The Origin of the Progressive Cinema Scorecard, pt 1

The nanobots that power the state of the art Commodore 64’s of The Progressive Cinema Scorecard were discovered in an abandoned warehouse off a lonely highway outside of Boston Massachusetts in the winter of 2012. Joe and Sean, who were on their way back to Chicago after attending the famous New England Magic: The Gathering Tournament and Brony Convention, stumbled across the abandoned warehouse after their 1984 Toyota Tercel broke down as a result of being a 1984 Toyota Tercel. With little light available to them due to the outdatedness of Joe’s Cricket cell phone, they stumbled through a thin forest until eventually coming across the warehouse. It was clear that it had been abandoned because there was nobody there.

As the evening set in, Joe vetoed Sean’s plan to keep warm by shedding their clothes and using their bodies for heat, pointing out that he had dressed appropriately for the Magic Winter Orb tournament—the traditional garb consisting of many layers of thermal underwear, an abused fur coat gifted to his mother from a recently deceased aunty, and the harvested bones of various neighbor’s dogs and cats—while Sean’s choice of ass-less chaps, poncho, sombrero, and bandolier was inappropriate for the winter weather as well as the Brony convention they had just left.

Having made the decisions to keep Joe’s clothes on, the two ventured into the warehouse in the hopes of finding a place to settle down for the evening. Deep down there was excitement over the possibility of stumbling across a room full of abandoned gold (something Joe claimed was hidden all over America in abandoned warehouses just like this one) and the adventure that would likely follow as they dueled over who would stake claim to such a treasure. In this Sean had the distinct advantage, since he had spent years devising potential “disappearing scenarios” related to Joe’s needing to be vanished as the result of a stroke of brilliant luck a bag of abandoned gold would bring.

Deep in the warehouse they found a portal to an underground lair, with a corpse wedged in its entrance between the floor and its heavy trap door. It appeared as though the individual had been fleeing during some kind of emergency, only to slip comically on a discarded rollerskate and get crushed to death by the trap door that slammed shut across his/her chest. It apparently took the individual hours—possibly days—to die. A fact gruesomely retold by the chilling words scrawled out of their own blood:

“Ow!! Jiminy Christmas, that smarts! Damn you Earlymeyer and your skates! You never cleaned up after yourself!!... How long have I been here? Hours?! Days?! I guess now is as good a time as any to write my memoir. Where do I start? I guess it all begins in the seaside home of my mo~~~~~~.”

While arguing over how great of an idea it was to go into the bunker—an 8 being a totally solid good idea, or a 10 meaning definite no-brainer—Joe pried off the best bits of skeleton for his accoutrements, swapping out the smaller somewhat silly cat bones for the totally way more intense human bones and Sean picked off whatever dried flesh might pass for good jerky. They were unfortunately unable to lift the trapdoor, a fact that should have been fairly obvious given the dead person before them. So they took to scavenging what they could from the corpse. While searching the pockets of the dead technician, they stumbled upon a flash drive in which the words, “Love me,” had been written.

Joe, recognizing that such a drive could easily be plugged into your basic PC, hypothesized that its contents could very well be “a source of greater power than a turn-one Sol Ring.” He then convinced Sean to put on his clothes by reminding him that corpses provide little warmth when pressed against the naked flesh of men. Dejected by this revelation and confused by Joe’s “technospeak gibberish,” Sean suggested that they return to the car and begin stripping the vinyl seats for food. Joe concurred and the two returned to the vehicle.

On a whim, Joe suggested that Sean attempt to restart the vehicle. In an effort to humor his friend, Sean proceeded to do exactly that—although not willing to humor his friend too much, he did so while repeating everything Joe said to him in the exaggerated high-pitched mocking voice of his mother. To their surprise, the car started. Sean, thinking that being naked would allow the warm air from the barely working heater to better warm his body, finally removed his clothes and prepared their return to Chicago. Joe, little did he realize, had put the flash drive into his pocket and fondled it the whole way home, quietly whispering, “Now who’s the mightiest plainswalker?”

That was how they found the nanobots.

Understanding what they were and getting them working was a whole different story.

***

Below, for your viewing pleasure, is the first ever Scorecard that Sean McConnell received from the nanobots, back in August of 2011 for the Joe and Sean's Carcast blog (R.I.P.). As you'll notice, the readings were still very crude, as we had not yet fine-tuned our calibrations:

It's a new regular feature on the Carcast site. The Progressive Cinema Scorecard! Joe and I will watch a great cinematic film and assign arbitrary points to scenes/events in films that we feel may or may not be viewed in the current climate as "progressive". 

We decided on the "Progressive Cinema Scorecard," since we all know that the title of "Conservatives Cinema Scorecard" would be a misnomer because conservatives don't actually watch movies, or listen to good music, or look at art, or live. And we decided against the "Liberal Cinema Scorecard" because Joe hates communist hippies. As a result, a compromise was struck. (Take note Washington!) The result: The brilliantly named "Progressive Cinema Scorecard." 

Progressive Cinema Scorecard for Night of the Comet: 

• Having a chick lead who is the best Asteroid player in 1984 = 10 pts
• Having chick lead and her sister be better with machine guns than the boys = 20 pts
• Having a Latino male lead in 1984 = 1pt
• Having said Latino male lead so closely resemble that OTHER Latino actor everybody in 1984 would recognize = -1 pt
• Having Latino male lead return to his house to check on his mother and the only record on display in the entire house being Feliz Navidad, better known as that one Mexican song white people in 1984 would recognize = -1 pt
• Having a bad-ass main chick turn into slightly deranged schoolmarmy wife at the end of the movie = -20 pts
• Having me think there were zombies in this fucking movie when there weren't = -100 pts
• Our liberal use of the word "chick" during this post = -50 pts

Final Progressive Cinema Score for Night of the Comet = -141 points 

In short: Far above average for this genre of film produced that decade. 

Score Technician: Sean McConnell