CELEBRITY NEWS: Stone Temple Pilots/Chester Bennington Tour Inspires Beloved ‘90s Bands to Reunite with New, Horrible Frontmen

Photo courtesy of Rolling Stone.

Rock fans the world over were shocked last week when ‘90s grunge stalwarts, The Stone Temple Pilots ousted their longtime frontman Scott Weiland and replaced him with Chester Bennington, best known as the singer and primary songwriter for Linkin Park. The aftershocks of the decision resounded throughout the web, with fans taking to message boards and social media outlets to register their support or disapproval.

But while the move has polarized listeners, it’s had an unexpected impact on the wider musical community, many of whom have also come forward to unveil new and absolutely intolerable pairings to the public.

In a recent press conference with MTV, Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea has announced that Fred Durst, formerly of Limp Bizkit, will be touring with the band in lieu of longtime lead singer Anthony Kiedis. “We’ve always regarded Limp Bizkit as the musical progeny of RHCP, and I’m not embarrassed to say that Fred’s rendition of ‘Suck My Kiss’ blows Anthony’s right out of the water,” Flea told reporters. “It’s like he was born to rap over rock music.”

White Zombie bandmates Sean Yseult, J. Yuenger, and John Tempesta have announced a reunion tour with a new vocalist of their own: Chad Kroger. A recent post on Tempesta’s blog revealed, “Rob [Zombie] is too busy with his solo career and his scary movies and [stuff]. Still, we just wanted to get back together and make music, and Chad’s been perfect. He’s got frizzy hair and a beard, and he says ‘Yeah’ just as well, if not better, than Rob.”

Other bands who have announced new line-ups over the past week include No Doubt, going on tour with Avril Lavigne; Pearl Jam, collaborating with Scott Stapp; and The Offspring, who entered the studio on Friday to record a new album with Gerard Way.

Rolling Stone’s Will Hermes has hailed the news of these unconventional reunions as “an unambiguously great thing for the state of rock ‘n’ roll,” adding that the collaborations “should breathe new life into the careers of these legacy acts.”

“Plus, for the first time in a decade, I feel like I actually recognize the names of all the artists being mentioned in the headlines,” Hermes said.

Reporting Technicians: T.J. Geise and Joe Hemmerling

Rodan

In Rodan, a Japanese mining company delves too greedily and too deep, awakening in the darkness of Khazad-dum...sorry, wrong movie. Anyway, they wake up some giant pteranodons who are pissed and start destroying everything.

• Dubbing by George Takei. = +25pts 
• Footage of hydrogen bomb at beginning still actually terrifying. = -25pts 
• Prologue awkwardly skirts mention of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, positing that there might be some vague reasons why Japanese people might not think nuclear bombs are such a great idea. = -25pts 
• Expert post-mortem analysis on murdered miner: “He had been killed. More than killed.” = -10pts 
• Reaction of first miner dragged underwater by monster – precious. = +7pts 
• Monster insects spent millions of years evolving sticks on arms for easier puppeteer manipulation. = +13pts 
• Guard spontaneously transforms into dummy as he falls down mountain. = +12pts 
• Seismologist (picks up phone): Earthquake institute. Yes, that earthquake was centered near the mine. What? You’re calling from the mine? And you’re asking me if there was an earthquake? You’re an idiot. = -5pts 
• 29:40 – Watch as plane taxiing on runway in background suddenly runs backwards as filmmakers try to pad out scene. = -12pts 
• Newscaster: Captain John Hughes was killed while in pursuit of a supersonic object. This came as a shock to colleagues who had just eaten with him at the breakfast club, celebrating his daughter’s birthday with sixteen candles. His last words were to his wife, home alone at the time: “Tell her…she was always pretty in pink…” = +7pts 
• Baby Rodan: ADORABLE. = + 5pts 
• Movie-making tip: when padding out your movie with a long scene of people walking interminably through a mine, be sure to cover it up by having a narrator recount the plot in its entirety. = -3pts 
• ZOMG, they have an ELECTRONIC computer. It’s big and blocky and has multi-colored lights and…hey! Who forgot to put buttons on the electronic computer? = - 5pts 
• More stock footage of missiles and planes, please! = -3pts 
• Actual closed-captioning for Rodan: [RRRAAWK] = +9pts 
• Come on, guys, don’t fire at Rodan, fire at where he’s going to be. = -6pts 
• Fun fact: during shooting, Rodan pulled a Nicholson and refused to leave his trailer because the Lakers were in the playoffs, so most of his scenes were actually filmed using an actor in a rubber pteranodon suit. = +22pts 
• Military causes as much damage as Rodan. = -10pts 
• The ‘50s – when every monster problem could be solved with a good, old-fashioned bombing. = + 7pts 
• For letting the final explosions go on for a full five minutes. = +10pts 
• Surprisingly poignant, yet irrational, reaction of narrator as the two Rodan mates choose to die together in a volcano: “I wondered if I, a twentieth century man, could ever hope to die as well.” = +13pts 

Total Score = +26pts
Available on: Netflix Streaming

We’re betting U.S. distributors tacked on the prologue about the effects of the H-bomb to hitch a ride on the Godzilla/vengeful nuclear monster train, because this story was really about environmental exploitation and some made-up shit involving geothermal activity. Even though Rodan doesn’t get an engaging premise like that of an A-lister monster like Godzilla, after a slow start, the movie delivers on the simple joy of watching tiny model structures destroyed by men in grotesque outfits.

Score Technician: Alex Pearlstein

Tank

In Tank, Sgt. Major Zack Carey (James Garner) and his family relocate to a base just outside a small town in Georgia, where, if all goes well, he plans to retire and spend some quality time with his family. Unfortunately, the sergeant major drunkenly befriends the only prostitute in town and winds up giving a shiner to her pimp, who also happens to be deputy sheriff (James Cromwell), landing his family in hot water with the ah-thor-I-tays. Fortunately, Sgt. Major Carey has recourse to the only sensible tool for combating injustice: a Sherman tank.

• Opening credits: that guy you like, that lady who’s real pleasant, and in the title role…. = +5pts 
• When the opening music consists of drum and fife, duty and honor will be served. = +2pts 
• Your “personal belongings” include a Sherman tank. = +20pts 
• Reporter: “Why in the hell would anyone want a Sherman tank?” Carey: “Because it’s very hard to shoot yourself while you’re cleaning it.” = +25pts 
• Using “Jesus Christ” as a curse even more times than in most non-family oriented movies. = +7pts 
• James Garner has reached the age where they only show him starting to take off his shirt. = - 5pts 
• Shirley Jones: “G.I. want a good piece of ass?” **shudder** = -7pts 
• Sgt. Major insults rag bags everywhere by repeatedly enjoining his soldiers to not look like one. = -12pts 
• Yellow jump suit banana army. = +12pts 
• You know the Sheriff is really evil because he spanks his prostitutes. = - 13pts 
• Evilness of sheriff is further evinced by his failing to come to a complete stop at stop sign. = +2pts 
• Best method for confronting domestic abuse: shove perp against wall, scream, “You will get some counseling! Dismissed!” = +15pts 
• The Law: framing teenagers for possession of pot and indiscriminately beating prisoners. = -20pts 
• Sheriff’s office has great bong collection. = +7pts 
• 1984: Using a tank to destroy the town jail makes you a folk hero. 2013: Using a tank to destroy the town jail makes you…not a folk hero. = -13pts 
• Go ahead and invite the town whore on your destructive rampage. Your wife will understand. = -12pts 
• Tank is apparently quiet enough to sneak up on all the guards at the correctional farm. = - 5pts 
• ‘80s comedies were not complete until someone gawked, “Hoooly shit!” = +7pts 
• Sheriff: “I’ve got a 52 year-old sergeant who’s gone crazy, a 16 year-old dope fiend, and a hooker in a tank.” Governor: “Sorry, I can’t help.” = +6pts. 
• Sheriff: “Did you call me a pussy communist?” = +6pts 
• Lose ‘em by driving your tank through the woods! There’s no way, absolutely no way, anyone would be able to track your tank as it crashes through the underbrush. = -7pts 
• That governor is clearly not Lamar Alexander, Tennessee Governor, 1984. = -2pts 
• Governor: “In all candor, Mrs. Carey, I would find it very difficult to put the full prestige and honor of the governorship behind a crusade led by two men in a tank with a 20-year-old prostitute.” = + 12pts 
• We’re pretty sure firing a machine gun at a sheriff and his deputies didn’t make you popular, even in the ‘80s. = -17pts 
• Tank is rescued, suddenly everyone has balloons. = +20pt

Total Score = +33pts
Available on: Netflix instant, YouTube, Amazon rental

Was it ever socially acceptable to even fantasize about going on a rampage with a tank? Was it ever socially responsible to cast C. Thomas Howell? We’re leaning towards no on both counts. We can’t recommend watching Tank at all, at least not without a scorecard and some heavy narcotics, but it does stand as a curious artifact of a time when movies and TV shows recklessly fantasized about sticking it to The Law by any means necessary. We could argue that post-9/11 security consciousness changed all that, but when it comes to tanks, it was really this guy in 1995 who ruined them for everyone.

Score Technician: Alex Pearlstein

Bachelor Party

Tom Hanks used to be funny before he got AIDS. Prior to his Oscar winning performance as AIDS sufferer Andrew Beckett in 1993’s Oscar slog Philadelphia, Hanks was the comedic actor in Hollywood. As Cast Away and Saving Private Ryan later proved, he may have secretly been operating as one of the best actors in Hollywood the entire previous decade, a fact not surprising to anyone who saw Splash. Yet, no other movie better captured his uncanny ability to elevate dreck than 1984’s Bachelor Party. How is it possible that a single movie could hit almost every wrong note of decency, yet still, after 30 years, be better than The Hangover? Print up your scorecard and get ready to...party? Meh. Just do it.

• Filming a movie in which your hero's chosen career as “Catholic School Bus Driver” stands as direct fuck you to society. = +6pts (Some things never change.)
• Bus chaos: child ogling mysteriously procured Playboy, topless dashboard hula girl, gambling, boom box playing bizarre new wave rock abortion. Good times! = +7pts
• Opening establishing song that somehow wipes its fetid balls across (at least) 5 different genres of ‘80s music. = +10pts (For somehow still successfully facilitating opening exposition of Hanks’ bro crew. Take that John Williams!) 
• Using a photo shoot as an opportunity to take suggestive pictures with a child’s large breasted mother, while said child lays on table wide-eyed and too terrified to look behind him. = -3pts
• Inviting your friend to help out. = -6pts
• Drinking motor oil instead of a beer and only being slightly annoyed by it. = +2pts
• Being more annoyed at how cheap American cars are. = +4pts
• Remembering the ‘80s: Back when a guy could make a living selling concert tickets over the phone. = +4pts
• Blonde guys can’t read. Duh! = +2pts (In any decade.)
• Lead actress works at store that could very easily stand in as an American Apparel circa 2013. = +13pts 
• Tom Hanks cooking and providing his own commentary at least 15 years before commentaries became the standard in the industry. = +2pts
• Remembering the 80s: Back when the idea of a man cooking was a great opportunity to make jokes. Potato salad made out of potatoes and lettuce!? Wah-wah! = -1pts (Ha, men cooking is stupid!) 
• Purposefully tanking a game of tennis with your rich soon-to-be in-laws as a way to show them that you have no respect for them whatsoever. = +5pts
• Having a woman state that “men are pigs” and then filming an entire movie that validates this statement, while at the same time making the person making the statement come across as one of the main villains of the movie. = +9pts (It’s an art.)
• Alienating your in-laws during lunch by proposing the idea of having children…by adopting a 17-year old Korean girl who has great "birthing hips.” = -5pts
• It wouldn't be an ‘80s movie without a stuffy blonde white guy to play the villain. = -4pts (Robert Prescott is no Willima Zabka.)
• Remembering the 80s: When Hollywood executives were still working out the Holocaust through typecasting Nazi youth-types in movies. No score, just an observation. 
• For implying that there is only one pimp in all of LA for the sake of plot. = -2pts
• Introducing a childhood friend affectionately called “Peckerhead,” only to reveal that he has become a whacked out basket case. = +6pts (We’re sure him being called “Peckerhead” throughout adolescence had nothing to do with how he turned out.) 
• Sarcastically applauding the hotel manager after he announces that he is the hotel manager. = +2pts
• Being way to excited to watch a porno with a group of guys. = +4pts (In 1984, -3pts, In 2013 +7pts)
• Over the top reaction of group of women at the sight of two beautiful ladies of the night doing beautiful things to each other with whips and what appears to be a large vibrating ice cream cone. = -5pts (In 1984 +2pts, In 2013 = -7pts)
• “The car! Debbie! The car! Debbie! Take the car! Take Debbie! The car! Debbie!” = +5pts
• Reaffirming your heterosexuality by going to a male strip club. = +4pts
• Naming a character Nick the Dick because he’s a dick. = +3pts
• Oh, and because he has a giant penis. = +12pts
• World Trade Center Reference dick joke. = -2pts (In 1983, +9pts, In 2013 = -11pts)
• Watching your mother-in-law give a handy to a male dancer for the purposes of a good prank. = +50pts (Almost no score high enough.)
• Indian pimp speaking in blackface. = -50pts (Almost off the charts racist.)
• Congratulating your older brother on his infidelity with a prostitute. = -4pts
• Adrian Zmed’s last moment of ‘80s glory: Zmed, still (literally) high off of the “success” of Grease 2, takes his shirt off and sings the forgettable song “Little Demon.” = +3pts
• Okay, Tom, your gluttonous “Mexican” friend, who’s excess and caveman attitude reaches its apex in the scene in which he stuffs his face into a bowl of potato chips, grabs a strange (horrified) woman’s boobs, and spits a mouthful of beer into another woman’s face, clearly needs more help than Peckerhead who is attempting to slit his wrists with an electric razor. = -5pts (For lacking priorities.) 
• Peckerhead’s maniacal “laughter.” = -1pt
• Wearing forest camouflage in downtown LA. = -2pts
• Attempting to murder someone with a crossbow and not living in Westeros. = -2pts
• It wouldn’t be an ‘80s movie without a troubling scene in of Asian male sexuality. = -6pts
• Never have we been so happy to watch a donkey binge on amphetamines and cocaine during a donkey show. = +5pts (For saving us the horror of the impending bestiality. Sometimes you have to put an animal down in order to spare its suffering.) 
• “Uh-oh, it’s Mr. Laughs!” = +3pts
• Blackmailing your soon-to-be father in-law by dressing him in bondage gear and surrounding him with prostitutes. = +4pts
• Sacrificing yourself to a gangbang in an effort to save your friends from the perverted Japanese business men. = -4pts
• Continuing to place traffic cones despite riding along during an obvious kidnapping. = +4pts
• Apparently kidnappings are an everyday happening in LA since not a single person seems to give a shit. = -2pts
• 3D movie joke. = -5pts (In 1983, 0pts; Post Avatar, +5pts; Post Aurora, -10pts)
• Deciding to commit suicide by driving a bus into a building full of people. = -2pts (In 1983, +9pts, In 2013, -11pts)
• Final Sub-Score: Overreacting to Encounters with Homosexuality: 5, Progressive Views on Sex and Sexuality (i.e., non-misogynist/non-homophobic): 0. = -5pts (You’re trying too hard Hollywood!)

Total Score: +53pts
Available on: DVD, On a loop in Todd Phillips basement

How does a movie finish with such a positive score despite all evidence to the contrary? (I mean, bestiality, people. Come on.)  Well, in the ‘80s, the answer was simple: hire Tom Hanks. By sheer force of will, Hanks’ Rick Gassko remains one of the more endearing douchebags of the ‘80s. Indeed, it is his inherent sweetness and moments of introspection that believably (not a word we use lightly in this context) elevate this troubling movie into something slightly better. It becomes a movie about making the right choices despite what friends and family would have you do. Basically, it’s like The Devil’s Advocate, only funnier, with better acting, and more boobs; and is, by far, one of Tom Hanks best comedic performances. Right behind Forrest Gump.

Score Technician: Sean McConnell

Revenge of the Nerds

It's a testament to the power of nostalgia that we can feel warm and fuzzy about people being dicks. The ‘80s—and arguably, beyond—gave free-reign to movies ostensibly depicting dudes just being dudes (AKA, dicks) with movies such as Animal House, Porky’s, and National Lampoons. Enter Revenge of the Nerds: a movie about “nerd equality, plain and simple.” Yet, in its attempts to showcase nerds gettin’ theirs, the movie portrays a host of stereotypes of its own. Likely, the universe made amends for some of the movie’s more uncomfortable scenes by cursing the career of Ted McGinley, whose television roles inspired an entire section of the website “Jump the Shark.”

But was ROTN really a movie about the struggle for equality or just another ‘80s film delivering sexism as comedy? It’s a difficult question, dear reader, one that’s best left for the scorecard to decide.

• Lewis’s father expresses desire to fornicate with female college freshman instead of Lewis’s mother. That, sir, is inappropriate. Let’s hope the rest of the movie will remain clean and family-friendly. = -15pts 
• Lewis and Gilbert lug their huge trunk around campus to shouts of “Nerds! Nerds!” We’re wondering, why did they pack all their stuff together in one suitcase? = -5pts 
• The discord between the coach and the dean echoes the jock/nerd rivalry amongst the students—the subtle layers of drama! = +10pts 
• “Call me Booger.” = +40pts 
• Why is Takashi standing in the locker room collecting jock straps? There is no reasonable explanation for this. = -15pts 
• Booger’s actual t-shirt slogans: Greasy Tony’s, High on Stress, Gimme Head Til I’m Dead. = +35pts 
• Judy is going to accordion class? Lewis and Gilbert were right; the academic rigor of Atoms College is truly superb. = +25pts 
• In the future, anyone who can listen to “One Foot in Front of the Other” and not think of the best fixing-stuff-up montage of all time will immediately be outed as a replicant. = +40pts 
• “I thought I was looking at my mother’s old douche bag, but that’s in Ohio.” Ohio is finally on the map! We did it, guys! = +35pts 
• For teaching us that mopery is the act of exposing yourself to a blind person. = +41pts 
• The police officer informs the boys that criminal acts committed by fraternity members can only be prosecuted by the Greek Council. Seems legit. = -40pts 
• The Dean of Students officiates Greek Council? This guy seriously earns his paycheck. = +8pts (We’ve seen the Dean of our university once, and that was in a photograph.) 
• Featuring women of various ethnicities, shapes, and sizes. = +50pts 
• Labeling said women the Omega Moos. = -50pts 
• Who works out in sweatpants and a leather jacket? Ogre does. = +10pts 
• Because Poindexter’s question “would you rather live in the ascendancy of a civilization or in its decline” was the original “would you rather fight one horse-sized duck or a hundred duck-sized horses.” = +80pts 
• Liquid heat underwear salad. = +10pts 
• The only way to become president of the council is to win the homecoming carnival? The political landscape of the ‘80s was a harsh one. = -20pts 
• Presenting a community that embraced all members, regardless of sexual orientation. = +60pts 
• Designing a javelin for one of said member’s “limp wristed” throwing style. = -60pts 
• These pies are just Readywhip in an aluminum tin? I know that college is lean times, but those standards are low. = -20pts 
• J.D. Salinger’s son hassles some nerds. = +7pts 
• Lewis tricked Betty into having sex with him, filmed her sleeping without her consent, and sold nude photos of her in pie tins, but now she’s in love with him… Betty, you’re killing your father. = -100pts 
• Proving a sweet musical number atones for many sins. = +100pts 
• “Those bastards trashed our house. Why? Because we look different? Because we’re smart?” Edited from the original: “Because we videotaped women naked without their consent?” = -100pts 
• And surprising no one, the marching band crosses over to team nerd. = +25pts 
• For being the only thing Ted McGinley didn’t Ted McGinley. = +30pts

Total Score = +181pts
Available on: DVD, On Toby Radloff’s home movie shelf.

The nerds’ fight obviously paid off career-wise: Timothy Busfield (Poindexter) would go on to win an Emmy for Thirty Something; Anthony Edwards (Gilbert) would star in Top Gun and ER; and Robert Carradine (Lewis) would have roles in Lizzie McGuire and Django Unchained. And while some stars of ROTN felt ashamed of the nerd origins (Anthony Edwards, we’re looking at you), others embraced it, squeezing the last drops of blood out of the franchise until 1994’s Revenge of the Nerds IV: Nerds in Love.

The Tri-Lambs definitely paved the way for nerd equality... but taking into account the acts of breaking and entering, voyeurism, and the fancy legal sounding term for distributing naked photographs of women who did not want to be photographed, we're thinking the only real differences between Stan Gable and Lewis Skolnik is a pair of glasses and a robot maid. Still… how awesome was Lamar’s breakdancing scene?

Score Technician: Amanda Hemmerling

Girls Just Want to Have Fun

Inspired by Cyndi Lauper’s hit song and starring a (now) epic cast that includes Sarah Jessica Parker, Helen Hunt, Jonathan Silverman, and Shannen Doherty, Girls Just Want to Have Fun is the tale of girls who just want to have fun. That’s all they really want—some fun. But their quest be fun to watch? Only the Scorecard can tell you.

• We get right into the sweet choreography. That’s what we want out of an ‘80s movie. = +8pts 
• The TV show with all the dancing is called Dance TV. Not exactly inspired. = -1pt
• Neon socks with silver character shoes. OH YES. =+2pts 
• “Velcro. Next to the Walkman and Tab, it is the coolest invention of the 20th Century.” In one line, Helen Hunt sums up the spirit of the ‘80s. = +3pts 
• The rich girl is introduced with music worthy of a low-budget porno, with acting to match. = -3pts 
• Jeff’s signature dance move is spinning around while he snaps his finger. = +7pts. (For making us all feel like we could qualify for Dance TV.) 
• Are they going to play porn music every time the rich girl shows up? = -2pts 
• Jeff’s friends are making fun of his dance partner going to Catholic school, with most jokes directed at her uniform. Little do they know that, in about 15 years, that’s going to be their greatest fantasy. = -1pt 
• Let’s invite all the freaks in town to the rich girl’s party. Guy with mohawk, check. Cross dresser, check. Guy on roller skates, check. = +6pts (This is pretty much with the last Scorecard contributors’ holiday party looked like.) 
• A guy is dancing with a CHICKEN on his FOOT! OK, this is pretty much minute for minute what the last Scorecard contributors’ holiday party looked like. Eerie. = +1pt
• It’s a dance montage! They’re working together! They’re dancing well, complete with body doubles who look nothing like them! = +25pts 
• “Not everyone needs to warm up.” “YES THEY DO.” “Oh, excuse me. I forgot you were also the foremost authority on warming up.” = -7pts 
• Jeff’s dad is concerned about how the Chicago Bears are going to play this year. “This year” is 1985. = -1pt (For not being psychic.) 
• Jeff managed to get his signature spinning-and-snapping move into the routine. And that’s the move his dad points out to his friends. = -2pts. 
• There’s gonna be a dance off! A DANCE OFF! THIS—THIS RIGHT HERE—is why the '80s were the best movie decade ever. = +30pts 
• The dorky kid gets to save the day. = +1pt 
• “Let’s do it.” We hope SJP used that line in her audition reel for Sex and the City. = +1pt 
• We know we’re supposed to be excited for Janey and Jeff, but when is a rich girl going to get a break? Screw this. We’re gonna go watch Heathers. = -2pts.

Total: +66pts
Available on: Netflix streaming

This film delivers exactly what its title promises. But unlike Snakes on a Plane or Cowboys and Aliens, it delivers so much more. We’re sure it’s not just girls who will have fun watching this ‘80s gem. We defy you to find one person who isn’t spinning and snapping by the time the credits roll.

Score Technician: Erika Grotto

Better off Dead

Lane Myer will do anything to win back the love of his life after she dumps him for the captain of the ski team. One part teen romance, one part farce, and one part black comedy, Better off Dead was more or less destined for cult status the minute it left the cutting room. Watch what happens when a young John Cusack puts his budding career in the hands of a guy who calls himself “Savage Steve Holland.” He honestly has no one to blame but himself.

• For being the feature film debut from the guy who created Eek! the Cat = +25pts 
• At what point does the number of photos of your girlfriend on your wall go from saying “love-struck teen” to “future murder-suicide?” = -7pts 
• Socks in the shower. = -10pts (Eeeeeeeewwwwwwwww) 
• Almost positive the paperboy in this movie was a pre-Super Mario Bros. attempt to bring a popular video game character to the big screen. = +9pts 
• Constant jokes about the mom being a terrible cook. In 1985 = +6pts; in 2013 = -18pts. Final score = -12pts 
• Did everyone in the ‘80s have black and white 8x10s of themselves? = +3pts 
• Casting Booger from Revenge of the Nerds as the wacky best friend. = +22pts 
• John Cusack’s romantic rival is named “Ray Stalin.” = +10pts 
• …And he’s about thirty years old. = -5pts 
• Suicide attempt #1: Death by hanging. =+1pt (Why did Beth want to break up with this guy, again?) 
• Geometry teacher’s lectures are just a random assemblage of mathematical jargon that, when combined, don’t even form complete sentences. =+18pts (He’s like the William S. Burroughs of math teachers) 
• Wait, the condom broke? Did Beth have an abortion? Lane’s in-class flashback steers this movie into some dark territory. =-12pts 
• Most perplexing piece of motivational romantic advice ever given: “The K12, dude. You make a gnarly run like that, and girls will get sterile just looking at you.” =-1pt 
• ‘80s fashion alert: Girl dressed as Boy George sitting at Lane’s lunch table. =+2pts 
• Lane’s drawing of a monster eating Roy Stalin. In 1985, a whimsical display of teen angst = +10pts; in 2013, an expellable offense that would precipitate court-ordered therapy = -20pts. Final Score= -10pts 
• Can’t tell if boy with roller skates is gay, or if it’s just the ‘80s. =-3pts 
• ‘80s fashion alert: Girl in Thriller jacket. = +5pts 
• ‘80s fashion alert: The Terminator shades on the chunky kid standing behind Lane in the lunch line. = +4pts 
• Kris Cremins really should have seen the disrobing incident coming when she decided to wear a tearaway stripper outfit to school in lieu of her actual cheerleading uniform. = +11pts 
• Suicide attempt #2: leaping into expressway. = +2pts 
• Lane’s parents are going to do weird sex stuff in that aardvark coat. = +12pts 
• Suicide Attempt #3: death by carbon monoxide. = +3pts 
• Quintessential '80s moment: Live band at school dance singing a song with the name of the movie in it. =+25pts 
• ‘80s fashion alert: The Dracula collar on Roy’s leather sweatervest. = +9pts 
• ‘80s fashion alert: The Freddy Krueger sweater on the kid in Roy's entourage. = +12pts 
• ‘80s fashion alert: The shapeless frock the French exchange student is wearing. =+3pts 
• We're pretty sure the “foreign exchange student” is actually just a victim of human trafficking. =-10pts 
• Night of the Living Paperboys = +23pts 
• All of those women in Badger’s room are child sex predators. =-15pts 
• Mom cooking some kind of Lovecraftian horror. =+7pts 
• And now, for no reason, a Claymation Van Halen music video. =+39pts 
• Suicide attempt #4: Self-immolation. =+4pts (But does he really need to get in yellow-face first? =-20pts) Final score = -16pts 
• Not sure how we didn’t notice this before, but the neighbor lady has a HUUUUUGE rack. = +8pts 
• Aw, Lane’s unholy Frankenburger creation has found true love, too! =+5pts 
• Quintessential '80s moment(s): Not one, but TWO montages showing incremental improvement. = +17pts
• So, wait, the French girl is fluently bilingual, a professional mechanic, and an Olympic-level skier. We suspect she’s actually Batgirl on vacation. =-14pts 
• Lane outraces Roy down the K12, thanks to a single afternoon of skiing with Monique, which somehow has advanced his skills farther than his entire lifetime of training. =-10pts 
• Apparently Beth’s only consideration when picking a mate is whether he’s the best skier in her line of sight. =-11pts 
• Ricky gets his own happy ending! =+5pts 
• Camera pans away from Lane, Monique, Lane’s sax, and the Camaro in the center of Dodgers Stadium, just as the paperboy bears down upon them with furious speed. = +22pts (For sparing us the sight of the grisly slaughter that surely ensued after the fade to black.)

Total Score = +163pts
Available on: DVD, a list of warning signs that your partner may be unstable

Better off Dead is the story of an alienated teen who develops an unhealthy obsession with his high school girlfriend and becomes suicidally unstable when she leaves him for another boy. We’re pretty sure that’s the plot to at least 25% of the movies on Lifetime, and none of those are (intentional) comedies. In fact, if the movie hadn’t ended in Lane and Monique’s brutal murder by the unkillable paperboy, it’s pretty likely that Lane would have ended up shooting both Monique and himself during a depressive spell sometime in their college years. Cute stuff.

Score Technician: Joe Hemmerling

Back to School

You know who never got any respect back in the ‘80s no matter how hard he tried? Robert Downey Jr, that’s who. If there’s anything the recent success of the Marvel (Film) Universe has taught us, it’s that all those horrendous Marvel movies of the ‘80/90s never happened, including this visionary Year One look back at Tony Stark’s early college days. So, sit back and prepare to get uncomfortable. Its ‘80s comedy week at The Progressive Cinema Scorecard, which means it’s time to go Back to School.

• The Netflix description reminding us that “Alan Metter” directed this movie (wink!), once again proving that if we can all just get our names on the Internet, we’re guaranteed to not be completely forgotten. = +1pts
• Alan Metter’s other directing credits. = -5pts (Seriously, too painful to even joke about.)
• An Orion Pictures production. = +3pts (Back when that used to mean something. RIP)
• Casting Kevin Arnold’s older brother as a young Rodney Dangerfield. = +3pts
• Remember way back in the olden times, when, to indicate a scene was taking place in the past (as opposed to, say, a poor neighborhood in Queens), old timey clothes, cars, and accents weren’t enough, and directors used to make things black and white? Alan Metter does. = -2pts
• Berating Kevin Arnold’s brother for being retarded at school, thus typecasting him for life. = -4pts
• Wearing rubber bands around your elbows to indicate your European ethnicity. = -1pts
• An opening credit montage! It’s been decades since we’ve seen one of these! = +6pts
• Shooting a commercial in which you make fat jokes in order to get fat people into your fat suit store. = -5pts (In 1988 = +5pts, In 2013 = -10pts)
• Cabbage patch kids joke! = +10pts
• About fat girls. = -10pts
• Scratch that…about abandoned fat girls. = -10pts
• So if our dad was a chauvinistic douchbag who expected us to become a diving champion and join a fraternity, we think we’d also have resorted to running people over our ‘58 Plymoth Fury. = +4pts
• SWEEP THE LEG, MELLON! PUT HIM IN A BODY BAG!! YEAH!!! = +30pts (WE LOVE YOU WILLIAM ZABKA!)
• Throwing your dong towel in a towel boy’s face. = -5pts
• William Zabka treating you like shit. = +15pts (This score is applicable in any decade. Any movie.)
• Remember back when limos used to look like Cadillacs with an extra door? = +2pts
• Notch Johnson cameo! = +3pts
• A dirty old man stumbling into a sorority and opening the shower curtain of a naked female co-ed (twice). = -13pts (In 1988 = +5pts, In 2013 = -18pts)
• Opening the curtain because you thought your son was the one showering. = -8pts (In 1988, = -4pts, In 2013 = -4pts)
• Cop laughing with a dirty old man about his recent sexual assault of young woman. = -5pts
• Seeing the color scheme of the Iron Patriot armor in young Tony Stark’s hair. = +5pts
• 10-seconds in and Tony Stark is trying too hard to convince us he’s straight. = +3pts (For giving it the old college try.)
• Wow…Tony Stark’s teeth. = -6pts (Just, wow…)
• College band posters in 1988: The Pretenders, Duran Duran, The Cure (not so much as a poster, more in Tony Stark’s ensemble). = +18pts (For making us wish we went to college in another decade. DAMN YOU, BLOODHOUND GANG, DAVE MATHEWS, AND HARVEY DANGER!) 
• The University of Wisconsin has never had that many students on grounds. Not ever. = -3pts (We don’t care that you call it “Grand Lakes University.”)
• Your father challenging you to a “college-off,” while wearing plaid pants and a sweater vest. = -2pts (We’ll take that challenge any day, Dad.)
• Having to buy your way into an elite academic institution because you have no high school diploma, standardized test scores, and your only claim to fame so far is your money and the sexual assault you perpetrated 3-hours ago. = -3pts (Take that [insert politician’s name here]!) 
• You want to know how badass Tony Stark was in college? Just watch him rock the hightop fade 4-years before Kid of Kid n’ Play did. = +5pts
• Having a chauffer who’s response to any given situation is physical violence. = -3pts (In 1986 = +5pts, Post Jayson Williams = -8pts.)
• It’s amazing how Tony Stark pulls off the goth/gay/emo/homo/hetero/stud in a single scene and takes out Zabka without even touching the legs. = +7pts
• Luring college kids from registration lines (Ha! Registration lines!) with a white placard with “Bruce Springsteen” written on it. = +10pts (Goddammit, if that doesn’t work in any decade…)
• Remember the ‘80s: When intellectuals spoke with English accents? And all the laborers were ethnic Europeans? And all the black people wanted to rob you or break dance? = No points, just asking if you remember.
• Converting three college dorm rooms into a mansion in the space of an afternoon, at a school you weren’t even going to that morning? What kind of magicman are you Thorton Mellon?!  = +4pts
• How come everything coming out of Sam Kinison’s mouth in this movie sounds awesome, but the same words coming out of, say, Bill O’Reilly’s mouth illicit a violent reaction? = +10pts (For making the impossible, possible.)
• One of the best lines in all of film: “He’s a good teacher. He really seems to care. About what…I have no idea.” = +15pts
• “I like teachers. You do something wrong, they make you do it over again.” He ain’t talking about Joyce, folks. = +3pts
• Insisting on walking across the quad in your robe because changing and showering in front of men will make you gay. We guess this explains all those gay NFL players. = -14pts (In 1988 = +1pts, In 2013 = -15pts)
• Seriously, why diving? Of all the sports? = -9pts
• Casting a male co-lead who is supposed to the love interest of a much taller, statuesque, woman, and he looks nothing like Tom Cruise. = -10pts (Seriously, this guy couldn’t hold Tom Cruise’s dong towel if he tried.)
• Remember when everybody thought Sam Kinison was amazing because he sang a classic rock song with a scantily clad woman crawling all over the stage? Well, Rodney did it first. (To Sam’s credit, at least he did so in rhythm with the music.) = +5pts (For being a trailblazer. Not for the…you know, misogyny, which has been happening all movie.)
• Divers hanging out with football players? = -10pts (In any decade.)
• Bar fight! Summary: Rodney and son hide while Paulie and Tony Stark take on the whole football team by themselves. = +4pts
• If you’re going to test someone’s book knowledge, try doing so first without listing books that have been made into movies. = -4pts
• State of Women in 1988: Independent Women = Women Who Only Think About Themselves. = -20pts(Dawn of time-1988 = -20pts, in 2013 = NA)
• State of Men in 1988: The women’s movement made men pussies. = -20pts (Dawn of time-1988 = -20pts, in 2013 = NA)
• Paulie rubbing down Rodney for no reason. = +5pts
• In front of his son. = -8pts (Ew.)
• Kurt Vonnegut appearance! = +5pts (For not being a joke at all.)
• Rodney’s lab project involving him teaching monkeys how to read. At this point we expect this to morph into a proto-Kindergarten Cop-like situation, where the monkeys teach Rodney how to be human/good student, since teaching him how to read is simply impossible. = +4pts
• Staging an unironic “Caveman” themed frat party in a Rodney Dangerfield movie and doing it before “meta” cinema even really existed.  = +2pts
• The lead singer for Oingo Boingo. By far the most terrifying thing we’ve seen all movie. = +1pts (Seriously, that guy is a walking fucking nightmare.)
• Only Tony Stark could survive a scene that has him using fart sounds to harmonize with Oingo Boingo, simulating sex as a woman (or a bottom, whatevs’), and taking the classic Dangerfield burn on the chin, “Dereck, you look like the poster child for birth control.” = +10pts
• ‘80s dancing. = +9pts (In 1988 = +3pts, In 2013 = +6pts)
• Cops bringing booze to a party full of underage people. Scratch that, bringing booze to a party thrown by a perpetrator of sexual assault. = -16pts
• Only Dangerfiled could make preparing and drinking a cup of coffee look like doing drugs. = +5pts
• Thank God the diving announcer introduced Chaz Osborn as “former national high school champion” and not “diver without any noticeable male genitalia,” because only one of those would have been true. = +/- (Insert your own value proportional to your appreciation of male genitalia.)
• Making arm farts as a way to get ready for your big dive when you have not dove competitively in 35 years. = -8pts
• Triple. Lindy. = +67pts

Total Points: +70pts
Availabe: Netflix, Amazon, Under the floorboards in the rec room of the Overlook wing at the Catskills.

It’s a testament to the whimsical nature of this movie that it could end up with such a high positive score despite all of the homophobia, sexism, and ludicrous premise that has Rodney Dangerfield playing the romantic lead/diving prodigy. But hey, it was the ‘80s! Back then, school was a place full of bitter conservative professors who only wanted to talk about dead English poets, pussy democrats, and how Nixon never should have taken us off the gold standard. Still, despite the movie’s flaws, Dangerfield is a joke machine. Almost every line out of his mouth zings. Like when he says things like “How would you like a line of luxury and deceit?” or “With the shape I’m in, you could donate my body to science fiction.” His whole “movies are ridiculous I can’t even believe I’m here” vibe is parroted by Robert Downey Jr., who gives a performance that is even more wacky. One could argue that RDJr has been perfecting this meta-esque awareness of his presence on camera for the last three decades, honing it to a razor’s edge in movies like Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and the Iron Man films. And the movies final message, that the world is hard and sucks and you should never leave collage if you don’t have to, feels oddly progressive in the current economic climate. Still, it’s best to be safe when wading into any comedy from a past decade. So protect yourself and make sure you only do so with a Scorecard handy.

Score Technician: Sean McConnell

'80s Week Is Coming!

The 1980s: a time when Reagan was president, Michael Jackson's proclivity for children was still a secret, and young boys all over America looked up to a bare-chested man in a loincloth. The '80s hold a special place in our hearts here at the Progressive Cinema Scorecard, which is why next week, starting on Monday, we'll be bringing you a full week's worth of cinematic gold from the neon decade. So feather your hair and grab your parachute pants, kiddies; you're about to mainline a hot shot of premium, uncut nostalgia.

The Howling

In The Howling, intrepid reporter Karen White (Dee Wallace) braves a pseudo-psychotherapeutic retreat to confront a bunch of Goddamn California werewolf hippies.

• A werewolf movie that doesn’t revolve around fighting / fucking vampires. = +20pts 
• Slim Pickens! = +10pts 
• Watching rape porn with the mom from E.T. = -20pts 
• For defining the word 'cynosure' for me. Don't insult our intelligence! We know what cynosure means! It means...Wait, what does it mean again? = -3pts 
• This action-figure build, football player of a golden-mustachioed husband, is making us question our sexuality. (In 1981 = -10pts, In 2013 = +15pts) = +5pts 
• Car wheels screech on grass. = -5pts 
• Trusting the skeezy guy who played Mr. Steed in The Avengers. = -10pts 
• Using a tweaked-out hippie in place of a hunting dog. = +10pts 
• Most subtle expositional introduction of a character ever: "Hello, good friend!" = -3pts 
• Sex on the beach. (Sand gets everywhere.) = -69pts (heh, heh) 
• Golden-locked husband slaps wife. We’re so over him now. = -10pts 
• Werewolf knows how to use a filing cabinet. = +10pts 
• Killer pulls out piece of his own brain! = +25pts 
• Werewolf Slim Pickens! = +50pts 
• Shooting werewolf Slim Pickens. = -10 pts 
• Lead turns into the cutest, cuddliest werewolf ever. = +10 pts 
• On live TV! = +20pts 

Total Score =  +30pts
Available on: Netflix DVD

Not the worst movie the scorecard has ever scored, considering it doesn’t try to be anything more than a scary entertainment featuring werewolves. Director Joe Dante and Co-writer John Sayles sneak in a few jabs about our disaffected, media-saturated society, but the commentary punctuates the action, rather than overwhelming it. While we may have been freaked out by this movie during our childhood, the years have seriously dated the scary factor of the special effects. Although we lost 91 minutes of our lives, we feel partially compensated through the unexpected gift of a werewolf Slim Pickens.

Score Technician: Alex Pearlstein

Begotten

Begotten is the story of Genesis, as told through lots of fake blood.

• Macabre opening quotes, reminding us that we ain’t shit in the grand scheme of things. = +10pts 
• Christopher Nolanesque opening title. Yes. = +10pts 
• Grainy, black and white film stock that says, “You probably already watched this in college and just don’t remember because you were drunk all the time.” = +10pts 
• No music. Just natural and ambient sounds. Alright. = +10pts 
• Old house in the woods. Yeah. = +10pts 
• Bearded granny puking blood. = +15pts 
• Bearded granny disemboweling herself. = +20pts 
• Okay. A foot…with poop…or….raspberries or…something? = -10pts 
• The lady hiding behind a sheet has been there this whole time? = -10pts 
• We hope the lady behind the sheet brings some story with her. = +20pts 
• Nope. Just scrambled Skinemax pornography. = -30pts 
• …and the female lead has never had a bikini waxing before. Like, really really never. I hear some people like it, but it’s just not for me. = -5pts 
• Isn’t this just a Tool video without music? = -10pts 
• No. It’s an Alice in Chains video without music. = -25pts 
• Only with Jawas or druids or Orcos or something. = +20pts 
• …but they seem like crap people to hang out with, considering the torture and disemboweling and stuff. = -10pts 
• There is puking to balance out the torture and disemboweling. = +10pts 
• Icky gag breathing. = +10pts 
• Endless gag breathing. = –20pts 
• Parkinsons seizure. = -10pts 
• It might just be a regular seizure. = +15pts 
• We used a lot of gain effects in the ‘90s. = -20pts 
• Smashing a big stick into a guy’s bare wiener, and making it not look so bad. = +10pts 
• Smashing many big sticks into all of a girl’s holes repeatedly, definitely looking very bad. = -30pts 
• This takes a long time. = -15pts 
• Just dragging people around for 7/10ths of the movie. = -50 pts 
• More torture and death and stuff. = +5pts 
• Oh! It’s about The Bible! = +100pts

Total Score = +30pts
Available on: DVD. YouTube also has an even crappier version of the whole thing.

This is definitely the prequel to The Passion of the Christ. Do you have a friend in your church group that may be questioning his or her faith? Then this is the movie for them!

Score Technician: Arrison Kirby

Dollman

From Full Moon Features, the leading name in B-rated schlock, comes Dollman! How can a sci-fi police dramedy featuring a thirteen-inch space cop battling gang violence be anything but entertaining? Scorecard power, activate!

• Rorschach gets second billing! = In the ‘90s, +0 pts. In 2013. +12 pts 
• Arcturus, a planet supposedly 10,000 light years from Earth, looks like Chicago in summer. = -6pts 
• From a distance, the crook running from the po-po looks like either Tom Baker or Bilbo Baggins. = -3pts 
• Bilbo Baker’s nefarious plan is to hold several zaftig women and their equally robust children hostage in a trademark-dodging “laundry mat.” = +11pts (For being a scumbag with discerning tastes.) 
• Enter Brick Bardo, whose name is as outrageous as the amount of soap he uses to wash his clothes.= +2pts 
• When a kid makes wide-eyed comments about the splendor that is Brick’s pistol, Brick establishes his douchebaggery by venomously snapping, “That’s right, fatboy!” = -3pts 
• Brick further solidifies his assholiness by acting so threatening that one of the large women faints, bowling over Tom Baggins and murdering him in a pillowy avalanche. = -5pts 
• Just when we were going to make a joke about Brick wearing his sunglasses at night so that he could see, the police chief pisses on our parade by getting there first. = -7pts 
• Brick watches a newscast so shaky that the cameraman is either spliffed or is phasing in and out of the astral zone. = -4pts 
• A misshapen head squeezed into a hovercraft somehow still has enough clout to be the most feared crime boss on the planet. = -7pts 
• Brick literally blows away Hovercraft Head’s henchtwats. = +7pts 
• Despite having his torso reduced to goo, one henchman starts smoking a cigarette before confusing the face to make for his death throes with the one he makes when jizzing his corduroys. = -28pts 
• Hovercraft Head escapes to the South Bronx through a wormhole in the flying saucer from Plan Nine from Outer Space while Brick pursues him in the space ship from Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future. = -7pts 
• No montage of urban depravity is complete without synthesized hip-hop beats. = -4pts 
• Rorschach makes his appearance by gunning down cholos with an uzi. = +3pts (For staying in character despite being in a different movie.) 
• The female lead, Mexican Elaine Benes, shows that she don’t take no guff by beating the hell out of a drug dealer. +4pts 
• If there was an award for Worst Clap in Cinematic History, the winner would be the mayor in this movie. = -9pts 
• Brick, thinking that he must have crash-landed into Brobdingnagian Mexico, saves Mex-Elaine from being immolated by Hispanic Tom Savini and his cronies.= +6pts 
• Mex-Elaine shows her gratitude to Brick for saving her life by giggling at his smallness.= -6pts 
• Rorschach discovers Hovercraft Head and shouts in amazement to his friend, “A two-inch head, look!” = +3pts 
• Hovercraft Head wins Rorschach over by touting that he has a bomb that can “blow the universe a new asshole.” = +4pts (Classy.) 
• Mex-Elaine refuses to believe that Brick is anything but a midget, despite his arrival via space ship. = -8pts 
• Being the latchkey kid that he is, Mex-Elaine’s son is so starved for attention that he immediately becomes smitten with Brick and shows his ship off to the entire neighborhood. = +4pts 
• Despite having the design integrity to rocket through space, Brick’s ship has no soundproofing, as evident by his ability to converse with everyone in the room without so much as raising his voice. = -7pts 
• After breaking into Mex-Elaine’s house, Hispanic Tom Savini defiantly shouts, “I told you he’s not a midget!” to his cohorts before they are mercilessly gunned down by Brick. = -4pts 
• When Hovercraft Head explains that only his space lasers can heal the wounds Rorschach sustained from Brick’s super amazing gun, he proclaims that Rorschach will be working for him. Rorschach responds by making a fist and smashing Hovercraft Head into a steaming pile of glop just to show that he don’t work for nobody, man. = -17pts 
• When Mex-Elaine leaves for work in the morning, she gives Brick her phone number as if he understands what a phone is, how it works, and has the capability of finding and dialing one should the need arise. = -15pts 
• Mex-Elaine works at what appears to be a toxic waste cannery for a man with a tremendously bad accent . = -7pts 
• Following a foiled invasion of Mex-Elaine’s home, Brick rockets from an open window (using his kung-fu grip to adjust his sunglasses in midair) and lands onto the bad guys’ getaway van. +4 pts 
• He does not call Mex-Elaine before doing so. +5 pts 
• For using an actual doll to simulate Brick hanging from the side of the van. = +4pts 
• We’re not sure how the guard-homey didn’t see Brick indiscreetly sneaking up to him with a metal pole before he was bapped on the head. = -2pts 
• “Urban fuckin’ renewal,” quips Brick before he blows up the bad guys. How is he even familiar with that term? = -19pts 
• Rorschach and Mex-Elaine used to be an item, or something. Who cares, Brick shows up and blows Rorschach’s arm off. +6 pts (‘Tis but a scratch!) 
• A hitherto unseen gangsta shows up in shoe-polish black face with machine guns akimbo and shouts, “AAAAAH MOTHERFUCKERRRRR!” before firing wildly. = +25pts (For being a complete trainwreck.) 
• Rorschach set us up the bomb; the South Bronx looks no different after it explodes. = +16 pts (For insinuating that the South Bronx is in fact Earth’s asshole.) 
• “Size doesn’t count,” says Brick to Mex-Elaine. Roll credits. = -11pts 
• Konstantin von Krusenstiern is wasting his time messing with second assistant camera work when he should be the alter ego for a supervillain. = +4pts (For having such a boss name .) 
• For hiring someone to wrangle cockroaches. = +3pts 
• The role of “Hysterical Fat Lady” was not given to Louie Anderson. -4 pts 

Total Score = -53 pts
Available: Streaming from IMDB.com or crammed onto an Echo Bridge compilation with nineteen other crapsterpieces.

Dollman takes itself as seriously as its laughably bad premise. The presentation of the goofiness, however, is more of a hindrance than an enhancement. It winks at its own ludicrousness too often and too sloppily, resulting in a ham-fisted groanfest that would have been more entertaining had it focused on making us laugh at its straight-faced seriousness. Still, for a direct-to-video crapsack, it’s worth viewing just to see how Jackie Earle Haley spent his time between Bad News Bears and Watchmen.

CELEBRITY NEWS: Amanda Palmer’s Million-Dollar Kickstarter Funded by Thousands of Neil Gaiman’s Fake PayPal Accounts

After enduring a year of public scrutiny and investigation, best-selling fantasy author and graphic novelist Neil Gaiman admitted to being the sole source of all the funds raised by his wife, musician Amanda Palmer, during her 2012 Kickstarter campaign. The revelation came during an emotional press conference last Thursday. “There just comes a point when the lie is too much to maintain,” Gaiman told a crowd of reporters gathered outside his home near Minneapolis. “It’s time that I owned up to the truth. Every cent that went into my wife’s 1.2 million dollar Kickstarter for Theater Is Evil came directly from me.”

Palmer, who has recently come under fire for her controversial poem dedicated to Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnev, made headlines last year by breaking the record for the most money raised through popular crowdsourcing site Kickstarter. The campaign attracted donations from 24,883 contributors, each of which was revealed to be a dummy account set up by Gaiman.

“It started out innocently enough,” stated Gaiman. “I thought I’d just prime the pump by creating a few fake backers and give Amanda enough money to buy a new whalebone corset.” When other donors failed to materialize, however, Gaiman found it necessary to continue to create even more new donors in an effort to protect what he described as his wife’s “fragile ego.”

“This one time she went on a two-day crying jag because she posted on Facebook about having a salad for lunch, and no one ‘Liked’ her status,” Gaiman stated.

While Palmer and Gaiman appeared to be under considerable strain during the press conference, the author admitted to feeling relieved about coming forward with the truth. “After the Kickstarter thing, I thought life would get back to normal,” said Gaiman, “but I found that I had to keep all of these characters going in order to prevent Amanda from catching on.” Gaiman estimates that he spent roughly seventy to eighty percent of his day responding to Palmer’s tweets, Facebook statuses, and Tumblr posts through tens of thousands of fictional user accounts, in what the author described as his most ambitious writing project since the conclusion of his critically acclaimed comic book series, Sandman.

“Plus, it became kind of obvious that something was up when she would show up to a sold-out gig and there were no people in the audience,” Gaiman added. “My mum would see photos from her shows online and ask me ‘Neil, is that you standing up front? Why are you wearing your Da’s old bopkin?’ In truth, I felt a little disappointed,” Gaiman said as he wistfully paged through a binder full of photographs of Sandman tattoos on women’s breasts, “that my mum could pick me out of a grainy Instagram photo, but Amanda never could.”

When asked where the proceeds from the Kickstarter went, Gaiman admitted “mostly mascara and arm-length gloves.”

Many fans of contemporary music remain unfazed by Gaiman’s revelation. “It kind of makes sense,” said Minneapolis record store clerk Brian Davis. “I mean, has anyone ever actually met an Amanda Palmer fan?”

Asked to comment on the recent ordeal, longtime friend and acclaimed comic book creator Alan Moore stated, “Neil was a cute kid. He was always riffing off some old thing I wrote. It seems to have worked out well for him; how he spends his money is his business. Never heard of Laura Palmer, though. Do you think she’d be up for a blood orgy?”

Reporting Technician: Joe Hemmerling
Photo: Maya Mackrandilal

Hudson Hawk

Bruce Willis and Danny Aielo sing to each other and burglarize priceless Da Vinci artifacts while dealing with evil billionaires and the CIA. The fact that Bruce Willis wrote the story for this underrated box office disaster himself means that it has “instant classic” written all over it. Grab your scorecards and sing along.

• Narration by William “Fatman of Jake and the Fatman” Conrad. = +3pts 
• We’re pretty sure this introduction inspired Dan Brown to write Da Vinci Code. = +2pts 
• The guy on a donkey is just a guy on a donkey. = -9pts 
• Da Vinci invents hang gliding, helicopters, steampunk, badass entrances, and Laser Floyd. = +60pts 
• Captain Bob’s Steering Wheel. = +7Pts. 
• ”Directions even your brother could understand.” is a thinly veiled jab at Sylvester Stallone. =+10pts 
• Cutting a huge hole in a glass door instead of just unlocking it. = -10pts 
• Loudest cat burglary ever. = -10pts 
• Horrid “Dogs Playing Poker” painting used to underscore the sleaziness of crooked parole officer. = -6pts 
• The butler did it. = +3pts 
• After murdering the crooked parole officer with a giant knife, evil butler makes bad pun about giving the man his “cut” and apologizes for his “…dry British humour.” = -5pts 
• Exploding auctioneer. = +1pt 
• Codename: Chlamydia. = -12pts 
• Kaplan on Old CIA vs. New CIA: “They think that the Bay of Pigs is an herbal tea!” = +5pts (for making us wonder what it would taste like. Our guess is bacon and Old Bay seasoning.) 
• Explaining why Hawk was in prison for 10 years and hates George Kaplan in less than 5 lines. = +8pts 
• Main Villain Darwin Mayflower stating, “I am the villain” while introducing self to Hawk. = -9pts 
• Main Villain Darwin Mayflower also using the phrase “World Domination!” as ultimate goal of evil plan. = +4pts 
• Laughably inept Mayflower security guards/Rick Astley body doubles. = -6pts 
• Creepy looking child beating wall with stuffed elephant embarrasses her whole country, according to mom. = +2pts 
• Vaguely offensive Italian stereotype eating spaghetti. = -5 pts 
• …From a Thermos. = +6pts 
• Crucifix Intercom. = +11pts 
• Using the Papal staff to adjust television reception. = +4pts 
• David Caruso manipulating sunglasses without benefit of horrid puns or The Who. = -30pts 
• Second loudest cat burglary ever. Have we learned nothing at all? = -15pts 
• Green Eggs and Ham used to distract CIA thug from his sudden desire to rape our heroes. = +17pts (for demonstrating the power of literature) 
• Catholic girls ARE scary. = +3pts 
• David Caruso looks alarmingly comfortable in that red dress. = +8pts 
• Mayflower having to explain definition of cat burglary to world’s greatest cat burglar. = -20pts 
• English butler knowing Vulcan Neck pinch? Illogical. =-9pts 
• Purple camouflage blends into absolutely nothing in surrounding environment, blue cravat doesn’t help either. = -5pts 
• Kaplan defeated by unhurriedly bending over, retrieving hat. =-5pts 
• Evil soliloquy ending with vigorous air humping. = +16pts 
• Evil butler finding and applying Union Jack war paint for final confrontation somewhere in exploding castle. = +3pts 
• Evil butler, decapitated with own knives, “…won’t be attending that hat convention!” according to our valiant hero. =-2pts 
• Inventing a dog version of the Wilhelm Scream. = +20pts 
• Wait, does “play Nintendo” mean “sex”? = -1pt 
• Scriptwriter gives up determining plausible scenario in which Tommy lives, just lets it happen. = -4pts

Total Score = +42pts
Available on Blu-ray, DVD, in Bruce Willis’ nightmares, on Sean McConnell’s Amazon wishlist, right next to The Return of Bruno

Score Technician: Dave Addyman