True Blood Season 7, Episode 1

Despite lending my editorial expertise to the Scorecard's coverage of True Blood Season 6 (and let me tell you, it's been considerable; Sean's Scorecards are basically just a series of crayon drawings of human genitalia scrawled on the backs of torn comic book pages), I have never actually seen a single episode of the show myself. In the spirit of true scientific impartiality, the other editors have called upon me to act as the control for this final experiment in True Blood scoreology. Therefore, you can look forward to me contributing to the regular rotation for the next ten weeks or so.

To maintain absolute objectivity, we've laid down some ground rules:

1. I will not reference any outside material for character names or history while viewing. 
2. I will ONLY watch the episodes that I am scoring. 

With that disclaimer out of the way, let's get to it.

• Things that ruin picnics: ants, rain, vampires, bros playing hacky sack (in ascending order). = +2pts 
• When you kill a vampire, they explode into a puddle of blood. = +10pts 
• The black vampire girl gets killed, presumably because the ratio of black to white characters had gotten too high. = -12pts 
• The grumpy bald man tells his daughter not to invite the ginger porch vampire inside, which is a good move because if you let an outdoor vamp in the house, they'll just pee all over everything. = +4pts 
• Looks like Rogue has absorbed Professor X's powers and can hear all the horrible things everyone thinks about her. = +3pts 
• A strategically placed blind slat covers up Mayor Weredog's penis. = -9pts 
• Looks like Mayor Weredog hasn't come out of the lycanthrope closet yet. = -6pts 
• Vampire buddy system: because the key to surviving a plague of vampire AIDS zombies is the same system you used to go to the bathroom on field trips when you were in 2nd grade. = -7pts 
• Never mind the fact that you're in the middle of the woods alone at night during the vampire apocalypse, throwing your phone away because you don't want to answer it is just a dumb thing to do. = -5pts 
• “I've survived 27 times.” - Some Guy Who Doesn't Understand How Russian Roulette Works = +9pts 
• “Armageddon-like situation.” = +3pts 
• Holy shit, Cinemax late-night called and said your sex scene between the sheriff and his vampire buddy was too cheesy. = -14pts 
• The minister kindly offers his vampire buddy a place to sleep in what looks like an abandoned tool shed. Don't they have a couch she can crash on? = -4pts 
• Grumpy Bald Man talks down a kid with a shotgun. = +10pts 
• Industrial club/charnel house. = +16pts 
• The porch vampire gets invited in. Say goodbye to all your furniture. = -4pts 
• My summary of Rogue's speech to the congregation: “My extensive sexual knowledge of vampires is all that can save us.” = +11pts 
• Tom Waits in the credits! = +10pts

Total Score = +17pts

Well, there goes my True Blood cherry. The porch vampire standoff was kind of cool, but otherwise kind of snoozy for a premier. Here's hoping that Rogue's prodigious carnal history with vampires will be enough to halt the advance of vampire AIDs.

Score Technician: Joe Hemmerling

The Net

With the pace at which technology moves, sometimes it’s easy to lose sight of just how far computer technology has advanced in the last two decades. Harken back to a time when your computer was a foot wide and weighed as much as two bowling balls, and join us as we prepare to dive into Sandra Bullock’s elaborate Ted Talk on planned obsolescence, aka The Net.

• For showing a female involved in tech: = +50pts (in 1995); = +20pts (in 2014). 
• So that no viewer of The Net will be forced to read, anything typed is also spoken. = -25pts 
• The main character, Angela Bennett, is so much of a tech goddess that she orders a pizza online (!) = +3pts (According to a Reddit user, online pizza orders in the 90s were sent to a single corporate office and then faxed to individual store locations. Research!) 
• When Angela visits an Internet chat room, there are zero instances of cyber sex or use of the phrase “A/S/L?” Their 1995 Internet is very different from ours. = -7pts 

• Angela Bennett comes this close to meeting her Internet boyfriend, who’s not only hot but also a pilot. = -15pts for his untimely death, = +15pts for being one of the few times an Internet boyfriend has been a catch. Total = 0pts (No one wins when Internet boyfriends crash their Cessnas into nuclear reactors.) 
• The hackers hide a virus in a program called “Mozart’s Ghost” in order to take over the world, a sentence we hope sounded just as ridiculous twenty years ago as it does now. = -4pts 

• A hot stranger who owns a yacht chats up Angela on the beach and she’s not at all suspicious. For a hacker, you’re kind of dim, girl. = -20pts 
• Within minutes, the hot guy with the yacht steals Angela’s identity and hacks into a police database to issue a warrant for her arrest. Good thing his mom didn’t need to use the phone line. = -11pts 
• Movie cliché #1: Close up shot of killer’s eyes just before he pulls the trigger. = -2pts 
• Turns out the cyber terrorists are named “Praetorians.” For sounding like a dinosaur. = +5pts; For almost certainly being the name of a terrible metal band. = -5pts 
• “Give us the disk and we’ll give you your life back.” = +8pts
• For Angela’s mom being the hottest Alzheimer patient ever. = +2pts 
• '90s tech alert: “Sir, this is a cell phone. We can’t trace its location!” = +3pts 
• Turns out Dennis Miller was once Angela’s therapist, then her boyfriend, and now is just a guy who provides exposition. = -12pts 
• But at least his name is “Dr. Champion.” = +5pts
• Sorry, but we’d rather date the guy who tried to kill us than Dennis Miller. Because his whole head-shaking “hey babe” shtick is its own slow death. = - 15pts
• Turns out she won’t have to, as the bad guys have hacked Dennis Miller’s pharmacy so that he gets a fatal dose of his prescription. We envision the pharmacist seeing a prescription for rat poison and shrugging, “Hey, computer said so!” = +5pts
• For explaining that “IRL” means “in real life.” = +5pts (in 1995); = -5pts (in 2014) 
• Dennis Miller lies silently in his hospital bed. = -15pts (For plausibility)
• Movie cliché #2: Emergency room doctor yells “get her out of here!” at onlooker as patient flat lines. = -9pts 
• These bad guys won’t stop chasing Angela. If only she could find a drawbridge that was about to open so she could leap across while the bad guys skidded their cars to a stop—oh wait—guess it’s her lucky day! = +6pts
• Movie cliché #3: Bad guy confronts good guy in an amusement park. For reminding us of better movies like The Third Man and Strangers on a Train. = +25pts
• The fact that the movie is set against the backdrop of the AIDS awareness movement reminds us of the struggles people with this deadly disease face and adds a sense of poignancy to the film. = +10pts 
• For making us use the word “poignancy” to describe The Net. = -17pts
• Repeating strings of programming code and a flashing IP address are this movie’s way of saying, “Hey guys, there’s some serious hacking going on right now!” = +3pts 
• There just happens to be a tech convention in town where Angela can find the software she needs to prove her innocence and defeat the bad guys. For great timing. = +20pts
• Some guys at the tech convention are carrying tote bags that say “Mac User,” proving that Apple obsessed douches were not relegated to 2008. = +3pts
• Movie cliché #4: Parking garage shoot out. = -22pts
• Movie cliché #5: Bad guy accidently shoots another bad guy instead of good guy, sighs and softly whispers, “shit.” = +6pts
• “Do you realize that you’ve erased everything we’ve done to you? You’ve taken back your life.” For summing up the last half hour of the movie, because some of us may not be able to handle the sophisticated technological references in The Net. = -25pts
• Perhaps the most unbelievable part of the movie is that the Internet was never once accessed via an AOL free trial disc. = -15pts 

Total Score = -7pts

Available on: Amazon, the VHS collection of that guy from high school who called himself a “1337 haxxor”

The central flaw in the film, other than the idea that a group of cyber terrorists could control the world at a time when most people used their computers to play Oregon Trail, is the implication that there is one single electronic record for everyone, which is kind of like the movie version of the “permanent record” that your teachers warned you about. Still, it serves a history lesson for millennials and a jaunt down memory lane for the rest of us.

Score Technician: Amanda Hemmerling

Game of Thrones Season 4, Episode 10

Well, here's the moment you've been both anticipating and dreading: the last Game of Thrones episode of the season. With so many irons in the fire, can every storyline come to a satisfactory conclusion in the span of an hour? We'll find out once the nanobots from this year's final delve into Westeros!

• Jon Snow handles his liquor as well as he handles his relationships with women, which is to say poorly and jackassily. = -3pts 
• After harnessing the Red Priestess's magic to summon from time and space the Riders of Rohan, Stannis the Mannis gives zero fucks about rendering an entire subplot moot. = +7pts

• Coming next season – The Frankenstein That Rides. = +10pts 
• Cersei gives Tywin an unexpected Father's Day gift moments before giving another (somewhat relevant) gift to Jaime. = +9pts 
• What do freed slaves begging to return to slavery, anguished dragons, and an overcooked toddler have in common? They're all things that Daenerys can't cry on Jorah's shoulder about. = -7pts 
• As if to set ablaze the rumors that Season 5 would feature a Warm Bodies-inspired romantic subplot, Jon Snow lights his lost love's funeral pyre. = -5pts 
• Hodor has a very Moe Howard reaction to an encounter with skeletons, first like this and then like this. = +11pts 
• Crafting a better skeleton battle than both The 7th Voyage of Sinbad and Army of Darkness combined. = +13pts 
• Also coming next season – The Further Adventures of Tree Wizard and Explosionymph. = -4pts 
• For having one of the best fight scenes in the show make this score technician shout at the TV repeated combinations of the words, “No! Stop! Be friends!” = -6pts 
• The Hound says, “When you've got a fucking sword in your face, fuck your hands and grab the fucking blade. While your opponent is wondering what the fuck just happened, punch them right in the fucking face.” = +9pts 
• When a sword fight becomes a savage brawl, no genital goes unclobbered. = +3pts 
• Arya beats Stannis for the Westerosi record of fucks not given in a single instance. = -8pts (minus one point for each negative fuck) 
• Tyrion's tender apology for giving Shae a Reverse Leia Slavegirl. = +8pts 
• Not to be outdone by his sister, Tyrion gives Tywin two unexpected Father's Day gifts. = +18pts

Episode Score: +55pts
Season Score: +362pts

Though the season finale has come under some fire by book purists because of the liberties taken with its storytelling, it was still satisfying. Characters reviled and revered were tossed into the jaws of death while old storylines closed in time for new ones to open. No cliffhangers, no hokey draws to make you antsy in your pantsy for another year, just fantastic storytelling. As Arya traded her magical Showbiz Pizza token for a boat ride, so does Game of Thrones set sail for a new world of adventure (after waiting like a year... jeez, boats are slow!).

Score Technician: TJ Geise

The Lair of the White Worm

The Lair of the White Worm is the definition of a cult movie. Mainly because it involves lots of cults. But, what most people don't know--or could care less about--is that the movie is loosely based on the last novel Bram Stoker ever wrote. And, as we all know, it's often the last thing published that's the best work. Apparently, this book was so well received that a famous reviewer of the time wrote, “Much like the worm/snake of the title, my refuse bin did also rise to swallow this novel. Yet, I held fast! As news of Stoker’s passing was still fresh in the air, his burial the next day even. It was in this mindset that I battled the urge to deposit Stoker’s novel there, refusing to be denied the pleasure of tossing it onto his casket as they lower him into the ground. For, as we know, a rose by any other name smells better than this book.” Those are some strong words of praise from ol’ England. The real question is: What do the nanobots think? Why leave such things to humans when science has proven, time and time again, that humans are weird.  

• Employing at least three different fonts in your movie’s title. = -3pts
• Holy Smoke. Hugh Grant! = +5pts
• Holy Smoke II. Peter Capaldi!! = +10pts 
• Nothing says terror like a cave big enough to fly a plane into. Scotland: The Congo of the British Isles. = +2pts (Wait, this is England? Tell it to stop looking like Scotland.)
• Capaldi demonstrates the uncanny archeological ability to discover a funky ancient skull in his backyard. Underneath the clothesline. Where his girlfriend/wife is currently drying her clothes. Do people in Scotland never leave their yards or bother using job appropriate equipment? Or is it all haggis and knives? = +5pts
• Not being able to tell the difference between a cow skull and a dinosaur skull. = -3pts
• Building your house on top of the ruins of a burned down convent. = -2pts
• Hey, Capaldi, why’s your lady working on the clothesline with an Allen wrench? We’re pretty sure you can’t farm with that tool. But then again that toothbrush is for teeth cleaning, not polishing the skulls of ancient beasts. They have a brush for that. But you guys go ahead and do whatever with whatever. = -2pts
• Was your big indie music idea to combine The Pouges with Disco? Too late. = +10pts
• Where not sure if the lead singer to the Pogues/Abba fusion band is singing about his drunken escapades, his penis, or foreshadowing the White Worm of the title. = +5pts (For letting his thick brogue add an air of mystery.)
• Colorful and intricate Chinese dragons puppets making an appearance at a party = Fun, whimsical, majestic. Poorly constructed albino worms with loosely attached foam rubber teeth and lopsided eyes making a run at Hugh Grant. = Sad, nauseating, making us not want to go to a party in Scotland ever. = -4pts (Surely, surely, the worm in the finale will look better. Surely.)
• Explaining how to defeat the big evil in a song. = +5pts
• Muddling that explanation by having a Scottish man with an impenetrable accent mangle all the key points. = -5pts
• If our lives depended on your answer to the question of what would be inside of a puppet worm cut in half during a Scottish worm rave/party, what would you guess? If your answer wasn’t "French maid," then we would all be dead. = +4pts
• Hugh Grant has never been this posh. = +2pts (For showing us he always had it in him.)
• Is there a better signal of your poshness than soliciting your local archeologist to dig up some old chastity belts because all your servants are whores? Yes, we can think of about a million. = -8pts
• Hugh Grant just tried to convince us that the lowly earth worm wasn’t always the harmless creature that we view it as today. Just because you didn’t crack up while reading that line, doesn’t mean we believe you. = -1pt
• Calling it the Downton Worm. = (In 1988, 0pts; In 2014, +14pts) net: +14pts
• Romantic midnight exposition in a lonely wood. You got this, Capaldi! = -3pts
• Nothing sets the mood for that first move quite like a woman telling you about how her parents disappeared in that same wood, and about how her boyfriend died on a “water bike.” = +9pts (One of those deaths sounds suspicious. The other sounds like a key plot point to be unearthed later.)
• Sucking poison from the leg of a castoff of an episode of Benny Hill. = -3pts
• In case you were curious about the posh lady who likes to suck poison out of a stranger’s leg, she gives Jesus a little spray after stealing the cow/dinosaur/demon skull. She’s a fan of fluids. = +4pts
• Hugh Grant and horses have one thing in common… They both love to eat raw carrots. = +6pts
• In case you were never given a good enough reason to avoid the bodily fluids of strangers. Here’s one. = -20pts (Stop at 1:20. You know, for spoilers sake.)
• Being so posh that any attempt at sincerity only comes out sounding condescending and irritated. = -2pts
• Those nuns made a great call laying the foundation for their convent right over that immaculate fresco of a white snake/worm wrapped around a red cross. That’ll keep those chastity belts nice and locked! = +5pts
• “Are you into any sort of banging?” = +3pts (Do you even need to ask?)
• Snakes and ladders! Everybody’s favorite pagan board game of ritual sacrifice! = +4pts
• Playing a harmonica to a posh British lady wearing lingerie and thigh-high latex boots. = -6pts
• That leading to a sponge bath with posh British lady. = +6pts
• That leading to being bitten on your junk with posh lady’s giant serpent fangs. = -10pts (For not knowing when to cash in your chips.)
• Exposition interrupting doorbell. = +4pts
• Sexy music playing during scene of vaguely pedophiliac snake woman drowning what we hope is (at least) a teenager with her thigh-high boots. = 0pts (Score pending until age of dead boy/man in bathtub can be verified.)
• Sitting down for drinks with someone in a room in which an underage sex crime clearly must have just taken place. = -4pts
• Hugh Grant’s greatest acting achievement to date has been suppressing an almost pathological poshness in some of his subsequent movies. = +10pts (There is literally nothing he can do in this film without sounding like he's talking through an exquisite bowel movement.)
• Mis-using a Rosebud reference. = -1pts
• Using old-timey Méliès-like movie about music, worms, and women to communicate vital exposition. = +8pts
• Walking into a painting of a cave clearly painted by a 10-year old… and finding your own private jet! = +8pts
• Confusing (musical) score alert! Arrival of sexy three-note Lethal Weapon style sax can mean any one of the following things: Sexy-time, molestation, poisoning, board games, baths, catfights,  female wrestling, tanning, spelunking, sodomy, arrival of a bagpipe
• This scene. = +45pts (In 1988 , +30pts; in 2014, +15pts)
• Suggesting that the entrance to the legendary cave of the Downton Worm is a great place for a picnic. = +4pts (Matthew’s ideas clearly worked!)
• You haven’t heard “women’s lib” spoken so smugly until you’ve heard Hugh Grant say it. = -5pts
• Peter Capaldi’s rants against superstitious brits would be more effective if he delivered them in English and not Scottish. = +2pts (For ensuring the death of many by being incomprehensible.)
• Helping a fashionista stuck in a tree. = -3pts
• Tanning completely naked in any tanning bed built prior to yesterday. = -4pts (That's like putting  down-payment on cancer.)
• Dionin artifact: horn or petrified penis? = No score, just an informal poll!
• Toplessly fellating a bloody spear that has been used to impale nuns in their vaginas. = -25pts
• Stating that the central conflict of your movie between pagan religions and that other pagan religion, Christianity, and playing loosey-goosey with both. = 0pts (A draw.)
• Finding out from your creepy butler that your grandfather boned tons of Turkish belly dancers in search of the perfect “Turkish snake charming tune.” = +8pts
• Sneaking up on your mother while she watches a video of another woman making out with a live snake… = -2pts
• …since, everyone knows that doing so will cause her to bite you and lead to visions of Dionin cultists rapping/stabbing you to death with their sharp Dionin penises. = - 10pts (There’s a reason mom and dad have a lock on the door, kids!)
• Cutting your friend’s mother in half with the family worm fighting sword on the unconfirmed hunch that she is a snake-person. = -3pts
• Is there a greater weapon against an army of snake people than a bagpipe? Yes, actually there are. There are many. Many that don’t rely on the lung capacity of your average Scotsman. We couldn’t help but think that if a single person had visited a NYC subway during this time and seen a boom box, this movie would have been MUCH shorter.  = -4pts
• Out-mystiqueing Mystique. = +3pts
• Dionin codpiece. = -3pts (Seriously, all those buried metal chastity belts make a lot of sense now.)
• Nope. It doesn't. = -3pts
• Oh, Dionin!! Great sarlacc of Earth! Please accept this naked blue pederast in lieu of the blond virgin you were promised! = +10pts
• Having your final scare hinge on what is essentially a clerical error. = -5pts

Total Score: +57pts

During the rigorous five minute internet research we did prior to scoring this film, we learned that Stoker's novel appropriated the legend of the "Lambton" Worm. However, after multiple viewings, with the nanobots detailed calculations supporting our claims, we can, in fact, confirm that said worm in question is repeatedly referred to as the "Downton" Worm. Clearly once Hugh Grant was cast in this movie, poor old Lambton wasn't a posh enough location for a pagan worm/serpent, thus a change to Downton became necessary. And welcomed! IMDB categorizes this film as a horror/comedy, actually as a comedy/horror. And there are certainly enough laugh out loud moments (doorbells!), as well as a bit of horror (molestation and stabby raping). But we'll go ahead and do Stoker a solid and allow this film to retain it cultish sheen. What it lacks the over-the-top gore or horror, of say, a Sam Raimi movie, it definitely makes up for in uncomfortable Re-Animator-like views on sex, which is just as good a reason as any to let it sit in that category with those films. Even if we wouldn't exactly put it on the top shelf. Or the second.

Score Technician: Sean McConnell

Game of Thrones Season 4, Episode 9

So, a quick recap.Yeah, totally worth it...

Like Scientology (roughly) says: "One must repeat the trauma in order to shrink it so that it may fit atop a kale salad with almonds and a shot of wheat grass, and through ingestion, purify the body Theton."

Do you feel better now? Weiss & Benioff (W&B), sensing that viewers may still be traumatized by the events in King's Landing, set out for a trip north. Or, what people in the Midwest call, "Going to Wisconsin."

So what does the Wisconsin of Westeros feel like? Let's ask the nanobots.

• Like the Bible, the oath of the Night's Watch also has quite a few loopholes when it comes to boning. = +8pts
• Fireside chat with giant cannibals is about as stimulating as you'd expect. = -2pts
• Nothing says "we needed to save as much money as possible on this horrifically expensive episode" quite like having the survivor of a massacre wander unnoticed into the shot on top of a hill, directly past the massacre(ers) with her crying baby. = -2pts
• Normally when an old person talks this long about love there's generally a loud explosion, followed by a scene of McBain whupping ass. = +3pts
• Apparently "setting the largest fire the world has ever seen" is the America's equivalent of "preparing for the World Cup." = -5pts (Environmentalisms, yo!)
• Sam promises he won't die right around the time McBain finishes perusing his massive gun cabinet. = +5pts
• Computer animated giants that look suspiciously like actual human giant Greg Oden. = +7pts

• Ygritte with a bow and arrow. = +10pts
• Ser Alliser doing something that doesn't suck or involve a wet blanket. = +3pts
• Computer giant Greg Odens are better at hitting their shots than human giant Greg Oden. = +4pts
• It's not a real battle without at least one scene of someone in authority cowering in the corner. = -2pts (Joffrey sees you with his stone pebble eyes, Janos Slynt! One hopes you have no siblings left to rape each other over your cold dead body. This is Westeros after all. )
• At last we have empirical proof that a real arrow through the throat is worse than a wire arrow worn on top of a head. Where was this "fact" in Cosmos, deGrasse Tyson? You're welcome, science! = +15pts
• Giant running after his burning mammoth. The Westros equivalent of running after your car because you forgot to put on the parking brake. = +13pts (+1pt, for each level of hilarity.)
• Giant in the Tunnel. Try it at your next party! = +7pts
• McBain Snow touches ground just in time to ensure a sequel. = +10pts
• Dire-Wolf Face Eating II: More Eyeballs. = +10pts (For being a sequel that doesn't suck.)
• GOT answers that age old question: "What came first for the hammer? The nail, or the head?" = +3pts
• My name is Olly (ex Machina), you killed my parents and let the canniblas eat them in a stew. Prepare to die. = +7pts (Quick! Somebody get that kid a metal helmet and faceplate!)
• We at The PCS think that screaming at the sight of a giant ice-scythe barreling toward you is a bit of an under-reaction. = +13pts
• If hockey has taught us anything, it's that nothing says sportsmanship quite like skating to center-ice and shaking hands with the army of cannibals/giants/mammoths/wildings you just beat in overtime. Who knew that "Westros" would also translate to "Sportsmanship" in American? = -4pts

Episode Score:  +103pts
Season Score: +409pts

At this point, we should heap even more praise onto W&B. In a single episode, they took what many feel has been the weakest part of the show and thrust it into the foreground. After this episode, it's not hard to see the squabbling in King's Landing as petty and insignificant. What is happening north is what really matters. It's where the real danger is. Mance Rayder is in all likelihood not some martyr in the struggle for the Caucasian looking igloo people, but a man who has the ability to unite people against something really bad. And in Westros, really bad is really, REALLY bad.

It's your serve King's Landing.

Score Technician: Sean McConnell

The Wicker Man (2006)

The late '90s and early '00s were a fantastic time to be Nicolas Cage. An Oscar-winning action star and heartthrob, he made even mediocre films entertaining. It seemed that there wasn't a movie that Nic Cage couldn't make watchable in some shape or form. That was until he starred in Neil LaBute's remake of Robert Hardy’s (who?) 1973 The Wicker Man.

As a motorcycle cop searching for his missing daughter on an island full of bee-loving cultists, Nic Cage's performance is at worst wooden and at best batshit. Both a critical and box office failure, The Wicker Man marked the end of the Golden Era of Nicolas Cage and ushered in nearly a decade of bad movies. From Season of the Witch to Drive Angry to the forthcoming Left Behind remake, Nic Cage might as well just look directly into the camera at the start of each film and say, “Yeah, I need money that bad.”

But is The Wicker Man really as bad as everyone says? The ever-unbiased nanobots will get to the bottom of this mystery!

• Nic Cage warms our hearts by taking a break from fighting crime to return a dolly thrown from a speeding station wagon. = +3pts 
• As if to prove that everything Nic Cage touches is irrevocably destroyed, the station wagon is hit by a truck, catches fire, and then explodes. = -7pts 
• Action-packed scene involving Nicolas Cage Googling bee products. = -4pts 
• Not giving a shit about farming communities. = +5pts 
• When you embark upon a journey to find a missing girl, Drakkar Noir will help you smell like the sort of guy she'll want to follow home. = +3pts 
• Confusing the words “pilot” and “pirate,” Nic Cage makes a bad first impression by shouting to his pilot, “Ahoy there!” = -4pts 
• Upon arriving on the island, Nic Cage is given the willies by some guys hefting a drippy burlap. After the initial willies pass, he can't be arsed to find out what's really inside. = +2pts 
• Continuing the trend of making bad first impressions, Nic Cage swats an obviously sacred honey bee in front of a mannish mead-wench. = -7pts 
• The most interesting thing to happen thus far is Nic Cage getting sweaty and falling through a floor. = +3pts (At least it's something!) 
• Leelee Sobieski reprises her famous role as Girl Who Isn't Helen Hunt. = -2pts 
• There's nothing creepy about a group of pregnant women walking through the forest – nothing at all. Seriously, it's not creepy, so turn off the creepy music. = -6pts 
• Laughing at schoolyard dick jokes. = +3pts 
• Immediately misusing the word “quixotic” after being given the definition by a pretentious schoolmarm. = -8pts 
• Nic Cage's mumbling misinterpretation part one: “This where you last Samhain?” = +3pts 
• Nic Cage's mumbling misinterpretation part two: “Do you have last year's fart ring?” = +3pts 
• Even though it's crystal clear that Nic Cage's probably-daughter is probably dead, that's not gonna stop Nic Cage from running amok while trying to find her! = +4pts 
• Nic Cage nearly kills a guy by knocking over a bunch of logs and then immediately flees the scene on his bicycle. = +4pts 
• Though it's been established that Nic Cage is allergic to bees, he still runs wildly through an apiary instead of taking the viable alternative of going around it. = -9pts 
• Ellen Burstyn explains why the island loves bees in such a boring manner that even the nanobots couldn't... oh, sorry, we dozed off there. = -11pts 
• Hanging a crucifix in your septic tank. = -3pts 
• Nic Cage's mumbling misinterpretation part three: “Bear's island shut the lid!” = +3pts 
• How the doll got burned will forever remain one of cinema's greatest unanswered questions. = +15pts
• Stealing a bike at gunpoint is as ridiculously badass as it sounds. = +5pts 
• No longer content to shout at adults, Nic Cage shouts at little girls and then ruins their masquerade. = +4pts 
• In case the audience has yet to notice that the theme of The Wicker Man is futility, Nic Cage tries to shake awake a bloody corpse. = -7pts 
• Nic Cage proves himself to be an equal opportunity ass-whupper by sucker punching the mannish bar maid and kung-fu kicking Helen Hunt, Jr. = +13pts 
• Using a bear costume to infiltrate a cultist parade. = +5pts 
• Punching a woman in the face while wearing said bear costume. = +8pts 
• The big reveal of how everything that happened to Nic Cage was orchestrated to prevent crops from failing. = -50pts 
• “Killing me won't bring back your goddamn honey!” Nor will it give us back our 102  minutes. = -6pts 
• With one swift blow, Nicolas Cage becomes Crippolas Cage. = +5pts 
• Yes, the bees. = +25pts 
• The parallel between Nicolas Cage's character burning alive inside of the Wicker Man and Nicolas Cage's career burning alive in The Wicker Man is too much for the poor nanobots. = -10pts 
• Rather than dedicating this film to Johnny Ramone, it would have been a bigger honor for the filmmakers to dig up his grave and use his corpse to re-enact Weekend at Bernie's II. = -15pts

Total Score: -27
Available on DVD, YouTube, and, sadly, Nicolas Cage's resume

The nanobots never lie: this movie blew. Aside from the last quarter of the film's scenes of unintentionally genius hilarity, the movie was just straight-up boring. The acting is stilted, the dialog forced, and the characters simultaneously uninteresting and brazenly stupid.

Was the movie worth a watch just to see Nic Cage in a bear suit or getting his face covered in bees? Given that YouTube's Best Scenes from The Wicker Man run time is two minutes, we're gonna say no.

We really don't recommend that you watch this movie in full; however, if you insist, then be sure to pack a Scorecard along with your novelty-sized bottle of Drakkar Noir.

Score Technician: TJ Geise

Game of Thrones Season 4, Episode 8

After a week's hiatus, the moment we've all been waiting for is here: the verdict of Tyrion Lannister. Time to drown this episode in nanobots!

• Belching time-honored songs, being quick with pithy cock jokes, and an unreasonably nasty disposition regarding babies just so happen to be the top three qualities this technician looks for in a whore. = +10pts 
• Making a “Burn our corpses so that we don't come back as zombies” pact with your bros. = +8pts 
• That awkward moment when a eunuch stares at a naked woman a little too long. = -4pts 
• No one does a rack of ribs like Theon and Ramsay. = +6pts 
• After isolating all other sounds from the scene, the nanobots confirmed that yes, you can actually hear Lord Baelish's arousal at witnessing Sansa lie like a cheap watch. = +5pts 
• We were really hoping that Littlefinger would save his joke about Robin leaving the nest for when he inevitably pushes the little creep through the Moon Door. = -2pts 
• Ser Jorah is exiled from the friend zone in a manner he didn't quite expect. Nothing backs up a restraining order quite like a trio of dragons. = +7pts 
• Erupting into giggle-fits upon the news that your crazy-ass auntie's death deprived your burly protector of his ransom. = +10pts 
• Whew, and we thought we were the only ones who turned jokes at the expense of our mentally challenged cousin into long, disturbing stories about stalking him to gain insight into intellectual disability. = +3pts 
• Jaime gives us our new favorite saying: “Who gives a dusty fuck?” = +11pts 
• Tywin's use of the Westerosi Wrap It Up Box on Maester Pycelle. = + 8pts 
• For the first time on camera, Oberyn dazzles a fully-clothed audience with his adroit spear-shaft handling. = +7pts 
• Hell-bent for leather and screaming for vengeance, Oberyn rams the painkiller down into its point of entry: The Mountain's jugulator. = +40pts 
• The nanobots had to have their memories of this episode' s final moments wiped to stop their keening, so we're going to fill this spot with our own reactions: 
• Okay, Oberyn, stop ranting. = -4pts 
• Dude, calm down... you won. Seriously, just finish him off . = -8 pts 
• Oberyn, what the fuck are you doing, man? Don't get so close to him! = -16 pts 
• Did he just get all of his teeth punched out? Wait, now what's happen– no... not in his... oh- shit-oh-fuck-oh-god-OH-NOOOOO!!! WHY, GEORGE R. R. MARTI N, WHY!? = -24pts 

Episode Score: +57pts
Season Score: +306pts

It's a running joke that Game of Thrones fans are psychologically traumatized by the deaths of their beloved characters. Fans jeer at this by saying things like, “ Oh, that guy they killed wasn't that cool,” or “At least that other guy I like is still live” or, perhaps most famously, “They spoiled Ned Stark's death the moment they cast Sean Bean in the role.” We here at The Progressive Cinema Scorecard are among those fans. We keep that tug at the back of our minds saying, “Save yourself the misery and don't get too attached to this character because (s)he's probably gonna die.”

In his short time on the show, Oberyn charmed us with his scoundrel's taste for hot sex with anything alive and won our hearts with his righteous fury against t he Lannisters. He was funny, he was handsome, and he was going to save Tyion. There was never any reason to believe that he'd lose. The fact that Tyrion and Jaime joke about him losing the fight just seemed like a device to get us more excited about his inevitable win.

It was because of this that Oberyn's death left us thunder struck. It wasn't telegraphed like the many, many characters before him. Ned Stark's death had episodes of build up, the Red Wedding was foreshadowed up and down, and even dance master Syrio Forel's death was inevitable given that he refused to fight with an actual sword. All the warning we got came from Tyrion's special cousin story along with half-jokes about how Oberyn shouldn't be getting soused and go into the fight without armor.

For Oberyn to be killed so gruesomely (the screaming...sweet heavens, the screaming...) wasn't just a shock; it just wasn't fair. It's like if Count Rugen threw his dagger into Inigo Montoya's eye so hard that it blew out the back of his skull.

Oh, well. At least The Red Viper and The Mountain That Rides are BFFs in real life.

Score Technician: TJ Geise

Children of Corn

Children of the Corn. You all know this one: a hapless couple wanders into a remote small town where the kids have murdered their parents in the name of some ominous pagan deity, He Who Walks Behind the Rows. The movie stars a pre-Terminator Linda Hamilton and is based on a classic Stephen King short story, made during the period when King was transitioning from being the enfant terrible of horror into its reigning sovereign. Sounds like a recipe for a baller-ass horror movie to us, and we’re not the only ones. But as any loyal Scorehard should know, flesh is a weak and fallible thing, and the only true metric of movie quality is the pitiless gaze of science.

• Getting a 9-year-old to narrate your horror movie. = -9pts
• Job’s milkshake mustache during the malt shop massacre. = +11pts
• Sarah, the obligatory child with psychic powers. = -5pts (A time-honored Stephen King standby.)
• Credit sequence using Sarah’s drawings provides an excellent means of visual exposition for the events following the slaughter of Gatlin’s adults, while also contributing to the overall atmosphere of dread. = +24pts
• Male lead Burt is a poor man’s James Woods. = -3pts
• It’s difficult to tell, because the writing is so subtle and nuanced, but we THINK that the filmmakers want us to understand that Linda Hamilton is feeling unfulfilled in her relationship because of Burt’s unwillingness to commit. = -12pts
• Although, Burt’s reluctance is understandable, since we’re pretty sure her character is bipolar. = -7pts
• Burt doesn’t have time to have birthday sex with Linda Hamilton because he’s got to drive a bunch more miles to get to his medical internship, or whatever. John Connor is never going to get conceived at this rate. = -6pts
• We keep waiting for Michael Biehn to show up from the future and warn Linda Hamilton not to star in this movie. = +4pts
• Burt and Linda Hamilton have a copy of Night Shift on their dashboard. = +10pts
• It’s a sign of a quality screenplay when you use voiceover narration to explain things that the characters say literally fractions of a second afterwards. = -13pts
• While helping an older boy escape from Gatlin, Job demonstrates his skills as a lookout by yelling “OKAY! GO! NOBODY’S LOOKING!” at the top of his tiny little lungs. = -11pts
• Upon running over a dying child in the middle of the highway, Burt does the logical thing and stows the corpse in his trunk. = -8pts (Cops are very understanding about things like that.)
• We realize that Malachi is supposed to be the kiddie cult's scary enforcer, but this dude is basically Napolean Dynamite with a machete. = -30pts

• Linda Hamilton and Burt encounter the requisite crazy old coot who tries to convince them to drive past Gatlin. = +5pts
• The guy playing Isaac, the leader of the kiddie cult, was apparently in his twenties but suffered from a disorder that retarded his aging process. This explains why he's so much better of an actor than every other child in this movie. = +14pts
• Some of the kids in this cornfield revival are clearly pushing thirty. = -9pts
• Remains of a cop nailed to a cross made out of corn. = +28pts
• '80s fashion alert: pleated Bermuda shorts. = -3pts
• We honestly cannot tell if the mixed-up road signs Burt is following are supposed to lead him to Gatlin or away from it. = -4pts
• Murdering a crazy old coot is one thing, Malachi, but leave his dog out of it! = -2pts
• “Hey, a creepy abandoned house standing vacant in the middle of a town where a bunch of feral children tried to make off with my car. Let's do the logical thing and explore it.” = -11pts
• “And now, Linda Hamilton, you should stay here alone with this little girl we found while I ignore every sign of danger surrounding me and go look for city hall.” = -7pts
• The defaced portraits of Christ in the abandoned city hall are way creepy. = +8pts
• All the kiddie cultists snuck into the house where Linda Hamilton and Sarah are waiting through different entrances, yet they all approach her from the same direction. = -4pts
• Burt finds a group of kids in the town church celebrating a blood ritual with Amos in honor of the passage of his 19th year. In 2014 = +10pts; in 1981 = -19pts. Net score = -9pts (AIDS was going on, man.)
• With the kiddie cultists on his tail, Burt takes shelter in a dark old workshop. Getting the drop on his pursuers, Burt shins Malachi with a mallet then proceeds to drop his weapon and smash his face on a pillar on the way out. We're not sure how this guy survived puberty, let alone made it through med school. = -13pts
• Neither the threat of violence to Linda Hamilton, nor Malachi’s Chewbacca impression can draw Burt out of hiding. = +12pts
• Job and Sarah protect Burt in their dad’s doomsday bunker. Thank God for preppers. = +6pts
• Malachi turns the kiddie cultists against Isaac, and the revolution eats its own. = +4pts
• Isaac's death. = -50pts
• Burt lays Malachi low with a savage pimp slapping. = +10pts
• Zombie Isaac consumes Malachi, and the revolution eats its own (brains). = +8pts
• “Burt, you survived! I guess we still have to have that commitment talk.” = -9pts
• He Who Walks Behind the Rows is vulnerable to fire. We should have known; fire is the natural enemy of rotoscoped visual effects. = -3pts
• The corn field tries to reenact Evil Dead tree rape scene. = -7pts
• Seeing as how Burt managed to completely douse himself in ethanol, he should go up like a candle as soon as he strikes a flame. = -18pts
• Angry monster mushroom cloud. = -34pts

• The movie’s denouement just sort of shuffles off the screen with all the abruptness of a C-student concluding a speech in a remedial public speaking class. Was Children of the Corn a comedy this whole time and we just didn’t realize it? = -40pts
• Hey, wait, was there ANY point to Sarah having psychic powers? Their impact on the plot was so negligible they might as well not have existed. = -22pts
• Also, as lame as that kiddie voiceover was at the beginning, it’s kind of tacky that it just disappeared entirely after the first 20 minutes of the movie. = -13pts

Total Score = -218pts
Available On: Netflix streaming

Despite the inherent creepiness of its premise, Children of the Corn ends up being a real shit show. Amateurish performances and clunky storytelling hamper it throughout, but it’s in the last twenty minutes where the wheels fall off the bus entirely, where terrible monster effects and a comically perplexing ending propel this flaming car wreck into unheard of heights of camp glory. Maybe instead of remaking The Thing and Robocop, Hollywood could turn its attention towards this little piece of unrealized greatness. In the hands of the right director, there’s no reason why this couldn’t be scary as hell.

Score Technician: Joe Hemmerling