they can’t get backstage (and not because no one takes a magazine started by four teenage girls yesterday seriously, either), they start a band on the spot just to pull it off. There are more holes in this movie’s plot than a block of Swiss cheese at a shooting range.

Lastly, we have Bratz: Genie Magic, which this time takes us out to meet a new friend of the Bratz girls, Katia. Katia’s got some reality-warping powers, though she’s been using them with a faux-government agency under her father’s supervision. But straining at the bit, what with being the only teenage girl in an environment full of scientists and secret evil geniuses causes her to snap and run off. Now with reality being warped in a whole different direction, the Bratz girls will have to work, once again, together in a bid to ensure the survival of the very earth.

And now we top off the sheer bizarre with this one, the one that requires us to accept magic. Well, it’s bizarre, sure enough, but at least this one lacks the plot holes thanks to the ever popular “a wizard did it” excuse, though it’ll actually be a genie involved. When you introduce magic into the plot, you’re pretty much wide open to do whatever the hell you want vis-a-vis the narrative, logic be quite thoroughly damned. After all, who is anyone, even me, to say, hey, wait a minute–wizards / genies / goblins / whatever can’t do that! You can’t. No one can. It’s the best cheat ever, and because they used it, it lowers them a notch in my book, if such a thing were even possible.

And there you have it…three preposterous titles that I wouldn’t let within a country mile of my house if not for professional reasons. Granted, if you’re a twelve year old girl, you’ll probably get a kick out it. Maybe you’ll even find them inspirational. But for anyone else? They’re just not going to fly. The series gets progressively worse the farther in it goes, and considering how low the whole thing started out at, well, there’s nothing quite like watching a movie series not only find the bottom of the barrel, but promptly decide to exercise its substantial “girl power” to start digging.

Not too long ago, the folks out at Acorn Media sent out a copy of Prime Suspect Series One for me to review. And while Acorn has sent out a whole lot of prime drama for us previously, you’ll find that this particular batch is on par with some of their best.

Prime Suspect follows DCI Tennison, who’s out to solve a murder. Tennison’s been bucking to get charge of a murder case for quite some time, and now Tennison’s finally got the opportunity. But as Tennison will rapidly discover, this murder may not just be a murder, but rather a beginning. A beginning of something much larger: a serial killer, and quite possibly, a cover-up within the police department itself. Will DCI Tennison survive this newfound promotion? Or will Tennison not live to collect the enhanced pension?

Sounds pretty straightforward, until you consider that DCI Tennison is played by none other than Helen Mirren, who is pretty much the center of awesome in the known universe as far as actresses go. And DCI Tennison is taking charge of a murder investigation back in a time when murder investigations simply were not headed up by women. Thus, Tennison’s going to be taking on the department just as much as the possible serial killer, as the department very clearly does not want her there.

But even better, it’s not really this simple. There will be plenty of good twists and turns involved with this one, as only British drama can present them. Crime drama is always pretty good; British crime drama is an order of magnitude above that. Folks, if you liked CSI or all those other crime dramas, then frankly, you owe it to yourself to at least check out Prime Suspect Series One.

It’s a lovely, extensive piece of work that’s nicely put together, and is elevated at least a couple notches by virtue of having Helen Mirren around. There’s even some nifty extra stuff showing Tennison’s home life, which is a nice aside from all the murder and mayhem going on elsewhere. It’s some surprisingly fun stuff, and amply worth the three hours twenty-seven minutes you’ll have to invest in it to watch it all.

The Screenhead Ten Scale, meanwhile, gives Prime Suspect Series One an eight out of ten for being some top-notch crime drama, backed up by an overwhelming British influence and the sheer raw awesome that is Helen Mirren. Crime drama fans, you’re in for a great time here.

The folks at the History Channel have sent out a lot of terrific shows for us to review for you, and they’ll carry right on with that particular streak by sending out volume one of American Restoration.

American Restoration follows the guys at Rick’s Restorations. Led by the shop’s namesake, Rick Dale, the crew will have their work cut out for them as they set out to take a variety of products, from Coke machines to golf carts to any of a number of items. Every item has a story, and the restoration is often just as much a story as the items themselves.

See, this has a lot of appeal for a variety of reasons. Not only will we get to see the neat stuff that arrives, and you’ll see some truly amazing stuff here, but you’ll also get to see the incredible process of restoration, as well as the looks on people’s faces when they see just what happened to their products. See, they bring Rick’s shop stuff that’s separated from garbage only by the fact that it doesn’t have a plastic bag around it and it’s not on the curb. And Rick’s shop not only takes it from garbage to great, they’ll even throw a little bit of a twist into things by doing an unusual reveal, like wearing cowboy hats while bringing out a Hopalong Cassidy bike.

Like most History Channel shows, it’s something of a niche item. But still, you are going to see some impressive stuff here. You’ll actually get to see things you may have only heard about, and it’s actually pretty exciting. Even better, the episodes are each around twenty-odd minutes, and they’ll move sufficiently quickly to pretty much prevent just about anyone who watches it from getting bored.

The episodes move at a terrific clip and show some really impressive items, so anyone interested in the history of random stuff is going to find something they’ll go nuts over right here. But do bear in mind that, much like American Pickers Volume 2, this is not the complete first season, just a chunk of it. Still though, you’re going to get about six hours of great material.

The Screenhead Ten Scale gives American Restoration Volume One an eight out of ten–it may be a little narrow in terms of interest, but it’s still got a whole lot going for it, and that makes it well worth watching.

The folks at Well Go Entertainment sent out a copy of Helldriver for us to review, and if you were in the mood for a crazy slice of Japanese horror, well, you’ve got it in spades right here. Helldriver’s going to pack some truly bizarre stuff into its lineup, and your enjoyment of this one is going to depend mainly on your tolerance for weird.

Helldriver takes us out to Japan, where a mysterious mist has settled in over the northern half of Japan and animated the dead. Now with the living hiding themselves in armed camps in the southern half–where the mist hasn’t yet reached–and behind a massive wall, and the northern half now a zombie invested wasteland of lawlessness, the Japanese government has a plan to take back the north from the walking dead. And that plan revolves around Kika, a beautiful young lady with a chainsaw sword an an artificial heart. Kika’s been dispatched to take on the queen of the zombies, Rikka, but as it turns out, Kika and Rikka have a lot more history than you might expect.

I’ve seen more than a little Japanese horror, as you probably found out with last weekend’s multi-review, and generally, it falls into one of two classes: the ultra serious and extremely chatty, or the crazy and exciting rock-and-roll horror. Helldriver is much, much more the crazy kind than the chatty kind. It’s preposterous for a bunch of reasons, any of which would make a good movie by itself to explore but gives this one a kind of surrealist quality to it by trying to put all of this in at once. For instance, here, the zombies not only know how to operate chainsaws, but also have a kind of antler-shaped tumor growing out of their skulls that serves as their weak point, as well as as a kind of illicit drug that, once ground into powder, has a euphoric effect on humans.

They tried to put a whole lot of plot in this movie, give them credit, and this adds to an overall feeling of density and confusion, but that’s actually working for this movie. It’s bizarre, yes, but so are the circumstances under which it operates. The whole of Japan has gone insane, and so, it’s for the best that we don’t entirely get what’s going on.

Still, there will be plenty of action and lots of great fight scenes–not to mention a few good laughs thrown in for variety–that make this one just sparkle with wit and excitement.

The Screenhead Ten Scale in turn gives Helldriver a wild, crazy and downright nonsensical eight out of ten for making a terrific, if downright ludicrous combination of laughs and horror.

Brace yourselves, sci-fi buffs out there, because what I’ve got for you today is going to be easily one of the biggest events you can find this year: the folks out at A&E sent over a copy of Farscape: The Complete Series for us, and in full-bore HD thanks to the fact that it’s on Blu-ray. You won’t be able to catch this one until next week, but when you do, oh my…will you ever be in for a sweet piece of science fiction joy.

Farscape: The Complete Series represents fully four seasons of American astronaut John Crichton, as he’s flung through a wormhole in space during a mission. Where he emerges is going to be neck deep in a whole lot of problems of its own, not least of which the fact that he’s landed himself in the middle of a prison break inside a living space ship known as a Leviathan. He teams up with a group of strange and wildly dissimilar personalities, and the lot of them make their own break. What they’ll be breaking into, meanwhile, is a wildly complex set of problems mostly spearheaded by the galaxy’s answer to law and order, the Peacekeepers.

Things are going to be a little complex here, and a little weird to boot, but the end result is a disturbingly deep piece of science fiction that will span hours and provide not only a variety of plotlines, but also a disturbingly large number of puppets. See, this is the work of the Jim Henson Studios, which is pretty much the top of the heap when it comes to modern era puppet technology. And the results are astonishing.

And while the costuming is pretty impressive, the plot is even more so, an extensive series of interconnecting plotlines featuring loads of betrayals and reversals and triumphs and most everything else that goes into a worthwhile narrative. Basically, folks, this stuff is abundantly well worth watching, because they will do so much more with it than you’d ever expect. And the best part? They’ll not only throw in action–and plenty of it–but also some humor, some good old fashioned social commentary, and plenty of character development. This is some well built science fiction, and thus, well worth your time to get in on this.

Just as an added inducement, there will be plenty of extra features in here, like commentary tracks and making-of featurettes and the like to make this an even better incentive for fans of the show who may well already have purchased box sets of this one in the past.

The Screenhead Ten Scale meanwhile gives Farscape The Complete Series a full ten out of ten for sheer value and incredible quality intermingled in one box set. Science fiction is about to get a big new star in its firmament with this package.

Well folks, we’ve got a doozy for you this weekend, as our weekly multi-review tackles a three pack from a wholly different source. Today we turn to the folks from Synapse Cinema, who sent out a sweet set of three Japanese horror titles: Horrors of Malformed Men, Battle Girl: The Living Dead In Tokyo Bay, and The World Sinks Except Japan.

Horrors of Malformed Men follows a man who may be going insane…or he may have just experienced something too horrifying to be regarded as anything but the ravings of a lunatic. He’ll chase down his own lookalike in a bid to find out why he even exists, but along the way, he’ll find terrifying things, including a man who takes human beings and turns them into the titular malformed men.

Considering we start out in what looks like an insane asylum where a woman is trying to stab a guy while topless women jump around the attempted murder scene, you know we’re in for a real doozy right here. And when you further consider that this is a work by no less than Japanese monster of horror Teruo Ishii (and right now, Japanese horror buffs are either clapping their hands in glee or groaning in resignation at what we’re about to see), you can figure this will be no less than a serious piece of work. Ishii’s work has always been a little on the weird side, even for Japanese horror, and this one will be no exception. Plenty of things won’t make sense, and more will horrify you beyond all reason, but if you want some serious splatter and you don’t mind being bored for large chunks of a movie (or a couple unusual laughs, strange beyond words for an Ishii title), you’ll have all you need and more right here.

Battle Girl: The Living Dead in Tokyo Bay is pretty much exactly what the box says, as a meteor lands in Japan and forms a shield of fog around the island, as well as raising the dead on the island. Now a host of zombies is roaming the country, and about to be used for world domination by a corrupt general. But only K-ko, a special agent armed with a bladed, bulletproof leather suit, can shut down the operation and bring life back to Tokyo.

This is one of those great bizarre action / horror hybrids that Japan seems particularly enamored with. Basically, if you liked Junk or Assault Girls, you should find a welcome home right here. If you like your movies to make sense, meanwhile, you may just want to keep right on moving. This is going to strain logic almost gleefully, so take care not to get too deep over your head.

The World Sinks Except Japan gives us an unusual premise–basically, the world has become Waterworld…except now, Dry Land is Japan. With the bulk of the world’s land now under Japanese control, the rest of the world tries to assimilate as best they can, and refugees that fail to blend in sufficiently are arrested. But with another seismic catastrophe in the works, will Japan emerge  near as well as they did previously?

It’s bizarre to say the least–think the John Travolta film White Man’s Burden times a million–and it’s going to really make you think about the nature of geopolitics on Earth. Of course, there’s quite a bit left unexplained (what happened to the various boats out there, for one, though from the look of the destruction they might have been taken out), but what’s here is sufficient enough to spark a whole lot of beer-and-pizza night discussions. It’s weird, it’s wholly unprecedented that I can think of, and it’s something very much worth watching.

And so, there you go–a slate of three great titles from the folks at Synapse Films!

Folks, I’ve been working my way through this one for the last several days since it actually showed up on my doorstep, because this one is a doozy. The folks out at Lions Gate sent over Little House on the Prairie. All of it. Yes, that’s right, the full nine seasons of it, a monster fifty five disc box set of frontier living and good family television to last most anyone several hours. And how did it turn out? Better than you might expect.

Little House on the Prairie The Complete Nine Season Set takes us out to the frontier, as the Ingalls family makes its westward progression, setting out to settle the wild and vast frontier before them. Setting up camp on a parcel of land near Plum Creek, not too far from the tiny town of Walnut Grove, Minnesota, the Ingalls family builds a house, a farm, and a life on the harsh, unforgiving territory. They’ll have a lot of adventures, deal with a whole lot of different things, see their family grow and change, and eventually it will all come to an end.

Personally, I enjoy Little House on the Prairie. It’s a deceptively relaxing show; the combination of the realistic portrayal of the frontier lifestyle coupled with the excellent performances of the cast is one that seldom fails to mellow me out. And considering how extensive this collection was, chances are you’re going to find at least a couple episodes you’ll really enjoy. Of course, by like token, you’ll also find a few you absolutely can’t stand.

Special note here: if you were really fond of the books, and expect the series to behave like a big adaptation, don’t. Just stop right now. The best you’re going to do is get something based loosely on the books, and very loosely at that. Still though, Little House on the Prairie is a surprisingly relaxing show, almost disturbingly so, really, but it does do a wonderful job there. Plus, it’s excellent family viewing. You’ll find next to nothing objectionable in here; this was regarded as family fare back in the seventies when it first emerged, and it’s a safe bet that people haven’t gotten more sensitive now in terms of objectionable content, so you have a reasonably safe bet that this will be good for family viewing now.

Simple plotlines, a nigh-total lack of objectionable content and solid performances make the Little House series one you’ll absolutely want to watch. And the Screenhead Ten Scale responds accordingly by giving Little House on the Prairie The Complete Nine Season Set an eight out of ten. It’s not going to be for everyone–many will be bored here–but for those who like it a little on the calmer side, this is going to be a great trip into the wild.