Super Bowl XLVIII

After a year of trials, The Progressive Cinema Scorecard runs the Nanobots through the gauntlet that is everything America, Super Bowl XLVIII. For the first time in...a long time(?), the number one teams from the NFC and AFC face-off in what surely will be a game for the ages!  

• Leave it to an Opera singer to somehow make the simple lyrics of the Star Spangled Banner feel ironic. = -3pts
• Flipping the body of Christ in order to determine who will have the ball first. = +5pts
• Mandatory opening kick-off scrum between career special teams players. = -4pts 
• One play into the game and the Bronco center demonstrates his total unpreparedness for the event and, forgetting an entire year of playing with Peyton Manning, decides to hike the ball over the QB's head in the middle of an audible for a safety. = -2pts
• Percy Harvin touches the ball on the second play of the game and doesn't immediately fall to the turf with an injury. = +8pts
• After a season of good football, the Seahawks remain unable to make Russell Wilson look taller in the huddle. = -1pts
• Russell Wilson demonstrates his agility by demolishing sideline photographer while running out of bounds. = +5pts
• SPONSORED BY X: Appropriating Beasts of the Southern Wild's critique of class and privilege for a commercial about a Masseratti's. -10pts
• Pete Carroll demonstrates his unpreparedness for the big game by quickly wasting a challenge on an obvious play. = -2pts
• SPONSORED BY X: Using any classic David Bowie/Rolling Stones song in a commercial made since 2003. = -5pts
• Peyton Manning carries out a run by rolling out....and attempting what looks like a run fake. = -2pts
• John Fox, in an effort to not be outdone by Pete Carroll, promptly wastes one of his own challenges. = -4pts (For reminding us that at least one of these coaches will emerge from this a Super Bowl a winner.)
• SPONSORED BY X: Watching Ellen DeGeneres dance with some hardcore furries in a stranger's house. = +3pts (For being so LA.)
• SPONSORED BY X: Chevrolet, selling trucks and cancer since--we actually don't know since when. This is a new thing. = -10pts
• SPONSORED BY X: Volkswagon forgetting that any commercial giving German engineers praise for developing the power of angels can only come with unfortunate memories for the rest of the world. = -5pts
• Rather than take the points (which would give you the lead in a three score game, assuming you can even score three times), Denver runs a play. In related news: Peyton Manning farts an incomplete pass. = -2pts
• SPONSORED BY X: Andy Roddick does a better job at playing a fern than he ever did at playing tennis in a Grand Slam. = +2pts (Too easy...)
• SPONSORED BY X: Enraged by the most recent episode of Downton Abbey, Jason Statham murders a bunch of flight attendants and crashes a plane full of innocent civilians. = -9/11 points
• SPONSORED BY: Cosmos remake being the best thing Seth MacFarland has ever done. = +10pts
• Halftime:
• Bruno Mars, playing drums. = +10pts
• Bruno Mars, singing live. = +5pts
• Bruno Mars, dancing. = =+10pts
• Bruno Mars, not doing a line of coke off a hooker's rump. = -2pts (And thus failing to hit for the rock star cycle.)
• Watching Red Hor Chili Peppers rock out in front of hundreds of kids who have no idea who they are. = -5pts
• Anthony Keddis: Looking like a porn star from the San Fernando Valley since 1993. = +3pts
• Bruno Mars, making the good call to NOT sing his hit song "Grenade" immediately after the montage of American servicemen and women saying hello to their families. = No points, just a sigh of relief. 
• Total Halftime Score: +21pts
• Denver decides the fastest way to get Peyton Manning on the field in the third quarter is to give up a return for a touchdown. = -7pts
• SPONSORED BY: Axe evolves from making the most sexist commercials to the most racist. = -10pts
• Note: Halfway through the third quarter of one of the most boring Super Bowls of the last 10 years, the nanobots beg to be fed Paranormal Activity 2. REQUEST DENIED.
• Jermaine Kearse runs through the entire Denver defense on his way to another Seattle touchdown. = +6pts
• Note: Technician (and noted Peyton Manning fan) Sean McConnell begs to feed the nanobots Paranormal Activity 2. REQUEST DENIED.
• Bob Dylan effectively renders himself pointless with the line, "Is there anything more America than America?" = -8pts
• Denver throws in the towel and attempts to kick an onside kick to start the fourth quarter. = -4pts
• Denver's master plan to injure all of Seattle's defensive players begins.... three quarters too late. = -3pts
• The game ends. = +5pts

Total Score: -26pts

Bollocks. You know it's a terrible night of football when you can say, without a doubt, that Bruno Mars was BY FAR the most interesting thing to happen in three-and-a-half hours. The terrible play was brain-numbing, and the "America is nothing but amazing" flavor of 90% of the ads didn't leave us with much of a respite. The endless wave of self-congratulatory nostalgia left us feeling that the emperor was more naked than ever. This from the same site that actually scored Convoy.

Score Technician: Sean McConnell