Jingle All the Way

There comes a time in the life of every macho action movie star where they have to make a movie for the kids. Not only is it fun to watch a burly guy get humbled by everyday situations, but these scenarios effectively print money. Moviegoers enjoy watching muscle-bound protagonists deal with ridiculous and family-friendly scenarios as much as, if not more than, watching them suplex space terrorists.

The tradition of blockbuster beefcakes showing their G-rated sides started in the ‘90s, like so many delightfully awful things, with the perennial Kindergarten Cop. Genuinely funny though this film was, its successors were little more than cash-grabs. Thanks to Arnold showing his sensitive side, we’re stuck with TBS re-runs of Suburban Commando, The Pacifier, Tooth Fairy, and worse. Terrible as those films are, they pale in comparison to Jingle All the Way.

As our way of celebrating the holidays here at The Progressive Cinema Scorecard, we’re subjecting the nanobots to the hot cup of yuletide sludge that is Jingle All the Way. How long can their tiny robot stomachs contain the ham-fisted cautions against rampant commercialism before they ho-ho-ho all over this hackneyed portrayal of what parents subject themselves to year after year for their ungrateful children? Let’s find out!

• For featuring Harvey Korman being held hostage by Bull from Night Court, Turbo Man is the best kids’ show you never saw. = +4pts 
• Why, if it isn’t adolescent Darth Vader dancing around like his Ritalin wore off! Just looking at him makes the nanobots sad. = -10pts 
• Arnold Schwarzenegger is such a shark of a salesman that he can’t stop selling mattresses to pinch his secretary’s ass at the Christmas party. = -5pts 
• Missing Annie Skywalker’s karate class. = +6pts 
• Phil Hartman’s portrayal of Ted, the passive-aggressive, housewife-fucking lothario. = +7pts 
• Arnold’s Bruce Lee impersonation. = +12pts 
• Annie is reassured that he will not be a loser. = -3pts (Too late.) 
• Arnold saying, “It’s turbo time!” = +8pts 
• Despite the movie making it clear that Arnold is too busy with his job to complete even the most basic of tasks, his wife has no foresight to ensuring that he purchases a Turbo Man action figure for their spazzy son. = -11pts 
• Sinbad’s insane mailman is made complete when, in a paroxysm of rage, he punctuates his rant by strangling a nearby woman. = +5pts 
• Dr. Spaceman’s cameo appearance as the complete dick working at the Hollywood equivalent of KB Toys. = -3pts 
• Arnold reveals his sociopathic side by nearly breaking Sinbad’s neck after tripping him with an RC car. = -6pts 
• eBay was founded in 1995. This movie came out in 1996. The nanobots are keening in misery. = -16pts 
• Arnold’s reaction to Phil Hartman getting all up in his cookies has become an Internet sensation. = +7pts
• Whosever idea it was to have a Turbo Man doll raffle with bouncy balls as tickets has most likely been trampled to death under the snowboots of rampaging parents. = -6pts 
• Being labeled a pervert after chasing a child of indeterminate gender through a playplace does not deter Arnold from his quest to get his hands on a Turbo Man doll. = +5pts (That’s dedication!) 
• Arnold goes Oldboy on a warehouse full of black market Santas. = +5pts 
• The Big Show punches Mini-Me from one end of the room to the other. = +7pts 
• It’s all fun and games until the fuzz busts Santa’s thieves’ guild. = -4pts 
• We’re pretty sure that “swap recipes ” is suburban sex lingo for “dirty anal.” = -6pts 
• Arnold yelling at future Darth Vader for being a twerp. = +4pts 
• After failing to weaponize Christmas cards and holiday packages, Sinbad brandishes a mail-bomb to menace a ponytail-sporting Martin Mull. = -9pts 
• Sinbad uses his sickle cell anemia as a reason not to get punched in the face by Arnold Schwarzeneger. We’ll remember that the next time we’re in California. = +4pts 
• A police officer’s near-death experience with an explosive package is played for laughs. = -3pts 
• While regretting the decision to steal Phil Hartman’s kid’s Turbo Man, Arnold sets a deranged reindeer loose in the house and engulfs a plastic Balthazar in flames. = -16pts 
• Instead of going to the Wintertainment Parade with his family, Arnold celebrates a traditional Austrian Christmas by punching out a reindeer and then getting it drunk. = +7pts 
• Booger from Revenge of the Nerds dressing up as a pink tiger in a golden Speedo. = -12pts 
• With Arnold outfitted as Turbo Man and Sinbad as his arch-nemesis Dementor, the two grown men battle it out Power Rangers style on a parade float. = -4pts 
• Booger is thrown from the parade float and immediately attacked by a wild pack of children. Given that he’s never seen again, it’s unlikely he survived. = +4pts 
• Arnold Boba Fetts through the air and ruins a black family’s dinner by crashing through their window. We’re pretty sure that this is a sloppy-ass metaphor of some sort, but the nanobots are under too much duress to decipher it. = -6pts 
• When your own wife and child cannot see through your disguise or recognize your identity by your ludicrous accent, it’s time to take a vacation from selling mattresses. = -4pts 
• Annie Skywalker single-handedly undoes capitalism by idiotically giving his limited-edition Turbo Man doll to an arrested Sinbad immediately after the insane mailman placed him in mortal danger over it. = -17pts 
• Sinbad is no longer under arrest and Arnold’s family loves him again because of what? What in the actual fuck was the point of this movie, that Christmas sucks and you should give away your prized possessions to the undeserving? Screw whatever ham-fisted message this movie tried to convey. Christmas is great and so are personal belongings. Long live commercialism!= -30pts 
• The Brian Setzer Orchestra’s terrible rendition of "Jingle Bells." = -3pts 
• That the filmmakers included the possibility for a sequel as a stinger means that Jingle All the Way 2: I’m Dreaming of a Turbo Christmas may befoul the box office (or Wal-Mart straight-to-video vat) in the future. = -8pts 

Total Score = -97pts
Available on: Netflix streaming, TBS

Jingle All the Way can best be summed up as a middle finger to the Christmas season. Its attempts to appeal to parents with a message that will make them think, “Haha, I’ve done something like that for my kids before!” make it as entertaining as watching old news coverage of toy stores with Cabbage Patch Dolls shortages.

Without Arnold’s comical accent and Phil Hartman’s performance as a horny divorcee, the movie would have stagnated under the over-the-top acting and frenetic pacing. If not for the deluge of awful modern Christmas movies, this film would be among the worst. Thanks to the combined atrociousness of Santa Buddies, The Search for Santa Paws, and Santa Paws 2: The Santa Pups, Jingle All the Way barely scratches the surface of mediocre. One positive thing to say about this film is that it mortally wounded Sinbad’s acting career. May he rest in peace.

The Progressive Cinema Scorecard wishes you a Merry Christmas far away from this film. If you’re going to brave Jingle All the Way, either ironically or driven by morbid curiosity, be sure to slip this scorecard in your stocking.

Score Technician: T. J. Geise

Die Hard

It’s a time-honored tradition in the Progressive Cinema Scorecard labs to gather the family around the yule log for our annual Christmas viewing of Die Hard. Probably the greatest action film of the ‘80s (which makes it a pretty strong contender for greatest action film of all time), it was responsible for turning Bruce “Moonlighting” Willis into an upper-echelon movie star overnight. And yet, we’ve always wondered, how would this rip-roaring action juggernaut hold up under the nanobots’ cold, unfeeling gaze? Be of good cheer, gentle readers. The answer awaits below.

• “Take off your shoes and make fists with your toes”: The worst piece of good advice in film history. = +18pts 
• Let’s all take a moment to remember the ‘80s, back before the nanny state told us it was “unsafe” to bring a loaded gun onto a plane. = +2pts 
• Note to the filmmakers behind Die Hard: “Argyle” is not a name that you give to a human character. What was your second choice? Houndstooth? = -5pts 
• ‘80s tech alert: The limo’s tape deck. = +6pts 
• Ingredients for a 1980s movie scumbag: 1 part wanting to sleep with someone’s wife, 2 parts narcissism, dash of moustache. = +5pts 
• Holly makes a healthy parenting decision and tells her daughter that Santa and mommy are working to get her parents back together. In the sequel, the Easter bunny and mommy work to bring her goldfish back from the dead. = -7pts 
• ‘80s tech alert: It’s a little-known fact that the first model of the iPhone came embedded in a receptionist’s desk. = +9pts 
• McClane walks in on Ellis rubbing coke into his gums, which was basically the 1980s equivalent of checking your hair in a mirror before joining a party. = +8pts 
• In true holiday fashion, John and Holly celebrate Christmas by renewing a bitter, resentment-filled argument. = +3pts 
• Karl’s use of a flash grenade to blind a single guard might be the most spectacular use of overkill in the entire movie (and that’s saying something). = +22pts
• Director sneaks obligatory boob shot in at the beginning of the terrorist takeover to make the most of their R-rating. = +8pts 
• Hans Gruber reads from his day planner: “Due to the Nakatomi corporation's legacy of greed around the globe, they're about to be taught a lesson in the real use of power...” So he can mastermind a break-in and memorize every line of Takagi’s resume, but the whole two-sentence explanation of why he’s there is just too much to remember? = -9pts 
• We want to criticize Karl’s brother for wearing sweat pants to a holiday party, but given his agenda it actually makes more sense than Hans Gruber’s $2000 suit. = +33pts (For practicality.)
• Random observation: We like to imagine that in the original version, John McClane gives a touching rendition of “The Night Before Christmas,” causing Hans Gruber’s small heart to grow three sizes that day. = +12pts
• “Was habe ich gesagt?!” For making German 101 totally worth it. = +6pts 
• Deleted backstory: Old Carl Winslow travels back in time to warn young Carl Winslow about the Hostess Bakery shutdown; young Carl Winslow smartly stockpiles Twinkies from gas stations, earns millions from eBay sales in 2013. = +16pts 
• Heinrich’s beautifully unnecessary barrel roll onto the board room table during his shoot out with McClane. = +9pt 
• ‘80s action movie staple: You know who everyone hates? Members of the free press (especially when they’re portrayed by the d-bag EPA officer from Ghostbusters/jerk scientist from Real Genius). = +3pts
• This. = +100pts
• ‘80s action movie staple #2: the willfully ignorant police captain (played by the principal from The Breakfast Club, no less). = +8pts 
• ‘80s action movie staple #3: Al Leong, Hollywood’s go-to Asian terrorist. = -4pts 
• That time when John McClane jeopardized the entire structure of the Nakatomi building in order to save four cops in a tank. = +65pts 
• But, ‘80s tech alert: the giant computer monitor he uses to ignite the explosives. = +6pts 
• ‘80s action movie staple #4: Pompous academic pontificating about his book learnin’ gets made to look like an asshole. = +3pts 
• FBI shows up and basically proceeds to play right into the terrorist’s hands, which brings us to ‘80s action movie staple #5: Anyone working in law enforcement above the street level is incompetent, sort of evil, or both. = +10pts 
• Case in point: “I’m totally cool losing 25% of the hostages, as long as we kill all the terrorists,” said no FBI agent ever. = -14pts 
• ‘80s action movie staple #6: Yelling expletive, jumping away from explosion. = +125pts
• In memory of Agent Johnson. = +3pts (No, the other one.)
• After the brutal beating McClane lays on him, Karl wishes he’d kept his day job as an orchestra conductor. = +32pts 
• The filmmakers avoid a hate crime by having Argyle punch out the black terrorist in the parking garage. = +7pts 
• Thanks to Always Sunny, we can no longer watch the climactic scene in this film without laughing. = +80pts (It’s still awesome.) 
• For a guy who had been dangling out of the window for a good minute or two, Hans Gruber seems awfully surprised when he (spoiler alert) finally falls out the window. = +8pts 
• Carl Winslow shoots terrorist Karl for spelling his name with a K, unrelated to his involvement in terrorist organization. = +14pts
• For making an action movie with four speaking roles for black characters, and three of them actually survive until the end. In 2013 = +60 pts; In 1988 = -30pts. Net score = +30pts

Total Score = +612pts

Available on: DVD; probably the USA network, only with all the all the swears badly dubbed over.

While its badassticity is unquestionable, Die Hard offers some interesting contradictions in terms of its progressiveness. Sure, it’s rife with blue collar contempt for intellectuals, journalists, and figures of authority, and the ending seems to imply that Holly McClane will be giving up her career as a high-powered executive to tend the children, but the sheer amount of black supporting extras that survive to the end of the movie is basically unheard of in the at the time (hell, it’s not really all that common these days, either). John McClane has since become a Hollywood institution, spawning four sequels, video games, sex toys, and a Broadway musical (we’re assuming on the last two; there are some things you just don’t want to Google). Yet no matter how far the series devolves into farce, it can’t detract an ounce of luster from the heavenly bolt of lightning that John McTiernan, Bruce Willis, and Alan Rickman caught in a bottle with this first Christmassy sock in the jaw.

Score Technician: Amanda Hemmerling, Joe Hemmerling

American Horror Story: Coven, Episode 9

With the last few episodes of American Horror Story: Coven hitting on all cylinders, it seemed as if the "mid-season finale" was as good a time as any to stop all momentum and drop the exposition hammer. You know, for those sticks-in-the-mud who only show up to watch the mid-season finales.

• Nothing helps prepare a young man for witch murder like a nice hot cup o' joe. = +3pts
• Diagnosing someone with terminal cancer based on their hairstyle. = -2pts (For trying to make us think this is a voodoo power and not simply a killer sense of style.)
• "Welcome...to the League of Extraordinary Exposition!" = -5pts
• Nothing ruins cocktails between Coven council members quite like a good exposition. = -5pts
• Oh, and having your eyes scooped out with a melonballer. That also ruins a good cocktail party. = +2pts
• Waking up with two new eyes, each from a different person, and your first reaction being "I can see!" And not "Gross!" or "Who were the lucky (insert ethnic/economic disenfranchised group here)?" = -2pts
• Just in case you didn't recognize Patti Lupone, Ryan Murphy has her sing a song for you. = -5pts (For crossing the Glee/AHS streams. Never. Do. That. Again.)
• Queenie and Madame LaLaurie: The greatest interracial team-up since Rush Hour 3. = +3pts
• Headless racist bragging about keeping her eyes closed throughout Roots. = A wash (In 1840, during the actual time of Roots, +50pts, In 2013, -50pts) 
• Headless racist shedding (unconfirmed?) tears (of racist joy?) at sound of old negro spiritual playing over images of the civil rights movement. = Motives unclear. Nanobots still calculating....
• If there's one thing movies have taught us, it's that Frankensteins should never be allowed to hug soft animals. = -3pts (Or children.)
• American Horror Story employs the oldest trick in the American horror playbook and has unstable witchhunter start his murder spree by killing all the black characters first. = -10pts (For being predictable.)

Total Score: -20pts

Season Score: +141

An exposition heavy show that basically serves as a table setting re-cap to the final three episodes of the season, in which the only significant thing to happen is an episode-capping hate crime. Let's hope that the holiday break restores some semblance of order.

Score Technician: Sean McConnell

The Progressive Cinema Scorecard's Holiday Gift Guide

The holiday spirit warms even the coldest of hearts, including those of the nanobots at the Progressive Cinema Scorecard. To show our reader appreciation, we’ve assembled this handy gift guide to simplify your holiday shopping. So grab a slice of Kwanzaa cake and join us for the first ever PCS gift giving guide.

Fifi Stole ($258)

• We love dogs at the PCS but they seem to dislike it when we drape them across our shoulders to exude luxury. This item solves that problem and also instills a sense of fear in your household pets, further establishing your position as pack alpha. = +10pts

• Its lifeless body will serve as a sturdy reminder for Fido not to piss in the house again. = +6pts

Brooklyn Beard Oil ($29)

• It’s important for us to know that if our hygiene products ever become sentient, they would listen to the same bands we do. = +4pts
• See also: Portland After Shave. = +2pts

Library Letter Books ($20)

• You know what sucks about books? Being able to read them. Thank goodness for Anthropologie and their new book mutilation service. = -7pts

Gaming Helmet ($70)

• For defying gender stereotypes and showing a female gamer. = +25pts
• For the above happening only because this item is too batshit ridiculous for anyone to pull off but a hot model. = -10pts

Polar Bear Coat ($200)

• For that friend who talks way too much about furries, then laughs nervously and says “not that I’m into that or anything!” = -3pts

Tufted Ursine Rug ($498)

• This Christmas, make family and friends think you killed an adorable baby bear in front of its mother, only for her to meet the same fate. = -12pts

Sweater Pup Cookie Jar ($68)

• Well, look at this little guy, being such a good boy, in his cute little sweater! Except that it’s not a dog, it’s a cookie jar, and it costs $70. = -5pts

Off the Hook Shower Head ($24)

• Is he screaming in pain or in the throes of ecstasy? Only the shower phone knows for sure. = +18pts

Rolling Pin and Peg Stand ($138)

• Rolling pins are great, but sometimes we feel like they’re not exclusive enough. At $140, this item will really show your other cookware that you’ve made it. = +15pts

Hedgehog Boot Brush ($50)

• Remember that National Geographic special on hedgehogs, which are known for their innate ability to clean boots? Yeah, neither do we. = -3pts

Total Score = +40pts

These items are all available for your gift giving pleasure from Anthropologie and its unwashed sibling Urban Outfitters, a place to get that real New York funky style (Trigger warning: Shia LaBeuof). Because if you’re going to spend money this season on tacky bullshit that no one needs, it might as well be a LOT of money.

Score Technician: Amanda Hemmerling

American Horror Story: Coven, Episode 8

American Horror Story: Coven is back from the holiday break with more zaniness, otherworldly shenanigans, and racial segregation!

• Queenie nonchalantly tearing out a rapist’s still-beating heart to make it clear that she’s done hanging out with them white bitches. = +10pts 
• You can tell that you’ve been a terrible mother when you tell your daughter that you’re dying of cancer and she asks you to keel over before Thanksgiving so that no one has to eat your cooking. = -4pts 
• Giving your teenaged son an enema for Jesus. = -20pts 
• Killing the butler is a bad idea if you don’t want to have to do stuff yourself. = -4pts 
• If only all Frankensteins chose to fill their abnormal brain with words rather than jerk off to porn. = +6pts 
• Madison using her bitchcraft for a just cause. = +7pts 
• Strike Spalding down and he shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine. = -5pts 
• Sniping a self-righteous Bible-thumper. = +10pts 
• Bringing said Bible-thumper back to life. = +5pts (A positive score because she’s going to flip her wig after finding out that she was torn from Heaven’s gate by a swamp hippie.) 
• Teaching FrankenKyle how to love again! = +6pts 
• Angela Bassett really got ahead of herself by sending an early Christmas gift to the coven. = +6pts (Wink!)

Total Score = +17pts
Season Score = +161pts

The folks behind American Horror Story: Coven know their stuff if they can have the central plot point of an episode fizzle out and still keep the show captivating. Jessica Lange’s mental torture scenes went on too long, but the flashbacks to The Sacred Taking were enjoyable. Now that Misty Day has joined the coven, can we expect to see her in a four-way with FrankenKyle? We wouldn’t be surprised if the coming episode is just the characters grinding into one another in one supernatural orgy.

Score Technician: TJ Geise

The Walking Dead, Season 4 Episodes 7 & 8

Shaking off our Thanksgiving torpor, the PCS bounces back with a double-helping of Walking Dead. Episode 6 took us on a detour away from the prison gang in order to catch us up with all the hijinx The Governor had gotten into since murdering his entire raiding party, setting fire to Woodbury, and taking off for parts unknown. The results left the nanobots a little underwhelmed. Let’s check back in and see what wacky adventures that silly Governor has gotten himself into this week!

• Oh good, a cold open full of more chess metaphors and on-the-nose dialogue. We definitely didn’t get enough of that last episode. = -4pts 
• Oh, shit, that’s the tank from the comics. Never mind, you guys. Everything is going to be okay! = +6pts 
• Call us cynical, but we have a sneaking suspicion that a lone dude showing up in a predominantly male camp with two women of child-bearing age would probably end up more like the end of 28 Days Later than this. = -2pts 
• Hey, The Governor, just a free piece of advice: If you’re really so desperate to avoid the pressures of leadership, then murdering your camp’s de facto leader is probably a bad way to go about that. = -10pts 
• Image of a bunch of zombies sunken to the waist in the middle of a muddy road is pretty badass. = +5pts (No joke here; it’s a good visual.) 
• So, after a whole episode-and-a-half of sort of trying to be a good guy, and then kind of trying to escape from the camp, The Governor throws in the towel and returns to his douche-baggy ways. = -9pts (For wasting two weeks of our time.) 
• Kind of digging his new aquarium, though. = +6pts

Total Score = -8pts
Season Score = +79pts

These last two episodes felt like a really long walk to just get us back to where things were before the back half of Season 3 crapped the bed. The Governor is evil again, he’s got another makeshift army, and once again he’s poised to rain hell on Rick and the prison crew. With just one more episode before the mid-season break, let’s hope that the showrunners deliver a little harder than they did last time.

• The Governor’s love interest may seem like an improbably pure and good-intentioned pillar of virtue, but what you don’t see is that when her character is off-camera, she says really racist things about Puerto Ricans. = -6pts 
• Dammit, D’Angelo Barksdale, just accept gratitude from Tyrese’s sister. She can find out that you almost got her brother and everyone else killed over a bottle of hooch later. = -1pt 
• Hershel and Michonne running the old “good hostage/bad hostage” routine. = +2pts 
• The Governor and Rick may never have been able to live together in the same prison structure in this world, but it sure gave us a great idea for a sitcom. = +14pts 
• That look of paternal pride that Hershel gives Rick right before things go sideways. = +11pts 
• A major character just died and… What is this? What’s happening? Are we actually feeling something here? Did this show finally make us feel something?!? = +20pts 
• In her zeal to defend the prison, Carol’s little blond psychopath abandons an infant in a car seat to be devoured by walkers. = +4pts (For nailing the headshot.)
• The Governor: Dead. The prison: Destroyed. Rick’s crew: Disbanded. Rick’s baby: Probably eaten. Yes. This is exactly what we want, creators of The Walking Dead. Good job. = +25pts

Total Score = +69pts
Season Score = +148pts

If this wasn’t the best episode of Walking Dead, then it’s definitely on the short list. God knows what they’re going to do for the second half of the season, but no matter what the show got us here, and for that, we are eternally grateful.

Score Technician: Joe Hemmerling

American Horror Story: Coven, Episode 7

American Horror Story: Coven clearly has the good sense (and taste) to take Thanksgiving week off. Because even Americans have a limit regarding the amount of racial violence they can take. The good news is that the nanobots have scored the most recent episode so that you have the most up to date scores before the show returns tomorrow fat on turkey and slave blood.

• Beginning anything with Toto’s Rosanna. = +4pts
• The realization that your masturbation hand has been replaced with the hand of your rape-y frat brother. = -5pts
• Eating your feelings. = -3pts
• Losing a game of quick-hands to a Frankenstein. = -2pts
• Curing racism with the television version of a Sonic. = +3pts (See image above.)
• The Axeman is so sexy he can spend almost a century as a trapped spirit and still walk into a bar and pick up cancer riddled hottie Jessica Lange. = +5pts (For having, literally, mad game.)
• Danny Huston (The Axeman), talking about blowing himself…or his sax. Maybe his penis though? It’s hard to tell… = +8pts
• Sleeping with “the daughter you never had.” = -10pts
• Any flashback featuring Kathy Bates should be accompanied with a blindfold and ear plugs. = +5pts (Seriously, that Sonic burger must be made of some magical shit, yo.)
• FrankenKyle/Tate follows the typical 8-steps that lead one to a threesome with two hot girls. They include… 
1. Being molested by his mother before deciding to...
2. Become an architect in order to save the world from the Army Core of Engineers, and then...
3. Continuing the hero’s path by joining the most rape-y fraternity in all of New Orleans, which obviously leads to...
4. Being dismembered in a horrific bus crash and then...
5. Getting re-assembled by some chick you met at the party you died at and her friend (who, by the way, was raped by all your friends), and then...
6. Returning home to have your skeezy mother take advantage of your new and improved package, which would naturally lead to you... 
7. Bludgeoning her to death and then...
8. Agreeing (a loose term here as you are now, as a Frankenstein, essentially mega-retarded) to a threesome with the (now) zombie rape witch and her friend with the poisoned vagina...  
• ...Which is a story we all know by heart. I mean, is American Horror Story even trying anymore? = +10pts (Because, in the end, hot consensual three-ways are always a plus.)

Don’t let the Ménage a Death bonus score fool you. As hot as that was, Danny Huston and Jessica Lange were really the ones on fire this episode. It’s not every day that an older couple makes jazz and cancer sexy. It just goes to show you how great actors have the ability to elevate what, when spoken out loud, is actually rather ridiculous.

Total Score: +15pts
Season Score: +144pts

Score Technician: Sean McConnell