Heavy Metal

sequart.org

Score Technicians: Stacey Hanlon and John Ormond

In April of 1977, the first issue of the science fiction and fantasy adult comics magazine, Heavy Metal was published by National Lampoon. It was based on a French magazine called Métal Hurlant, which translates to English as “Howling Metal.” Since the English version was a licensed property, we have no idea why one of the most badass titles of all time, “Howling Metal,” was tossed aside for a name that was already being used to describe a very specific form of music, one that really doesn’t have anything to do with the magazine and isn’t used to its full advantage in this movie’s soundtrack, but we will get to that later.

The anthology film Heavy Metal was released in 1981. Produced by Lampoon’s Ivan Reitman, this animated classic marks the first time that many of the animators worked on something other than cartoons for children and this is the first adult content animated film to have any kind of box office success. So, how will this film look 34 years after its release? Will it still shock and awe or will it look like a cave painting to our CGI engorged senses? It’s time for science to lead us to the final word on the subject. Let’s take a ride on Heavy Metal!

• After a hard day of astronauting in outer space, Grimaldi makes an unshielded re-entry through earth’s atmosphere in a ’59 Corvette convertible because that’s how single dads in the Heavy Metal universe roll. = +9pts

adamantiumbullet.com 

Parachute courtesy of Umbrella Corporation.

• In a classic divorced-dad move, Grimaldi grabs a last-minute gift for his daughter at the Space Gas-N-Go, but all they had left was a crappy Loc-Nar. =-6pts 
• Turns out the Loc-Nar is the source of all evil. Thanks, dad! = -66pts 

adamantiumbullet.com

Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball.

• The Loc-Nar, which can’t shut up about itself, proceeds to tell the story of its appearance in dystopian New York City in 2031. We know it’s dystopian because the radio only plays Steely Dan. = -8pts 
• Introducing Harry Canyon: a futuristic cab driver who talks, thinks and acts like a hard-boiled detective from the 1940’s. = +4pts 
• The beautiful, sexy, and scared daughter of a famous archaeologist and Loc-Nar discoverer jumps into Harry’s cab fleeing from her father’s murderers. Harry rethinks his “never get involved” policy. We wonder why. = -10pts 

adamantiumbullet.com

Pictured, left to right: Reasons #1 and #2.

• The cops in dystopian New York City won’t investigate a crime unless you pay them up front. Choke holds are still free. = -7pts 
• At Harry’s apartment, he acts very casual and disinterested in his new female friend, but, c’mon, you only play Journey’s “Open Arms” for two reasons: sexy times and fumbling around on a middle school dance floor. = -4pts 
• Harry scores! Sexy times it is. = +8pts 
• In true film noir style, The Maltese Loc-Nar forces a double-cross and Harry narrates himself into the sunset. = +7pts 
• In the story “Den,” John Candy is transported through space and time into the front cover of the D&D Player’s Handbook. = +13pts 
• There, his body is transformed from nerdy high school boy into Dr. Manhattan. His brain, unfortunately, doesn’t make the transition. = -2pts 
• In Conan the Barbarian-esque fashion, Dr. Man-Candy performs a daring underwater rescue, sexes two sexy ladies sexily, frees an entire population from their oppressive rulers and resists the evil of the Loc-Nar. = +16pts 
• In a sexy fashion. = +12pts 
• Sorry if you like the next story, “Captain Sternn”—we nodded off. It may have had something to do with the Loc-Nar showing up where it had no role, served no purpose and performed no function. Like Wil Wheaton in virtually any photo. = -24pts 

imgur.com

Case in point.

• “B-17” begins with the song “Heavy Metal (Takin’ a Ride)” which is a damnable lie. This song, by Don Felder, couldn’t sound more like the Eagles if it were pretending to be a cowboy while snorting mountains of cocaine off of Linda Ronstadt’s butt in the lobby of the Hotel California. = -17pts 
• After taking heavy anti-aircraft fire, the co-pilot of the eponymous B-17 leaves the cockpit to see how badly the crew is injured. Let’s put it this way: no one will be making their connecting flight. = -9pts 
• Meanwhile, the Loc-Nar shows up taking the form of a Foo Fighter that turns the crew into animated gut-spewing, pestilent zombies. OK, the Loc-Nar is finally getting its shit together. = +25pts 
• The pilot, having had it with these motherfuckin’ zombies on this motherfuckin’ plane, parachutes to safety. = +7pts 
• Or not. = +10pts 
• Our next story has all of the drug references and misogynistic “humor” that we expect from 1981. This story could easily have been called, “Cheech and Chong: Up in Space.” = -30pts 
• Not even the voice talent of Harold Ramis, Eugene Levy and John Candy can redeem this meandering storyline. = -26pts 
• The final scenes of this piece are at least buoyed up by Sammy Hagar’s “Heavy Metal.” Let’s enjoy this live clip from 1983 of Sammy totally rockin’ it before we move on. = +30pts 
• So far, the Loc-Nar has talked a good game of ultimate evil, but its performance has been spotty at best. We consider screaming out of the sky and crash landing into a volcano on an earthlike planet to be a promising start to this final vignette. = +40pts 
• The Loc-Nar spews green slime over the unsuspecting people who come to investigate the crash and transforms them into evil mutants. Although Jenny McCarthy maintains that this was caused by the MMR vaccine. = -9pts 
• We finally have a song by Dio-era Black Sabbath backing a scene where giant bat mounted mutants overwhelm a peaceable city with laser rifles, spearguns and flamethrowers. \,,,/ = +100pts 
• The inhabitants of Peaceable City turn on the Bat-signal, in effect, and call a Taarakian—a lone swordswoman from a legendary race of warriors—to come and defend their peaceable-ness. = +7pts 
• Taarna the Taarakian answers the call by flying a really long distance on her adorable dino-pigeon mount to some kind of temple of power where her combat gear and weapon are stored. = +6pts 
• Look, animators, we get that you wanted to show off your pre-computer rotoscoping skills. But we can’t help thinking that if Taarna had lived a little closer to the Temple of Thongs and Magic, she might have gotten to Peaceable City in time to save at least one of its inhabitants. = -15pts 
• Taarna tracks some of the bad guys to a Star Wars-style cantina in the next town over. Tonight’s entertainment? Animated Devo! = +70pts

agentpalmer.com

Exactly how we pictured them.

• Taarna dispatches the mutants in the bar by executing a totally sweet triple decapitation. She then goes on to survive capture, defeat the leader of the mutants in a sword/circular saw battle and destroy the Loc-Nar. = +63pts

taarna.net

Do not mess with Taarakian Bitch-face.

• Heavy Metal Fast Facts:
  • The Loc-Nar went on to star in such films as Pulp Fiction and Repo Man. = +7pts 
  • South Park did a sublime send-up called “Major Boobage.” = +40pts 
  • Dan O’Bannon, writer of Alien and director of Return of the Living Dead wrote two of the stories in this movie. = +17pts 
  • In 2011, the rights were purchased by director Robert Rodriguez. So far, no specific plans for it have been announced. = +20pts 

Total score = +278pts
Available on: DVD and Blu-ray

Heavy Metal delivers solid pre-computer animation, a great Rock ‘n Roll soundtrack, and even a well placed orchestral score by Elmer Bernstein. Its overall fun factor is pretty high and it definitely earns its place in filmmaking history. Where it falls short, however, is on its promise to deliver “adult” entertainment opting for less satisfying adolescent entertainment.

We gave Don Felder some shit earlier for his song, “Heavy Metal (Takin’ a Ride),” but you just try and get that damn thing out of your head.

Manborg

Score Technician: TJ Geise

When humanity loses the war against the armies of Hell, led by Count Draculon, a small group of renegades fights for survival in the twisted neon netherrealm that is Earth. Just as all seems lost, they gain their most powerful ally: Manborg!

The nanobots react well to films with robotic protagonists (because they’re, at their core, tremendous racists), so we dumped them all over this cult hit from Astron-6. Did they enjoy it? Spoiler alert: how couldn’t they?

• Including an old-school “Stay tuned after the feature for upcoming titles” message before starting the film. +3pts 
• Refusing to abandon all hope, the armies of mankind battle Hell with WWII-era weaponry. Unsurprisingly, they lose to Hell’s claymation Terminators and mouthless foot soldiers. = -5pts 
• Just when you think you’ll die from actually getting shot for real on the battlefield, you’re instead made into a snack for a robo-Dracula from Hell. = -3pts 
• The abject joy on Count Draculon’s face as his soldiers turn the man-who-would-be-Manborg into a human spaghetti strainer. = +4pts 

http://www.schnittberichte.com/pics/SBs/200/994973/cap004.jpg

• Having the credits open on a bloody montage of Manborg becoming Manborg. = +7pts 
• Manborg’s every movement is accompanied by the same sorts of whirs and vrooms you’d expect from a futuristic robo-man. = +6pts 
• Dubbing over #1 Man, the shirtless kung-fu wonder, with Dragon Ball Z’s narrator. = +15pts 
• Being pulled into the shadows as a snack for a shadow medusa. = -4pts 
• After being commanded to halt by the bad guys, Manborg shouts, “Nope,” and slowly turns to walk away. = +3pts 
• New Hell is a fluorescent nightmare pastiche of Blade Runner, Space Invaders, and Ghost in the Shell in all the right ways. = +5pts 
• The Baron, an eyeless leather daddy with a permanent grin, lights up a cigarette and then gives a little cough after the first puff. = +2pts 
• Justice, the gun-toting mix of Billy Lee and Billy Idol, speaks exactly how you’d imagine a Canadian to think an Australian accent should sound like. = +7pts 
• When asked his name, Manborg just sort of comes up with Manborg on the fly. We’re going to see how calling ourselves Skinpants works the next time we’re making a reservation at Red Lobster. = -3pts 
• Kicking the crutch out from under a guy wearing a dismantled Commodore 64 for a brassiere. = -6pts 
• Being immediately smitten with Justice’s blue-haired sister, Mina, The Baron fumbles his words like an awkward, eyeless, leather-clad teenager. = +9pts 
• Robotic jailers disapprove of dancing, regardless of how passionately the prisoner is getting down with his bad self. = -2pts 
• The heroes battle for their lives! 
  • Mina attacks with anime-inspired cutscenes that literally cut up bad guys. = +3ps 
  • #1 Man out-karates every opponent = +3pts 
  • Justice phases laser pistols into his hands and blows a dude’s arms off. = +3pts 
  • Manborg screams in terror as he loses control of his wildly-firing machine gun arm and falls onto his back (proving what Bender knew all along -- robots can’t roll onto their stomachs).
  = -7pts
• “Shenanigrams.” = +8pts 
• Manborg not getting the difference between a hitchhiker’s thumb and a thumbs up. = +5pts 

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• The Baron seeks love advice from Dr. Scorpius only to be chastised for taking up cigarettes again. = +11pts 
• Giving your death arena a badass name like Terror-Octagon but then calling its undefeated champion The Champion instead of, like, The Destructinator or the Annihilist. = -6pts 
• Felling a skull-faced meat-goliath with a well-timed elbow-rocket. = +3pts 
• Manborg reacts to threats against his friends as you would expect from the film’s protagonist: with disaffected sass. = +8pt 
• Having your hair go white (in an awesome time-lapse) after unleashing the armies of Hell in the name of science. = +7pts (score technicians are accustomed to doing stupid things in the name of science) 
• Actual interaction from the film: “Take this future cassette.” “Thanks, man.” = +5pts 
• Disappointing the man who rebuilt you by showing an utter lack of comprehension for urban social hand gestures. = +6pts 
• Bringing flowers to the woman you love only to find out that she escaped your prison. = -4pts 
• Having your demonic vampire boss catch you holding a bouquet and incredulously asking if it’s for him. = +13pts 
• Trying to hide behind boxes when you’re a clumsy, noisy robot man. = -3pts 
• Electric Tentacle Execution is the name of your new favorite melodic synthcore brostep artist. = -5pts 
• Justice’s irrational fear of hobos is as strong as his uncontrollable urge to pet little people. = +6pts. 
• Getting baited into infiltrating the bad guy’s lair by a miniature junkyard replica of said bad guy. = +3pts 
• Canada alert: enjoying Kraft Dinner as a delicious meal. = +2pts 
• The jovial-yet-wise hologram of Dr. Scorpius becomes the Obi-Wan to Manborg’s Luke. = +4pts 
• What better way to show the heroes honing their battle skills for the final battle than with a guitar-driven MONTAGE! = +8pts 
• Mina vs. Shadow-Mega just barely fails the Bechdel Test. = -4pts (unless screaming counts as a conversation) 
• Nunchucking a bad guy’s head off. = +6pts 
• Count Draculon’s final form looks like the badassiest Masters of the Universe figure you never had. = +4pts 
• Justice’s gunslinging technique can best be described as “dance aerobics.” = +3pts 
• Having not one, but three final showdowns of good against evil! = +30pts 
• Live grenades are just as good at dispatching evildoers as they are at teaching the illiterate how to read. = +6pts 
• The Baron dies as he lives: never feeling the love of another. = -10pts 
• Beating the king of the bad guys is a victory that only tastes sweet when all of your party members survive the fight. = -6pts 
• Dumping the liquid that powers your mechanical body into your dead friend’s mouth with surprisingly effective results. = +5pts 
• Having your dying vision be the ghost of your brother telling you that there is no heaven. = -50pts 
• Making good on the promise of a trailer and having said trailer be for Bio-Cop! =+100pts (why is he still alive!?) 
• Including tongue-in-cheek copyright warnings in both English and French. = +6pts 

Total Score = +192pts
Available: Videodisc, future cassette, and DVD

Manborg is a three-cheese blend of CGI, stop-motion, and practical effects that will appeal to sci-fi geeks, gorehounds, and VHS nostalgia-lovers. If that doesn’t sound like the cinematic equivalent of high-fiving your best friend, then are you sure you’re on the right website? This is a film tailor-made for the nanobots, and they loved every robo-technology-enhanced minute of it.

The costume, creature, and character designs are very well done despite the film’s shoestring budget. The dialog goes from serious to tongue-in-cheek to outright ridiculous at a moment’s notice. In short, if you like cyborgs, kung-fu, and hell Draculas, then Manborg is just the shenanigram you’re looking for.

Strange Days

Score Technician: Joe Hemmerling

 Strange Days was a collaboration between former Hollywood power-couple James Cameron and Kathryn Bigelow. Taking place in the far-off future of 1999, Strange Days imagines a world where advanced neurotechnology called S.Q.U.I.D. makes it possible for individuals to record their memories and share them with others, resulting in a black market where any experience you want is yours for the asking. So what could a movie about the near-future, set our past, tell us about the present day?

• A Strange Days Scorecard Drinking Game: Try watching this film with the commentary track enabled, and take a shot every time Bigelow uses the word "shredding" to describe the digital pixilation effect that occurs whenever a recorded memory clip begins or ends. Note that the PCS is not responsible for any injury or death incurred during such a game. = +17pts 
• Number of times criminals say "fuck" during the Chinese restaurant heist in the film's opening: 31 = +31pts 
• Pausing to smoke rock in the middle of a robbery. = +4pts 
• Ralph Fiennes' Lenny jacks into the big black. And it's way less dirty than it sounds. = -3pts 
• Cameron and Bigelow thought that in the future, the economy would be shitty, gas would be over $3.00 a gallon, and 5th graders would be shooting each other on the playground. But the joke's on them, because gas is only $2.48. = +8pts 
• Lenny apparently decided to take the shortcut home through some Mad Max pick-up footage. = +6pts 

• Radio talk show host needing a caller to gloss the term "2K." = -7pts 
• Cops chasing after a runaway prostitute open fire on a crowded subway train like it's an unarmed black teenager. = -17pts 
• Related: apparently Los Angeles has a subway. = +4pts (Who knew?) 
• Related: homicidal cops played by pre-Criminal Intent Vincent D'onofrio and the turtley looking guy from Armageddon. = +2pts
• We wonder what the advent of the iPod would have done to S.Q.U.I.D. technology. The little mini-discs they use to trade clips are just adorable. = +3pts 
• Back in the safety of his apartment, Lenny wiretrips on a clip from his relationship with Faith (Juliet Lewis), who, in a long-sleeve shirt, black thong, and pair of roller skates, is wearing about as much clothing as she'll ever be throughout the entire movie. = -2pts 
• Morning news report fills us in on L.A.'s security preparations for New Years Eve and the assassination of prominent hip-hop artist Jeriko One. Related: "Hip-hop" in James Cameron's mind is just a black guy yelling at white people over some loose beats. For correctly (if prematurely) predicting the arrival of Death Grips. = +18pts 
• Lenny's monologue. Man is the Don Draper of smut peddlers. = +40pts 

• Tom Sizemore as Max, Lenny's ex-cop-turned-private-eye best buddy. Related: why hasn't Tom Sizemore had a Mickey Rourke-esque shot at a comeback? = +7pts 
• Iris (the prostitute from earlier) drops the clip the cops were chasing her for into Lenny's car, then goes into the bar to tell him it's there. Which begs the question why she didn't just bring it in and hand it to him in the first place. = -2pts 
• ...And which would have saved us all a lot of trouble, because she just got scared off by sirens before she could explain anything, and now Lenny's car is getting repoed. = -6pts 
• Angela Basset as limo-driver/bodyguard/put-upon acquaintance/terminally friend-zoned paramour/all-around badass Mace! = +46ps 
• Also, in case it's not abundantly clear by now, most of the character's names are super-on-the-nose reflective of their role in the film. It's just something we're all going to have to deal with. = -10pts 
• Michael Wincott as music mogul Philo Gant, label-runner for Jeriko One and guy-that-Juliet-Lewis-is fucking. Fun fact: up until federal trust-busting action in 2002 dismantled his empire, Wincott had a monopoly on playing dirtbags throughout the '90s.= +12pts 
• Asking your limo-driving friend to cart your ass around town while she's on the clock. = -4pts 
• Peddling your black market memory recordings to her client while she scowls at you through the rear-view mirror. = -8pts 
• Doing all of the above while giving her this look. = -16pts

There's not a definition of "shit-eating grin" in the dictionary, but if there was, this would be right next to it.

• Lenny convinces Mace's client to swing by The Retinal Fetish with him. Inside, there's a metal band playing, a Nazi book-burning, cage dancing, body-piercing, and some kind of shooting gallery. LA was a wild place in '99. If you went in there, now, it would probably just be a bunch of bored twenty-somethings looking at their phones while someone spliced together elevator music samples on a laptop. = +6pts 
• After a failed attempt at parlay with Faith about Iris, Lenny gets thrown into the street by one of Gant's bodyguards, prompting this technician's wife to observe that, "in the future everything looks wet." = +7pts 
• For years, this technician thought that the part of Gant's female body guard was played by Belinda McClory (Switch from The Matrix). It is literally only as of this analysis that he realizes he was mistaken. = No score; just a confession. 

We can't be the only ones...

• The running clip that Lenny slips to the Retinal Fetish's paraplegic AV guy. = +14pts (*sniff*) 
• Juliette Lewis performing an outtake from P.J. Harvey's Rid of Me writing sessions. = +25pts 

• 0:53: Ladies and gentlemen, the Crypt Keeper on violin. = +10pts 
• While arguing with Lenny in the ladies room, Faith nonchalantly slips her top off, as if we couldn't already see enough of her boobs through her Fredrick's of Moria chainmail tank top. = -5pts 
• Juliette Lewis is much better at delivering P.J. Harvey's dialogue than James Cameron's. = -14pts 
• While Mace drives him back home, Lenny watches a clip left for him at the club by some anonymous admirer. The clip depicts its creator sneaking into Iris's hotel room, hooking her up her own S.Q.U.I.D. rig and plugging her into his feed so she can feel what he feels as he rapes and murders her. If there had been trigger warnings in 1999, this definitely should have come with one. = -20pts 
• Lenny shows the clip to Max, who wants to "work" the clip for clues, saying, "C'mon, Lenny, you used to be good at this shit." From working vice? Maybe if the clip depicted someone selling a shipment of black-market porno mags... = -4pts 
• To deliver the news about Iris, Lenny and Mace head over to Gant's home. Like most scenes in this film, it ends with Lenny receiving a beating.= +2pts 
• Mace thinks back to a time when Lenny was more than an eccentrically dressed burden to be rescued from beatings and carted from shithole to shithole. = +9pts 
• Lenny wakes up to find a new clip from the rapist, this time depicting the man sneaking into Lenny's apartment while he was sleeping and scratching his neck with a box cutter. Could have been worse, Lenny. Guy could have drawn a penis on your forehead. = +3pts 
• While breaking into the impound to retrieve Iris's clip from Lenny's car, Mace and Lenny are confronted by the two cops who were after Iris. What ensues is a badass car chase that ends with Mace most certainly being out of a job. = +13pts 
• Holed up with some of Mace's relatives, Lenny finally watches the clip that Iris died over. It depicts the two cops that tried to kill them shooting Jeriko One, his friend, and another prostitute execution style during what seemed to be a routine traffic stop, which...are we sure this movie is set in 1999 and not 2014? = -25pts 
• "You know what this tape could do if it got out?" Unfortunately, in the wake of Eric Garner's murder, we know EXACTLY what a tape like that could do if it got out. = -25pts 
• Upon finding Tick, one of Lenny's clip connects ODed on playback, Max informs Lenny and Mace of rumors about a secret "police death squad." Which sounds totally paranoid and...um... ah, hell. = -25pts 
• Faith reveals to Lenny that Gant sent Iris to spy on Jeriko One, that he knew all about the contents of her clip, and that he was most likely the one responsible for Iris' death. We don't really have a joke for this; there's just a lot of plot to this movie, and it's all important for you to understand. = +2pts 
• Lenny attempts to rescue Faith from Gant's clutches. Predictably, he does a terrible job at it. = -3pts (The man is not a fighter.) 
• Angela Basset turns James Cameron's overwrought dialogue into something like poetry. = +16pts 
• Lenny and Mace infiltrate LA's NYE gala in order to trade Faith for the recording of Jeriko One's murder. How they obtained invitations to this exclusive event is not important and you should stop asking about it. = +3pts 
• Lenny tells Mace to deliver the clip to Commissioner Strickland, the cop responsible for destroying Lenny's police career. Surprisingly, the Commissioner does not react well to a strange black woman offering him contraband in the men's restroom. = -4pts 
• Lenny finds Faith's hotel room trashed and empty, except for a body underneath a blanket, and another clip from his secret admirer waiting for him. The clip does not contain what Lenny is expecting. = +5pts 
• Whoof, okay, lot to lay out here, so stay with us. So the big reveal is that the mystery rapist is Max, who seems to be auditioning for a role as a Bond villain, and therefore lays out every detail of his scheme to Lenny: 
  1. Max and Faith have been carrying on a secret affair ever since Gant hired him to tail her.
  2. Gant paid Max to put a hit on both Iris and Faith in the wake of the Jeriko One murder. 
  3. Max killed Gant and intends to put the frame on Lenny by killing Lenny as well. 
  4. All that stuff about a "police death squad" was just a smoke screen to keep Lenny and Mace away from the cops; Jeriko One's murder was totally random.
  = +6pts 
• Just one thing, though. Being an ex-cop himself, why wouldn't Max just have gone to the police with Gant's murder-for-hire conspiracy? He could STILL have gotten Faith without having to leave a trail of bodies behind him longer than a late-period Stephen King novel. = -12pts 
• With a little help from Faith, Lenny ends up in a fight for his life with Max, bringing the total number of characters in the film who have not kicked Lenny's ass down to zero. = +8pts 
• Max does a Hans Gruber off of Faith's Balcony. = +4pts 
• Watching Mace put the hurt on the two renegade cops. = +25pts 
• Watching the rest of the police pull a Rodney King on her in response. = -25pts 
• Commissioner Strickland shows up with back-up to form a protective cordon around Mace and to order the arrest of the killer cops. It's a little sad how even in a bleak, alternate 1999 where society is coming apart at the seams, police officers are held to a higher standard of accountability than in today's world. = +35pts 
• This whole sequence, by the way, is perhaps the most stunning explosion of light and color in Bigelow's filmography. = +50pts 

• Lenny finally discovers that the love he's been looking for has been right in front of his nose, breaking the noses of people who want to hurt him, the whole time. = +13pts 

Total Score = +217pts
Available on: Netflix streaming, a series of half-hour S.Q.U.I.D. clips traded through an underground collector's market.

There's a whole lot going on in Strange Days, and we're not just talking about the Chandler-esque plot. You've got the threat of police militarization, institutionalized oppression against the black community, the problematization of violence and sexuality in the media, and that's not even touching on the apolitical themes of memory and our fixation on the past. While the film never exactly gets around to making a profound statement about any of these issues, they all still feel pretty relevant in the wake of the Ferguson protests, the murder of Eric Garner, and countless (literally; no one is keeping count) other African Americans who have lost their lives to police action under questionable circumstances. One can also see in the film's fictional S.Q.U.I.D. technology some premonition of the advent of camera phones, Facebook, and the constant need to document and reshape our experiences (we wonder if Black Mirror's "The Entire History of You" was an attempt to probe this same theme on a deeper level).

Despite spreading itself a little thin, Strange Days holds together thanks to the incredible amount of talent concentrated therein. The cast is the stuff dreams are made of. Ralph Fiennes brings an unparalleled warmth, charisma, and vulnerability to his role as a second-rate huckster, and Angela Basset reconciles Mace's power and weakness into a staggeringly human package. The two of them elevate Cameron's (sometimes waaaaay over-the-top) script to a higher plane. Even the SUPPORTING cast is perfect: Juliette Lewis at the apex of her career, Tom Sizemore before his drug-induced meltdown, Michael Wincott at his most dissipated (which is really saying something). And while we may make fun of Bigelow's peculiar fixation on "shredding," it's exactly this attention to detail that makes the film such a breathless experience--she spent a year planning the first-person scenes and perfecting the technology necessary to shoot them. However you dice it, it's an underappreciated film that you should definitely check out, Scorecard in hand.

Suspiria

Score Technician: Joe Hemmerling

Despite his recent legacy of catastrophic missteps, Dario Argento has one movie that forever secures his place within the pantheon of great horror directors, and that movie is Suspiria. Praised for its visual inventiveness and its otherworldly soundtrack by Italian prog rockers Goblin, Suspiria is regarded as the pinnacle of Italian horror and shows up on every short-list of the greatest horror movies of all time. But the Progressive Cinema Scorecard is not one to bow before sacred cows. Only that which can be verified by empirical evidence holds any weight in these parts, so with that in mind, let's see how this legendary film holds up to the nanobots' scrutiny.

• Musica dei "Goblin" = +100pts 
• For capturing how tough it is for a white girl to hail a taxi in the middle of the night. = +2pts 
• Apparently the route between the Munich Airport and the Freiburg Dance Academy is just one big red light district. = +4pts 
• The runaway dance student couldn't hold that door just three more seconds for Suzy? = -3pts 
• Hmmm... Wonder where Wes Anderson got the visual inspiration for the Grand Budapest Hotel? = +11pts 

• Not sure if the hairiness of the murder's arm would have been considered a physical deformity in the '70s, or the paragon of sexiness. = +5pts 
• The runaway's friend seems to be having an unaccountably difficult time navigating her own apartment. = -4pts 
• Murder scene with the stained glass window is simultaneously the most gorgeous and absurdly gratuitous moment in cinematic history. = +40pts 
• Suzy arrives the next day and meets Mrs. Tanner (definitely not a recusant Nazi), Mrs. Blanc, and her nephew Albert, who we're guessing is Rosemary's baby, age ten. = +7pts 

• Surely the giant retarded butler who speaks only Romanian is a benevolent figure as well. = +3pts 
• Back in the locker room, Suzy's classmates descend upon her like homeless men trying to sell print copies of The Red Eye to tourists. Who knew that girls attending elite European dance academies were so hard up for cash? = -9pts 
• How Dario Argento thinks women interact. = -28pts 
• The ladies of the dance academy really want Suzy to live on-campus, for reasons that are never made clear. = -8pts 
• Nothing weird here. I'm just polishing my giant shard of glass with my little pal, the Antichrist. = +4pts 

thebigpicturemagazine.com

• Signs you might be in Europe: After Suzy's mysterious fainting spell, the doctor prescribes her a glass of wine a day to combat her exhaustion. = +10pts 
• Rain of maggots. = +30pts 
• While exterminators deal with the maggots cascading down from the floor above the dormitory, the students are forced to bunk in the practice room. Did we fall asleep and wake up in the middle of Revenge of the Nerds? = -5pts 
• The director of the academy has a sinister case of sleep apnea. = +3pts 

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• Firing a blind pianist? Hope your coven keeps a good lawyer on retainer. = -12pts 
• Suzy and Sarah discover that the teachers don't go home at night, but are instead living somewhere in the school, thus confirming what we have always suspected ever since 1st grade. = +6pts 
• The pianist whiles away his evening enjoying a traditional German slap-fight dance. = +7pts 
• The pianist takes way too long to get mauled by his own dog in the middle of a giant town square. = -5pts 
• Suzy recalls hearing the runaway saying something about an "iris," but unfortunately is twenty years too early to realize she was probably talking about a bitchin' Goo Goo Dolls song. = -8pts 
• Suzy's dinner was roofied. [INSERT BILL COSBY JOKE HERE]. = -14pts
• The dance academy moonlights as a brothel: The only logical explanation for why the hallways are lit in fuchsia at night. = +6pts 

• Sarah, fleeing a murderous witch, holes up in an empty room and then watches in utter helplessness as the person on the other side of the door fumbles ineffectually at the latch with a razor for what feels like hours. = -13pts 
• Poor Sarah accidentally stumbles into the room where the dance academy stores all of its barbed wire. = +9pts 
• Suzy, suspecting foul play behind Sarah's disappearance, tracks down her missing friend's psychologist, Dr. Frank Mandel, who quickly demonstrates that there's no word for "Doctor-Patient Confidentiality" in German. = +11pts 
• Dr. Mandel, who, for some reason knows the entire history of the Freiburg Dance Academy, informs Suzy that the school was originally dedicated to the study of "dance and occult sciences." Because The Freiburg School of Culinary Arts and Witchcraft must have already been in use by another coven. = +7pts 
• Also, everyone in this movie pronounces "occult" as "AH cult." = -6pts 
• Dr. Mandel delivers a lengthy expositional monologue, in which he dismisses witchcraft and champions the notion of a rational, orderly universe. To set Suzy's mind at ease once and for all, he refers her to Professor Millus, a foremost expert in the psychology of the occult, who immediately proceeds to tell her, "Witches are real as fuck, and they're probably trying to kill you right now." = +12pts 
• Professor Millus on Helena Markos, founder of the Freiburg Academy: "She was a real mistress of the dark." The part he left out: "And a demon in the sack." = +5pts 
• Suzy discovers every one of her classmates went to the theater, leaving her alone in the dance academy. For reproducing with frightening accuracy this technician's own college experience. = +3pts 
• The scene with the bat. = -20pts (You just kind of feel sorry for it.) 
• Suzy, wearing her stealthiest pair of heels to go sneaking around the academy after hours. = +11pts 
• Suzy walks through the secret door in Mrs. Blanc's office and into the opening credits of Blue Velvet. = +7pts
•  Don't be afraid, Mrs. Blanc. Tell us how you REALLY feel about Suzy. = +2pts 
• That peacock lamp. = +16pts

• Maybe not a popular opinion, but for our money, the scene where Helena Markos first rises from her bed and speaks is probably the scariest moment in this movie. = +50pts 
• Our terror at the moment above is only slightly diminished by the actual sight of Helena Markos. = -13pts 
• But, hey, Zombie Sarah looks a little like Tina Fey when she smiles. = +6pts 

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• Good thing Helena Markos' Achiles heel is "sharp object to the throat." = +4pts 
• The satisfied smile that steals across Suzy's face as she strolls out of the flaming Freiburg Academy and into the rain. = +32pts 
• But where are her classmates going to sleep tonight when they get home and find their school burned to the ground? = -16pts 

Total Score = +259pts
Available On: DVD

Suspiria's insane use of color, meticulous compositions, and surreal set pieces make it one of the most visually stunning films ever made, irrespective of genre. Add onto that a soundtrack that sounds like it was composed of the susurrations of the damned, and you've got a movie so frightening that you might not even notice your first time through that nothing about it makes even an inch of sense (Like, if Suzy's curiosity about the academy was becoming such a problem, maybe it was a bad idea for you guys to trick her into staying on-campus?). In any case, there's no denying Suspiria was a hugely influential film. We mentioned Anderson and Lynch above, but we have a feeling Nicolas Winding Refn and Harmony Korine have probably seen an Argento film or two in their time. Regardless of how far the director has fallen in the decades that followed (DRACULA. MANTIS.), there's no doubt that this movie stands the test of time.

American Horror Story: Freak Show, Episode 12

Score Technician: T. J. Geise

The penultimate episode is upon us, and the nanobots couldn’t feel more relieved. On with it!

• Pickling an innocent woman’s head as a means to call out a bullshitter’s bullshit. = -6pts
• Re-enacting the climax of Freaks with a marked lack of gooble-gobbles. = +3pts
• Rescinding the ventriloquist’s dummy’s invitation to watch your two-and-a-half way because of its lifeless, yet judgmental, leering. = -4pts
• Reuniting with the man who gave you the power to dance again. = +5pts
• When your imaginary puppet friend, the self-denial dumping ground and anchor to reality that she is, tells you that she didn’t kill your wife and her lover because she’s not real, it’s time to do the right thing for society and have yourself committed to Briarcliff. = -3pts
• Your mom was right: drinking and gambling leads to plotting murder like holding hands and kissing leads to aborting your premarital conception. = -4pts (but +1pt to your mom)
• Having your new boyfriend called a beastly sicko by an even beastlier sicko. = -2pts
• Dot’s disgusted recoiling at Dandy’s blown kiss. = +5pts
• The Axe Man recounts the time that love had him killing Nazis like he was trying to break out of Castle Wolfenstein. = +12pts
• Further tarnishing the character of Dr. Arden (AKA Hans Gruber – err, Hans Gruper) by revealing his enjoyment of both chainsaw snuff and torturing the soul out of a wood-working prosthetist. = -9pts
• Giving a little, “Ta-da” after literally sawing a woman in half. = +6pts
• Neil Patrick Harris’s murder-face. = +7pts
• Getting to hear Kathy Bates’s lopsided accent one last time. = +3pts
• Downing a bottle of hooch so you can smash it into an old-fashioned bar brawl shank. = +2pts
• Going squaresies with your savior/captor by saving her from the Justice League of Freaks. = +4pts
• Tearfully turning yourself in to the authorities for brutally stabbing an inanimate object. = -6pts
• Revenge-selling your freak show to a foppish sociopath. = -15pts
• Meep 2.0: stubbier, freakier, dongier. = +8pts
• Basking in the glory of the canoe paddles that are your new hands. = +4pts

Episode Score: +10pts

Season Score: -21pts

The second-to-last episode of Freak Show says goodbye to pacing as herky-jerky as its stop-motion intro and hello to the terminal velocity of a drop down an elevator shaft. Characters are mangled and un-mangled while the Hefty bags of sideplots get synched up and hurled into an incinerator. With Dandy in charge of the freak show, the final episode is bound to be a slaughter. We’re currently taking bets on how many characters are to be killed before Jimmy finally stops Dandy once and for all - our guess is all of ‘em.

Hawk the Slayer

Score Technician: T. J. Geise

It goes without saying that the 1980s are very well known for their fantasy films. Some, such as Labyrinth, Legend, and Neverending Story are classics that to this day are highly revered. Others, such as Erik the Viking, Krull, and The Barbarians are cult classics of the lowest order.

But what of the original '80s swords-and-sorcery romp? Before Willow, Conan the Barbarian, and Clash of the Titans came Hawk the Slayer. While certainly not the first movie to feature an intrepid hero battling wickedness in a medieval fantasy land, Hawk the Slayer's release in 1980 surely contributed to the domino effect of long-haired dudes hacking and slashing their way through pop culture.

Starring John “Dr. Christian Shepherd” Terry as Hawk, Jack “Curly Washburn” Palance as his evil brother Voltan, and Patricia “Magenta” Quinn as the blind sorceress (whom the writers didn't bother to name), Hawk the Slayer is a plucky and unintentionally hilarious tale of revenge set in a land where giants and dwarves differ in height only slightly and elves talk like socially awkward robots. If this sounds like a good time to you, then let the nanobots guide you through the ridiculous D&D LARP campaign that is Hawk the Slayer.

• If you couldn't tell that Voltan was the villain by the pitch blackness of his face-shrouding helmet, he shatters all doubts by stabbing his own father. = +3pts 
• The actor playing Hawk and Voltan's father is only three years older than Jack Palance (who is, in turn, 31 years older than John Terry). So much for suspending your disbelief! = -6pts 
• Having both solid gold walls and a purple hot tub in your... living room, we guess? = +4pts 
• Hawk's weapon of choice, the Mind Sword, has a fist gripping a rock on the pommel. Nothing strikes fear into the heart of evildoers like depicting an action that even a toddler can do! = -5pts 
• Unable to save his father from the dark machinations of his vile brother, Hawk demands his sibling's blood. He articulates this by shouting, “Voltan... you will die!” = +5pts 
• Starting the credits with a cartoon hawk flying into the screen as disco music blasts your booty onto the dance floor. = +7pts 
• A one-armed beardo with a crossbow (played by the bad guy from the Elvira movie) is saved by a nun (played by One Foot in the Grave's Annette Crosby) whose name isn't Sister Zoot (or Sister Dingo). = -3pts 
• The nanobots can only describe this scene as, “Shadow Weaver from She-Ra shoots lasers into Voltan's face in a completely non-erotic fashion.” = +4pts 
• Calling a woman visibly decades younger than you “old.” = -2pts 
• That moment when the only thing you can do to seem like a badass is to chop bread. = +2pts 
• Getting your backdrops painted by whoever keeps thrift stores stocked with art. = -5pts 
• It's like disco music was made specifically to accompany guys riding horseback through a swamp. = -4pts 
• Hawk saves the blind sorceress by staring for a very long time at the bandits holding her captive. = +3pts 
• We get it, Voltan – you're the bad guy. Did you really have to strangle your own minion? He probably had a shack full of hungry kids and a yet-sexually frustrated wife. = -3pts 
• Shooting a crossbow so fast that it looks like the film is just looping over and over. Oh, wait... = -10pts 
• Hawk and his bearded amputee companion ride through a haunted forest populated by loathsome beasts such as this fear-inducing monstrosity. = -6pts

• Hawk needs more companions to help him defeat Voltan, so the sorceress whisks him away by casting her Neon Hula-Hoops of Teleportation spell. = -8pts 
• Gort the 6'7” giant hits guys with a sledgehammer just for the lulz. = +5pts (We like Gort.) 
• Crow the elf introduces himself as gracefully as a four-year-old on the first day of pre-K. = -7pts 
• Those foppish bandits fell victim to one of the classic blunders. The most famous of which is, “Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line” – but only slightly less well-known is this: “Never challenge an elf to an archery competition, especially not one with the speech patterns of an autistic robot!” = -6pts 
• Baldin the 5'6” dwarf is rescued from freaky cultists. He celebrates by bullwhipping a fish out of the river and eating it whole. = +2pts (For being as ridiculous as it is badass.) 
• To see how the leader of the freaky cultists feels about his role in this film, look no further than his role in A Clockwork Orange. = +4pts

• Voltan has always been a dick, as evident by his “younger” self shooting Hawk's girlfriend in the back. = -4pts 
• Guilt-tripping a giant into sharing his chicken dinner. = +2pts 
• “All food is holy. It comes from God.” This nun must have never eaten a Hot Pocket, because those definitely come from The Devil. = -3pts 
• Talking with food in your mouth is both gross and rude, even for a slave-trafficking hunchback. = -4pts 
• Killing said slave-trafficking hunchback by slinging his own mace over a tree-branch and putting the rope in his mouth knowing that he'd immediately scream for help. = +6pts (Jigsaw would be proud.) 
• Strangling your own son as punishment for being too excited. = +3pts 
• Not being able to tell if an actor fell off his horse because his character was so scared or because the actor has no clue how to ride a horse. = +5pts 
• For having a character named Drogo who is as dissimilar from the Khal as possible. = -2pts 
• After finding out that his son has died, Voltan vents his grief by killing yet another random minion. = +3pts 
• Crow slowly jumps backward onto a tree branch, winning the director a bet that he wouldn't both slow down and reverse a shot. = -5pts 
• “Betrayed by Nuns” is the name of your new favorite Estonian symphonic post-grindcore band. = +3pts 
• The sorceress roles a natural 20, hitting for max damage with her Green Silly String of Binding spell. = +11pts

• Baldin will be whipping fish sticks into his mouth in heaven now. Good night, sweet, slightly-shorter-than-the-protagonist prince. = -4pts 
• Nothing grants you the element of surprise quite like an explosion of fluorescent ping-pong balls and glitter clouds. = +15pts 
• Good to see that covering up bad fight choreography with slow-motion isn't a modern filming convention. = -7pts 
• Correction: the fight between Hawk and Voltan isn't in slow-motion; Jack Palance is just really old. = -14pts 
• Stabbing your dumb evil brother in his dumb evil face. = +8pts 
• Having your corpse stolen by a ghost is so goddamn metal. = +4pts 
• Just in case you didn't have enough of disco flute jams, the filmmakers give us another five minutes of it. = +3pts

Total Score = -9pts
Available on: Laserdisc, probably?

We here at The Progressive Cinema Scorecard could sum up Hawk the Slayer by calling it Disco Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Funk, but we're not going the cheap route. To say such would banish an otherwise entertainingly bad film into the realm of obscurity. No, Hawk the Slayer deserves better. Despite the piss-poor production values, lopsided story pacing, and at-times agonizing acting, this movie has a passion for adventure that most modern fantasy epics sorely lack. While we wouldn't recommend viewing this progenitor of '80s fantasy without a scorecard, we would recommend viewing it. That says something at least, right?

American Horror Story: Freak Show, Episode 11

Score Technician: Sean McConnell

Look, this needs to happen. None of us wanted it to come to this. But, try as we might to avoid it, we need to talk about Kevin.

Once upon a time there was a house. In that house lived a man who had moved his family across the country in an effort to move beyond a damaging extra-marital affair. This man had a wife. This wife, while shaken by/ashamed of her husband's infidelity, was no pushover. She agreed to this move, thinking that the uprooting would help the two of them work together to repair the foundations of a their once happy home. This man and wife had a teenage daughter. The daughter, displaced by her parents to the other side of the country and full of hormones, found herself even more isolated as her parents focus shifted away from her and to their damaged relationship. They all lived in a house. This was a bad house. An evil house. And this house, sensing the cracks in the paternal facade and tasting blood in the water, tore them to pieces. The house brought Tate. Tate, singularly one of the most evil and disturbing creations in any medium. And it was terrifying.

Is it news to say that no season of American Horror Story has come close to that first season? No, of course it isn't. Can any of the plots of subsequent seasons be summed up so simply? More importantly, can it be done in a manner that an audience could identify with? If you're still watching the show, then this is likely something you say to yourself at the end of every episode, sometimes in the middle of one. But given the grim phantasmagoria that Ryan Murphy and Co. create every year, why and how this has happened will always be an unanswerable question. Perhaps it's a mystery akin to Finnegan's Wake, something to be puzzled out by tomorrow's hapless undergrads laboring under the watchful (maybe amorous?) eye of some hip, underpaid adjunct professor.

Before we get started, it needs to be said up front that this is Ryan Murphy's show, so it is his responsibility and his alone. He's created one essential season of television, another season and a half of pretty decent television, and...this season. It's his baby. He runs it. It's his fault. Are we clear? Great. That being said, it should also be noted that part of the problem is Jessica Lange. Now, it's not that she herself is the problem. She's an amazing actress who pretty must averages a triple-double every season. But her star power and talent have exerted their own gravitational pull on the show. At this point (her last season), we may have finally crossed the event horizon. Let's take a moment to review how Jessica Lange's role changed season-by-season using these (totally finctional) writer's room notes:

• Season 1 Jessica: It's the definition of high-wattage supporting role. Pop in for a few drive by's (if we can get her). Drop pithy bombs. Carry a few half episodes. Wow the audience with her obvious big-screen chops and elevate the performances of some pretty A-List TV talent. She can be the Dame Judi Dench of our show!
• Season 2 Jessica: Elevate Jessica Lange into a co-lead role (if she'll take it). Bring in hot off the Enterprise new-Spock to also co-lead. Just to be safe, let's bring in another co-lead, someone Oscar-ish like James Cromwell. He was pretty evil in LA Confidential. And let's promote Sarah Paulsen to co-lead as well. She earned a shot to co-lead based on the two or three scenes she killed last season. Plus, if Jessica leaves, we'll need a farm system. Shit! Don't forget about Tate! Bring that guy but flip him around a bit. He's good now! Sickeningly good. Does anyone think we have too many co-leads now? There's no way this might get a little sloppy right? Speak now or forever hold your peace.
• Season 3 Jessica: Okay, maybe we had too many leads last season. But people like us bringing in those Oscar people. Bring on Angela Basset and Kathy Bates. They can do what Jessica did in season 1, only now we'll have two of them! We don't need co-leads. Jessica's the undisputed lead now. She's earned it. She's won awards! She's amazing! The people want Jessica, so like sugar in a McDonald's burger, let's have more!
• Season 4 Jessica: We have Jessica for one more year. Bring back those Oscar people from last season. No one can drive this car besides Jessica. This is her show. It's Jessica "fucking" Lange. People will watch. We'll figure out how to fix everything else next season.

A friend once said that as long as you maintained three points of contact, you were never in any danger from falling from a high place. He demonstrated this fact, by precariously hanging on the outside of a deck in a high rise on Michigan Avenue. As someone who hates heights, I was able to watch for maybe a second or two before becoming nauseous. But his point was well illustrated. As long as you maintain at least three points of contact, you're in no real danger of falling. For the last two seasons now, AHS has tried to get by with only one true point of contact, Jessica Lange. So why are we surprised that the show seems to be falling so fast?

The question we must ask ourselves at this point, is can Neil Patrick Harris (NPH) come in at the 11th hour as the second point of contact in order to help the show hold on until next season when Jessica has moved on and the show must (hopefully) stabilize itself? Only the nanobots know. Don't believe me? Just ask them.

• Using your rent boy to also help you in obtaining organs/appendages for the black market. = +6pts (For getting more bang for your buck. WINK!)
• Acting surprised at being tricked when you've been tricked constantly all season. You know the saying, "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me 16 times, and you can have my hands. What can I say, it's the Toledo Code." = -2pts
• Burying the hatchet with your Siamese twin so that the two of you can find someone to bang. = +7pts
• This guy's sign-off after being rejected for a two-and-a-halfway. From this point forward, we end all conversations and tender all professional resignations using the exact same gesture. = +9pts

•  NPH magic hands. = +2pts
• Sample(ish) scene dialog: "He took both [my hands]. Why?" "Cause he's a liar." "No he's not!"  "Goddammit son, have you not memorized all of the various amendments to the Toledo Code? It's all right there! I mean, it's your family legacy! Put your back into it!" = -6pts
• Recounting the time when your father used to threaten to eat your perfectly normal fingers for dropping his beer as a way of explaining to your son why you abandoned him. = -2pts
• Elsa turning down obvious talent because...she's a terrible business manager? Hates talent? Needs this scene to last longer? = -3pts
• Using a plot that Tales From the Crypt crushed back in 1990. = +3pts (Sometimes it's good to revisit a classic.)
• Side Note: What the shit, HBO? When can we watch Tales From the Crypt on HBO GO? Can someone make this happen. Please?
• Bringing back Jamie Brewer. = +4pts
• Unintentionally addressing your dummy during a job interview well after you've completed your act. = -2pts
• Not immediately killing the man who took your son's hands despite previously immediately killing anyone who annoyed/irritated you. Well, that's just the Toledo Code. = -2pts
• Inviting a ventriloquist doll to a two-and-a-half-way. = +4.5pts (The more the merrier!)
• Elsa saying with a straight face, "I can always recognize a good deal." = -3pts (We think your two missing legs would take exception to that comment.)
• Selling your frerakshow to a dummy. No, a real dummy. No, really, a real dummy. What part of this are you not getting? = -4pts
• Standing by and doing nothing as your dummy murders your wife and her live-in lesbian lover. = -2pts

Episode Score: +11.5pts
Season Score: -31pts

So, how did the appearance of NPH affect AHS? Despite our concerns that our love of BarnWig would skew our results, the nanobots have confirmed that his presence seemed to energize the show. Thanks, science! Here's hoping he can hang around for the last two!