2015 VMAs

If you've lived as long as we have, you've probably spent many years being brainwashed by the hype-machine that is the VMAs. And, regardless of how old you are, chances are you stopped watching the show unironically after your second year in college.

But, unless you've thrown in the towel on life and your only point of reference for trends/art/cultural movement is the albums you discovered late in high school and college, then it's worthwhile to occasionally check-in with the Dear Old Lady of Pop Culture to see what the kids are up to. Even if you have serious doubts the kids are even paying attention at all to what you're being told they are.

The fact that the Taylor Swift and Nicki Minaj seemed to be beefing, coupled with the fact that MTV was going to willingly give Kanye a chance to speak during the acceptance of his Video Vanguard award, presented to him by former beef-e Taylor Swift, now seemed as good a time as any to let the nanobots visit the kaleidescopic seizure that is the VMAs.

• The entire pre-show. = -25pts
• Nicki Minaj emerges from a tribal tesseract carried by dance warriors and proceeds to plant her flag. And by flag we mean her butt. = +4pts
• Kanye Approval Meter: Entertained = +8pts 
• During Minaj performance, Taylor Swift appears from a trapdoor in the tesseract and looks out of place amid the tribal imagery. Call us crazy, but the last time a white person found themselves so confused among a group of tribal dance warriors, bad things happened for an entire group of people. = -10pts
• Taylor Swift avoids being cannibalized on stage with Minaj, Bad Blood kicks in, the lip syncing begins, and once again money proves that no beef is too large to be squashed when enough of it is on the table. = -3pts
• Macklemore shows up to dance badly with group of black dudes and rap about mopeds. = -2pts
• Macklemore inexplicably seeing himself at the center of hip-hop history. = -8pts
• Freddy Mercury's zombie pops up during Macklemore's set and wonders what the hell is going on. +3pts

"Sing...brains..."

• Macklemore's best decision during this set: Not having a black guy carry him on his shoulders during the big finish. Thankfully a roadie was nearby.  = +2pts
• Watching said roadie be mercilessly ushered off stage once he was done hoisting Macklemore. = +4pts
• You haven't seen hell till you've seen Zombie Mercury try to dance like Live Mercury. = -5pts
• Proportionality of black people on stage to black people in audience during Macklemore set: 10:0. -10pts
• Getting Pinhead to do your voice work. = +2pts
• Miley Cyrus emerging from the Pansexual Anus of Morgoth. = +5pts

"This one smells like candy!"

• Despite being scheduled to perform, The Weeknd is apparently not having any of this. = +3pts
• Holy shit! Miley Cyrus also follows Miley Cyrus on Instagram?! = -1pt
• In a hilariously unfunny cut-away scene, a svelte Ike Barinholtz and Andy Samburg give Instagram advice to Miley Cyrus while she wears what we can only assume is the tie-dyed crying face of Cecil the Lion. = -5pts
• Miley starts the show off by taking an Ellen inspired selfie and shouting marijuana. = +2pts (For going with what you know.)
• Britney Spears shows up to remind people that the VMAs used to be about the suggestion of being nude, not actual nudity. = +0pts (A wash.)
• Uptown Funk, like HPV, shows up to remind you that it's still here and not going anywhere. = +7pts
• Mark Ronson is so shy, guys! Like...so shy. = -2pts
• In case you were wondering what happened to Flock of Seagulls, apparently pieces of them are floating around in Justin Bieber's dungeon. = +2pts

"First to three albums gets to keep the scalp!"

• Jared Leto shows up because Joe Hemmerling wouldn't watch this shit if he didn't. = +3pts
• The Weeknd shows up to perform with a Canadian entourage...which is a Canadian way of saying "by himself". = +4pts
• It wouldn't be the VMAs if celebrities weren't competing at who grooves the most in their seat/standing in front of the person behind them. Taylor's got this y'all! = +2pts
• MTV unsuccessfully attempts to start pre-speech beef with Kanye by attempting to light The Weeknd on fire.= +5pts

 "That the best you got?! Fire is the best back-up dancer!"

• Kanye sees Taylor's dancing and deigns to stand and provide full body groove during The Weeknd's performance. Clearly, this is a test of wills... = +5pts
• Kanye Approval Meter: Highest Groove. = +10pts
• We love Rebel Wilson. But making a joke about people (code: Black People) who hate the police and how you hate police (STRIPPERS), before the hip-hop award is in such bad taste that the nanobots swear off watching Pitch Perfect until after Pitch Perfect 2 comes out on Blu Ray next week. = -20pts
• Watching Nicki Minaj struggle to ascend the stairs due to the entanglement of her dress and shoes, then asking a Rebel Wilson and her "FUCK THA STRIPPER POLICE" shirt for help, finally proves that time is indeed a smashed beercan. = +9pts
• Minaj, unhappy with the amount of money she was paid to squash her beef with Taylor Swift during the opening performance, decides to start a bonus beef with Miley Cyrus for an extra few bucks. = -20pts
• Rappers are the new gay BFFs, which isn't new to anyone who's heard of Flava Flav. = +6pts
• Who would have thought a pre-recorded joke about who killed Biggie Smalls would be the sharpest joke of the night? Not these nanobots. = +10pts
• Taylor Swift wins an award...and does not get bum rushed. Cuts to Kanye in proportion to words Taylor says during her acceptance speech: 1:2. = +2pts
• Kanye Approval Meter: Content. = +3pts
• Demi Lavato pops a cherry during her performance, although given the ambiguous sexual nature of the performance, we're not sure who's cherry is being popped by whom or in what capacity. = (Still calculating...)
• Iggy Azalea shows up to remind us that Australian rappers still have a long way to go when it comes to rapping. = -5pts
• Justin Bieber not embarrassing himself during dance routine. = +3pts
• Justin Bieber flying through the air with the greatest of ease..and then breaking down crying. Um, we're going to, um, go get a drink or something... = 0pts (Because we have a heart, people!)
• Not showing any clips from the videos that are supposedly about social justice... = -5pts
• ...and not nominating Kendrick Lamar's, Alright in this category. = -10pts
• Remember when openly talking about doing drugs on live TV was against the law? Maybe we would if we hadn't taken so many drugs. HEY-YO! = +3pts
• Ladies playing base guitars and singing live. = +4pts
• Anybody know the total trust fund value of the fan-pit at a VMAs? = (No score. Just an honest question.)
• Sam Jackson doing the voiceover for your career spanning montage. = +3pts
• Going from Sam Jackson to Taylor Swift. = -6pts
• Winning an award and not saying anything for what feels like 30-minutes. = +30pts
• Taylor Swift holding Kim Kardashian hostage during Kanye's acceptance speech. = -10pts

"Now remember, K. Just stick to the plan and everything'll be fine."

• #listentothekidsbro = +5pts
• "If I had a daughter at that time, would I have went on stage and grabbed the mic from someone else’s?" - Kanye. = +5pts
• Kanye calling out MTV for their several years of old West/Swift footage and then hyping Swift's presentation of Vanguard award. = +25pts 
• "I STILL DON'T UNDERSTAND AWARDS SHOWS." - Kanye. = +5pts 
• Kanye does his version of the Lincoln/Douglas debate as Lincoln AND Douglas, declares his run for president 2020, and drops mic. = +100pts
• Watching Miley struggle to read the room/respond to that epic Kanye speech. = -15pts
• Pharell shows up to do that song of his that sounds like all of his other songs. = -5pts
•  FKA twigs mentioned on VMAs... = +3pts
• ..and losing to a soon to be nobody. = -6pts
• Miguel shows up and doesn't attempt to kill a fan with his boot heel. = +2pts
• Can we get a mic check on A$AP Rocky! Hey yo, we need a mic check! No seriously, we can't hear what he's saying. = -3pts
• Taylor Swift and a bunch of models win video of the year. = +1pt
• Not one, but two quick shots of Miley's boobs. And the only people who care at this point are the people in the production trailer about to lose their jobs. = +2pts
• MTV throws out a bunch of kids across America to introduce Miley Cyrus and the Divine Players. = -2pts
• Joe Hemmerling gets his dying wish and finally sees The Flaming Lips perform at a VMA. = +10pts

Total Score: +124pts

Watching the show this year and thinking back to the show 10 years ago, it's insane to claim that this country hasn't changed. And, whether old people want to ever admit it (and they never do), culture is always changing and it will always, on some level, be designed and shaped by the kids. In the past, MTV used to work hard to present a show that could at least be somewhat palatable to the few centrist conservatives watching with their kids at home. Today, that conservatism, in a pop culturally political relevant way, appears to be all but dead and buried. Anyone seriously looking back at the past as some idyllic place of moral family values, would probably blow their brains out after what happened last night. This isn't to say the show isn't full of troubling racial undertones and seems to operate in the method of promoting gross cultural ignorance at how this level of consumerism is exacerbating the climate of scarcity in which most conservative ideologues reside and feast upon.

But thank God for Kanye, at least. While not always the best at articulating what's going on, he seems to get it (#listentothekidsbro). But who could say the perfect thing in front of thousands of people in the middle of an awards show? At his core HE'S A GUY WHO DOESN'T UNDERSTAND AWARDS SHOWS. To quote him, " I don’t understand how they get five people who worked their entire life, one, sold records, sold tickets, to come, stand on the carpet and for the first time in their lives be judged on a chopping block and have the opportunity to be considered a loser." Whether he knows this or not, what Kanye doesn't understand is the culture of scarcity that corporations (like MTV) use in their ever evolving Hunger Games.

If there is one thing we've liked about Kanye since the beginning it's his sense of self-reflection, even if we didn't see in him the image he wanted us to see. Other rappers may tell better stories, but no other rapper so often bends art and the reality around them to reflect on what they are, or are not as a person more than Kanye. If Kanye can't see past himself, it's because he's smart enough to see that no matter what he does, he's just a New Slave, part of a game of exploitation and forced docility that has been playing out for several centuries now. If we like him, it's because we get to see him work through these issues, while at the same time reinventing himself and shaping music and art with each subsequent album. If there is an artist who has done more than Kanye the last 10 years to shape this dialog and make impactful contributions (not all of them good) to the conversation, we're not sure who that would be.

So, yeah, fuck it. Kanye for president 2020.

True Detective Season 2, Episode 8

Score Technician: Sean McConnell

 

I believe it was the nanobots that said, "All things that start end. And all things that disappoint end slower."

Yea, so endeth the second season of HBO's True Detective. How would things end for Velcro, Buzzkill, Riggins, and Angry Trent? Looks like that our cue to fire up the nanobots and wake T. Bone Burnett from whatever drunken stupor he's in, which is a fancy way of saying that it's time to bring the science.

•  Nothing better than a post-coital cig... = +3pts
• ...to go with that recollection of that time you were kidnapped, held in a cave, and sexually molested... = -6pts
• ...along with that other hilarious story about how you killed your wife's rapist... = +6pts
• ...who actually turned out to not be her rapist at all. = -12pts
• DAMN YOU SEX AND YOUR ABILITY TO MAKE US SHARE INAPPROPRIATE INFORMATION AT AWKWARD MOMENTS. = No score, just a scientific admonition of sex's power over our word boxes.
• Call us crazy, but this little sharefest has us seeing an adorable family trip to the Magic Kingdom in a few years. = +2pts (Me llamo, Chavez.)
• I'll see your Cracker-Jack-wedding-band and raise you a diamond of several carrots. Enjoy our dramatic declarations of fidelity, homeless panhandler! = +4pts
• All of this talk of "two-weeks" makes us think they stole this dramatic framing device from this movie. Which then made us feel this way about the entire second season of this show. =  +10pts (Because laughter is important.)
• Velcro and Buzzkill give it their best shot explaining the relevance of dead-Riggins. = -2pts
• Chessani's last drink. = +1pt (GET IT?!)
• Leaving your murder stuffs out for everyone to see. = -3pts (Did we learn nothing from this example?)
• "When the lights go out, that's me." Nope. That's us turning off our television. = -5pts
• Colin Farrell should be given a lot of credit for his work on this show. He should not, however, be given any credit for the cowboy hat he wears to the meet. As far as the scorecard is concerned, there's only one Stetson wearing lawman in this country and you can find him in Harlan (or Miami). = -2pts (Here's another link in case you think we're joking.)
• Colin Farrell's befuddled and wordless reaction to the line, "I am the blade and the bullet." = +5pts (If only there were a GIF of this out there...)
• Giving us the closest we'll ever get to S.W.A.T. II. = +5pts
• Detective Velcro, for the sake of a tragic ending, makes the wise decision to visit a son he's already promised to stay away from. = -5pts
• Losing your grandpa's prize police badge in a game of Magic. = -2pts
• Random giant puddle of water in a city suffering through a catastrophic drought. Cthulhu cares not for the rules of your pathetic world! = -2pts
• Trying to send a giant emotional mega-dump of an audio file on your cellphone while retreating into a mountainous forest that, call us crazy, probably has terrible cell connection. = -3pts

Episode Score: -6pts
Season Score: +131pts

Look, it wasn't great. Was it as bad as everyone says it was. Probably not. We watch a lot of bad TV--most of which doesn't have the decency to limit itself to only eight episodes. As it stands, most of the leads were fine (Vaughn), some were very good even (Farrell and McAdams), they were just forced to swim in very muddy waters.

We could argue that the fault of this season was that it wanted to tell a different story. That following a serial killer who offers up newer and more twisted tableauxs/signposts is guaranteed to make things a bit more focused and linear (see this season of Hannibal). And, while we would like to applaud the show for taking a different rout, there are too many great films out there (Chinatown, LA Confidential) that serve as amazing templates for these types of stories. That TD had more time to tell it, yet somehow produced something so muddled and boring, is disappointing. And, while the last two episodes offered a bit more of "stuff actually happening," the last few minutes of Deus Ex Machina storytelling made us question our entire faith in plot driven stories.

Oh well, I guess we'll all just have to sit back and wait until next year when Game of Thrones can (hopefully) restore our faith in plot. Fingers crossed!

True Detective Season 2, Episode 7

indiewire.com

Score Technician: Joe Hemmerling

Things have kicked into high gear now that the season is racing towards its conclusion. The penultimate episode has to deal with the fallout of Officer Buzzkill's drug-fueled orgy of stabbings. Let's take a look at where we're going from here.

• "Hey, sorry I killed a couple of really bad, important people while under your assumed identity. Just put your job, relationship, and plans for college on hold and leave the state for an indefinite amount of time." -Officer Buzzkill, gunning for the sister of the year award. = -4pts 
• Detective Velcro's reaction to finding his CO dead in the seat next to him. = +3pts 
• Forcing your beard...er... fiance to share a motel room with your molesty mother for a weekend. = +6pts (Hey, at least they'll have something in common to talk about.) 
• Vince Vaughn finally putting the hurt on that smug little shit he made his number two. = +9pts 
• Will the home video boxed set of this season come with an hour-long featurette that explains exactly what the fuck this case is all about? Because even after a five minute scene of all the main characters explaining it to each other, we cannot make heads or tails of it. = -10pts 
• In viewing the conversation between Vince Vaughn and the Russian gangster, we're reminded of a certain parable from Things Fall Apart. = +11pts 
• "Hey, just calling to tell you I'm walking head-first into a trap. Here's no useful information whatsoever. Okay, gotta go. Bye." = -2pts
• Colin Farrell and Rachel McAdams acting the hell out of the vaguest dialogue ever written. = -8pts 
• Taylor Kitsch finally finds himself relevant to the plot! = +23pts 
• So, of course that means he's got to die. = -6pts 

Episode Score = +22pts
Season Score = +137pts

Ah, Taylor Kitsch, late have we loved thee. You were an unbearably dour burden for almost the entire series, but whenever the plot called for you to kill people with a gun, you performed spectacularly. With our other two detectives framed for murder (although, maybe "framed" isn't the right word in Officer Buzzkill's case) and Vince Vaughn left clubless and in the wind things are looking pretty grim for our heroes. But, hey, we're pretty sure "grim" is every one of these dudes' middle names.

They Live

Score Technicians: Joe Hemmerling and Amanda Hemmerling

So, by now you're probably aware that we lost another hero last week. One Rowdy Roddy Piper joined that great wrestling ring in the sky, leaving us with a plaid-skirted hole in our hearts. In honor of his memory, we're taking a look at his most enduring cinematic achievement. The nanobots have come here to chew bubble gum and score They Live. And they're all out of bubble gum.

• For inspiring this tweet. = +15pts 

truthstreammedia.com

• For inspiring Shepard Fairey's OBEY art, which ironically became a profitable clothing line. We're waiting for the Kardashians to start a "Marry and Reproduce" handbag line. = -5pts
• For naming your main character "Nada." = +10pts (LA may not be a particularly clean place, but it's certainly well-lighted.) 
• For wearing the same outfit the entire movie. = +8pts 
• In the '80s, all construction workers were shirtless due to union regulations. = +4pts 
• When a guy in a cut off jean jacket offers you a place to stay, expect there to be strings attached. = +7pts 
• In '80s movie logic, all black people were from Detroit. = -6pts 
• “Follow the Golden Rule. He who has the gold makes the rules.” Turns out Occupy Wall Street was inspired by They Live. = +2pts 
• Looks like the church across the street from the shanty town is a front for a meth lab. = +4pts 
• No, worse, they're making knock-off Ray-Bans. = -4pts 
• Movie cops brutally busting up a shanty town more gentle than real-world cops performing a routine traffic stop. = -7pts 
• “Surely, the safest place to hide this mysterious box of sunglasses is this half-empty garbage can. This plan has been carefully vetted and I have found zero flaws in it.” = -10pts 
• Sure the sunglasses reveal subliminal messages hidden in all media and advertisement and expose aliens who have been walking hidden among humankind for generations, but they don't seem to do shit about blocking the sun. = +11pts 

digbysblog.blogspot.com

• It’s pretty rude to call a stranger "formaldehyde face," even if they are an alien, Roddy Piper. = -3pts 
• We like that RRP's strategy when confronted with evidence of the greatest and furthest-reaching conspiracy in the history of the planet is to immediately draw as much attention to himself and his newfound sight as humanly possible. = +12pts 
• Surely none of the regular humans in the supermarket will find anything askance about every patron speaking into their watches in unison while glaring intently at the crazy man causing a scene. = -6pts 
• Pulling a clothes line on an alien police officer. = +15pts 
• Oh, sure, when Roddy Piper walks into a bank and starts opening fire on its patrons, he’s an oft-quoted hero, but when we at the PCS do it? = -8pts 
• But what a quote, right? = +50pts 

• Does it seem like Roddy Piper jumps just a little too quickly to a shooting spree after putting on the sunglasses? Almost like maybe this was just the green light he was waiting for before attempting something like this. = -11pts 
• Trying to look inconspicuous walking down the street with your giant gun. = +7pts
• “Beat your feet.” = +2pts 
• When you're already wanted for multiple homicide, why not throw a kidnapping charge on there as a topper? = +4pts 
• Holly's gay neighbor eyes Roddy Piper intently, but only because his mullet wants to get into a fight with Piper's. = +8pts 
• Being surprised when the box of glasses you hid in a garbage can in a back alley are no longer there when you come back for them. = -6pts 
• Good thing the garbage truck they were dumped in was one of those that only picks up shredded boxes and Christmas tree tinsel. = +3pts 
• Why doesn’t anyone want to try on the sunglasses? = -2pts 
• That fight scene. = +50pts 
• At the end of the day, these aliens don’t want to kill you or take over your body, they just want your money. = +9pts
• “Life’s a bitch, and she’s back in heat.” = +4pts 
• Nothing weird about two beat up guys getting a hotel room together. = +5pts 
• Roddy Piper on the potential origin of the aliens: “They ain’t from Cleveland." Uhhhh, we've been to Cleveland and you know what? We wouldn't rule it out off-hand. = -3pts 
• Sunglasses after dark. = +10pts 
• Roddy Piper and Frank make their way to a meeting of the human resistance, where one of the resistance leaders counsels the freedom fighters that they should continue to act as if everything is normal and show up to their day jobs. We're sure that "shooting up a bank" was going to be his next piece of advice, but unfortunately, the party is interrupted by an alien invasion force. -4pts 
• After finding themselves transported into the aliens' secret bunker, they find a willing tour-guide/handy expositional mouthpiece in the form of a former vagrant-turned-alien-bootlicker. = +5pts 
• Roddy Piper and Frank discover that the signal disguising the aliens' mind-control is coming from the roof of the Cable 54 station, conveniently built atop the secret alien bunker. = +3pts 
• The aliens might stand a better chance of halting Roddy Piper and Frank's advance if they would rethink their strategy of sending their men at them in rigid two-at-a-time formations. = -12pts 
• There were no clues that Holly was in the pocket of the alien overlords. Well, except for the fact that she bashed our hero on the back of the head with a wine bottle and shoved him through a window. And the fact that she works at the TV station located directly above the aliens' LA headquarters. And the fact that she told everyone the alien signal wasn't coming from Cable 54, when in fact it actually was. Basically what we're saying is that poor Frank's death was completely unavoidable. = -8pts
• Roddy Piper has a farewell message for our alien overlords. = +30pts

twitter.com/cjciaramella

 
Total Score = +180pts
Available On: For rent on any streaming service, but only if you have special eyewear that allows you to see it.

They Live, more or less closed out the classic period of John Carpenter's career, where the man could almost do no wrong (almost). And what a hell of a way close that chapter down. Carpenter combines biting social commentary with b-movie action in an effortless manner not seen since. The movie will forever stand as an unblemished monument to the badassticity of both its director and its late star. Or at least it will until some asshole tries to remake it.