The Progressive Cinema Scorecard for Paranormal Activity:

• For being a recent horror movie that isn’t a remake and doesn’t revolve around Real World cast-offs being subjected to surgical torture. =+20pts
• For being one of those “found footage” horror movies. =-15pts
• Isn’t there only one camera? How come the POV keeps changing in the kitchen? =-5pts
• So, just so we’re clear here, malevolent poltergeist haunting my girlfriend: Totally within the realm of possibility. Psychics who can perceive and study said poltergeist: An obvious load of bullshit invented to con chicks with serious psychological problems.= -10pts
• For giving us the Paranormal Activity Drinking Game (every time there’s a loud noise from downstairs, take a drink; if Micah or Katie yell “Fuck” right afterwards, chase it with a shot; guaranteed black-out drunk in 90 minutes or less). =+20pts
• For defining “demons” for us. (Because an entire lifetime of living in a Judeo-Christian Western society hasn’t familiarized us with that concept.) = –5pts
• Micah’s “research” on the supernatural consisting of one evening thumbing through My First Picture Book of Demons. = +5pts
• Despite the fact that the psychic explicitly said NOT to use a Ouija board, that’s pretty much Micah’s go-to solution. For showing some real moxy: =+10pts
• For being a willfully obtuse horror movie character. =-15pts
• So basically, Kate and Micah share a living space with something that throws stuff on the floor, leaves faucets running, and makes loud noises while they’re trying to sleep. Maybe I’m alone in this, but I kind of think that in order for the supernatural force in a horror movie to really be effective, it needs to be more threatening than, say, an inconsiderate roommate. =-15 pts
• At a certain point, wouldn’t the logical response to the “haunting” be to shake your first in the direction of the loud thumping, mutter a semi-coherent reprimand, and then roll over and go back to sleep? =-7pts
• Sprinkling talcum powder on the floor to solve your ghost problems. From a comedic perspective—almost off the charts—in this particular instance? =– 7pts
• Claw marks on Micah’s picture; I think we see eye-to-eye on this one, demon. =+18pts
• Attempted ghost rape. =+12pts (For being kind of scary. Not for...you know...the whole rape thing.)
• The end takeaway of this movie being “See the next movie to find out what any of this shit means?” = -25pts

Total points = -19 points
As close to a zero as anything we’ve ever reviewed. Proof that the scorecard never lies! We’re pretty sure that we’ve watched instructional videos on performing simple Excel functions that were more frightening than this film.

The Progressive Cinema Scorecard for Caligula:

• WHAT?!? Netflix doesn't have the uncut 156-minute version on the instant queue? Where's my extra 15 minutes of gratuitous hardcore sex? = -200pts
• Screenplay by Gore Vidal. = +50pts
• Oh, wait. Based on a screenplay by Gore Vidal. = -100pts
• Casting Alex from A Clockwork Orange as Rome's batshit craziest emperor. = +50pts
• Tantalizing us with hot '70s nudity in the opening scene, only to reveal that the parties concerned are brother and sister. = -20pts
• Miles of dangling chain gang slave wang. = +8pts
• Peter O'Toole: the drunken, paranoid, syphilitic grandfather we never had. = +30pts
• Emperor Tiberius's pleasure grotto looks like something out of an Hieronymus Bosch painting. = + 25pts
• Holy shit! Is that a human centipede on Tiberius's stairs? = +20pts
• Drowning the stuck-up butler from Arthur in a glass bathtub. = +10pts
• So, wait, no one's going to... I don't know... remove the the thing you used to strangle the emperor from around his neck before letting everyone know that he's dead?  No? Okay, I guess you guys know what you're doing. = -17pts
• Young, partially nude Helen Mirren. = +100pts
• A doomsday machine with rotating death blades decapitating prisoners buried up to their necks in the floor of the Colosseum? Why the hell not! = +200pts
• The constant, haunting presence of Malcom McDowell's supple, hairless ass cheeks. = -30pts
• Caligula delivers the most enthusiastic thumbs-up in cinematic history following Caesonias...er..."erotic" dance. = +47pts
•  Thank God they've captured the ancient Roman tradition of giving birth upright and cruciform for an audience of hundreds. Just like I always read about in my history texts. = +50pts
• Watching Caligula clumisily dragging his sister's naked corpse up the steps to a statue of Isis and knowing that somehow this scene was supposed to inspire pathos instead of snorting laughter. = -25pts
• Wow. I don't even know how to begin to describe what's going on here. So we've got an imperial orgy including all the wives and daughters of the senate, but the whole scene takes place in a land-bound ivory Roman galley, complete with oarsmen and a formation of Roman legionaries sashaying around it in a choreographed dance number. = +50pts
• Watching the re-enactment of Caligula's "conquest" of Britain. I'm glad the film makers captured the classic Roman strategy of sending their naked soldiers into battle first. You know, to weird the enemy out. = +13pts
• Apparently the password to enter the royal palace was "scrotum." = +10pts
• Gross historical inaccuracy. = -148pts
• Gross historical inaccuracy: = +296pts

Progressive Cinema Scorecard Total: +419

Final Note: An A-list Hollywood cast, hopelessly elaborate '70s art deco Roman sets, and a screenplay that unfolds as though it were written by someone who had read a wikipedia article on ancient Rome while huffing paint out of a sack made of mescaline. Even without the fifteen minutes of completely unnecessary and totally unsimulated sexual perversion, there's more than enough jaw-dropping insanity in this film to make Scorecard history.

The Progressive Cinema Scorecard: Rubber

The Progressive Cinema Scorecard for Rubber:

• Thinking of a movie that will star a vengeful tire with the power to explode people's heads and then actually making it. = +100pts.
• The feng shue value of placing chairs along a dirt road. Or, what the rest of the world calls littering. = -5pts
• Opening scene driving test FAIL. = +10pts
• Accompanying monologue. = +30pts
• Calling your movie a "great film" before it even starts. = -15pts
• The name "Wings Hauser". +10pts
• Watching a resurrected tire learn to roll again. = +20pts.
• Watching a tire hone its killing talents on empty water bottles, scorpions, beer bottles, rusty tin cans, and cute bunnies. = +35 pts
• Holy cow! Fat Neal! = +10pts
• Audience commentary past the meta-intro. You don't need to tell that a tire with psychokinetic powers is cool. I ALREADY KNOW THAT! = -30pts
• Even tires need to sleep. Apparently at night too. Remember that on your next road-trip. = +3pts
• Running over a tire in the middle of the road and then not stopping to see if it's okay. = -10pts
• Having that same tire regain consciousness, track you down for revenge, and explode your head (for you = -50pts) for us.= +75pts
• Being an officer of the law and not stopping to question the only object rolling/fleeing from a crime scene. = -25pts
• Taking a shower in a seedy hotel room and leaving your front door open for just any old tire to roll into. = -40pts
• Having one of your meta-actors comment that the ass of the female who agreed to be naked in your movie is "not that great". = -50pts
• Renting a hotel room to a homicidal tire. = -5pts
• Implied bestiality. = -10pts
• Full frontal tire nudity. = +20pts
• Wearing leather boots to the pool. = -5pts
• Adding exploded bird entrails to your dad's pizza. = -20pts, Doing it in front of a hitchhiking hippie = +20pts (Technically a wash)
• The realization that your meta-experiment isn't playing out the way you planned. = -10pts
• Attempting to befriend an unstable homicidal tire. = -5pts
• Eating the poisoned food of your own trap. = -5pts
• Filming a pile of burning tires. (pre-holocaust = 0pts) Post-holocaust. = -50pts
• Attempting to fool a homicidal tire to its doom by tempting it with a mannequin strapped with explosives that looks nothing like you. = +25pts
• Coming soon: Tricycle. = +10pts

Progressive Cinema Score Total: +83pts

Final Note: In just concept and initial execution alone, this movie started off with a bang. However, the second drags down what could have been a scorecard record.

BREAKING NEWS: Carson Daly Arrested at Mall of America for Harassing Tweens, Demanding to Know Why He’s Not Ryan Seacrest

Bloomington, Mn. -A deranged and obviously confused Carson Daly was arrested this weekend after accosting multiple tween girls, grabbing them by the arm, and shouting at them in front of their mothers, "Why the fuck am I not Ryan Seacrest!"

According to his publicist, Mr. Daly was in Minnesota to cover the unveiling of the world's largest Temperpedic mattress for his late night NBC show, Last Call. Witnesses claim that Mr. Daily became irate at the food court television, which had been running clips from Ryan Seacrest's E! Show E! News, during which Seacrest showed repeated clips of his own moments on the Fox mega-hit American Idol.

“He would start to ask something about the mattress, and then his eyes would float up to the television screen and he’d just sort of trail off,” said Doug McLauren, night manager for Temperpedic’s Mall of America location.

According to eye witnesses, Daly’s erratic behaviour continued for nearly 20 minutes before he threw his Chicken Teriyaki platter at an Auntie Anne's worker and began shouting, "THIS IS BULLSHIT!! THIS IS BULLSHIT!!" to no one in particular.

Representatives of NBC, the network on which Mr. Daly still manages to have a show, were contacted by The Carcast and asked to comment on the story: "We don't do that show any more. Haven't for years. This is NBC, we make television history. We're not in the business of shelling out dreck." After The Carcast sent them tapes of Mr. Daly's most recent show, an episode that featured Mr. Daly and Fred Durst on a camping trip and talking about how great music was in the 90's, the NBC executive responded, "I'll get back to you." The Carcast is awaiting further comment.

An MTV spokesperson gave a similar account, "Carson Daily? Never heard of him. Sounds like a bad porn name. MTV is not in the porn business."

"Techically," the representative added

Eventually Mr. Daly was subdued by mall security guard, Grover Wilkinson who had located an old poster of Tara Reid from one of the many abandoned storefronts now currently occupying the Mall of America.  Mr. Daly was last seen fleeing the Mall with his entourage, singer Fred Durst and former MTV vee-jay Matt Pinefield. There is no knowledge to his current whereabouts and all calls to NBC have gone unanswered.

The Progressive Cinema Scorecard: The Keep

The Progressive Cinema Scorecard for The Keep:

• Holy shit! Directed by Michael Mann! = +75pts
• Music by Tangerine Dream! = +5pts
• The bad guy from Beerfest! Playing a Nazi! (Being in Beerfest = +10pts; Being a Nazi. = -9pts) Net Points= +1pt
• Shooting a movie in what looks like Rock City. = +10pts (See it!)
• Saying the line, "It doesn't make any sense. It looks like it was built, not to keep something out, but-" This phrase has been interrupted for your benefit and has been assessed a Scorecard cliche penalty. = -10pts
• Having the salty old townie tell you to never touch the crosses...and then touching the crosses. = -25pts
• German Nazi soldiers with British accents. = +5pts
• The massive farting Keep sequence (with accompanying architectural anus). = +70pts (A cinema first!)
• Oh, snap! Scott Glenn! = +20pts
• According to this movie, Nazis with green arm badges weren't as bad as Nazis with red arm badges. Hold on, let me just Wikipedia this. Just to confirm... Okay, let's see...Nazis with green badges...Um, hmmm...Nope, all Nazis' sucked. = -30pts
• Holy shit! A young Faux Soze as a bad Nazi general! (For being a Nazi general. = -10pts; For being Faux Fucking Soze. = +30pts) Net. = +20pts
• Faux Soze's German accent. = -10pts
• Holy shit! Gandeto/Mandalf! In this movie! = +80pts
• For the Carcast having never heard of this movie, despite the sheer volume of Academy Award level talent (being made in 1983 is no excuse.), we must penalize ourselves for our incompetence. The Carcast is docked -100 points.
• The fact that everyone in this movie looks the same age now that they did in 1983. = +10pts
• Mandalf's indeterminable accent. = -10pts
• Gandeto's fuzzy mittens. = -5pts
• Really? A scene of Nazi face meltings? In 1983? A few years after Raiders of the Lost Ark? and you couldn't make them look at least as cool? Embarrassing. = -30pts
• That beautifully shot scene starring that moving fart cloud fly thing. = +25pts
• For finally explaining how Magneto got out of the Nazi death camps. Thanks for nothing, X-Men: First Class! = +10pts
• For having the female lead sleep with Scott Glenn, a man she had never met and didn't even have a conversation with. -20pts
• Taking us back to the day when aggressive, flat-hand rubbing on naked backs, and holding hands signified passionate sex. Thanks for nothing internet porn! =+5pts
• Skeletor cameo. = +10pts
• Yelling at your previously wheelchair-bound friend for being able to walk and telling him to burn in hell. = -15pts
• Crying into the arms of the man you just boned, who you don't know, and who has just mentioned he has to kill your father without providing a sensible, or understandable, reason for doing so. = -20pts
• For taking 5 minutes to show us how Mandalf figured his way through the Mines of Moria. = +5pts
• Constantly changing the the hairstyle of the female lead so that we think it's a different chick every time. = -15pts
• Almost killing your daughter because a guy in a rubber Skeletor suit told you too. = +25pts (Hey, we said almost.)
• Does Scott Glenn really need any prosthesis on his already long neck? We don't think so. = -5pts
• For not making any sense. = -25pts
• For the repetitive message that Nazi's were mean. Was this still in doubt in 1983? = +1pt
  
• For an overall lack of accent integrity. = -10pts
• For almost single handedly killing Mandalf's movie career. = -20pts
• We are giving our 100points back to ourselves because it is pretty clear why we never heard of this movie and why none of the poeple involved every cited it in any of the hundreds of interviews they've given since. Carcast = +100pts

Progressive Cinema Score Total: +127pts

Carcast Score Total: 0pts (Just where we like it!)

Final Verdict: Despite several beautiful Michael-Mann-esque-shots, and an amazing roster of (future) Academy Award nominees-ingredients so impressive that we initially penalized ourselves for not knowing of this film's existence-what we're left with was a nonsensical movie that appears to basically be about architectural flatulence.

The Progressive Cinema Scorecard: Phantasm II

The Progressive Cinema Scorecard for Phantasm II:

• Calling your big evil guy the "Tall Man" and then giving him lifts so that he is even taller. = +25pts
• The implied sexual relationship between the main character and his "Uncle" Reggie. = -40pts
• The extensive use of little people druids and the staging of several scenes around their ability to hide in just the right cabinet. = +25pts
• Watching a grown man toss aside his shotgun in favor of fleeing a two-foot tall little druid up a laundry shoot. = +25pts
• Trading in "gender-confusing-Mike" (think the guy/girl from Real Genius) for "less-gender-confusing-Mike." (back then = +30 pts) Now = -10pts
• Not hiring Brad Pitt for the role of Mike. I am dead serious. They could have. = -50pts
• Calling little people midgets. (in 1988 = 0 pts) Now = -10 pts
• Mike's need to continually dig up graves even though it is clear after the first couple that the bodies are suspiciously missing, thus proving that his time in the mental institution wasn't totally unwarranted. "Look, Mike, you may be right, but that doesn't mean you aren't a little crazy. Let's talk about your Uncle Reggie." = +10pts
• Blowing up Uncle Reggie's house twice in the fist 12 minutes. (2 separate houses. Does this go without saying? Cause they look like the same house.) = +30 pts.
• The bizarre shift in voiceover narrators. Who's story is this anyway? = -10pts
• The bizarre genre shift 20 minutes into the movie. "Horror? No, no, no, no. We saw this movie called Terminator (and at least six other movies who's names escape us at the moment), on VHS, and they were really cool.= -30pts
• Paying for things you clearly stole when there is no actual cashier working there to tell you how much things cost. "What would you say, 40 bucks for all of the large unwieldy tools and sharp objects? Wait, don't forget every mini-propane tank they had and the use of their buzz-saw. Oh, and the chainsaws. Yeah...you're right. 50 bucks." = +10pts
• Talking in the past tense about things that haven't actually happened yet. = +40pts
• Having the main character tell his uncle while robbing a tool shop stocked with shotguns that shotguns won't do anything to the little druids, only to see him 8 minutes later hand over his flamethrower to his uncle so that he can approach a likely little druid armed only with a 9mm. (Additional proof that this movie was likely conceived by an orgy of at least 3 other movies and born in the filthiest B-movie back-lot and left to feed itself or die. Not always a bad thing. This is America, goddammit.) = +20pts
• Second. Best. Back. Acne. Scene. Ever = +75 pts
• Perigord, Oregon. = -10pts
• Oh, look, it's a drunk Catholic priest who questions his faith. Snore. = -10pts
• Uncle Reggie using the term "take a leak" as an excuse to talk with his nephew in private and then standing too close to his nephew while he takes an actual leak, and doing so at an angle that seems to imply he is either peeing on his nephew's feet, trying to get him to look at his junk, or both; while simultaneously trying to convince his nephew (but really, the audience) that he has a thing for the hitchhiker he just inexplicably picked up. You aren't fooling anyone Uncle Reggie. = -20pts
• The ball = +50pts
• Making out with a guy you just met in an open grave. = +50pts (True love. Can you really put a value on it?)
• What are you Reggie? Bad-ass road warrior? Handyman? Pederast? Your tool belt is confusing us. = -25pts
• A bag of bone-dust labeled "Mr. Sam Rami". That explains so much. (The 4-barrell shotgun. The chainsaw. Etc.) = 0pts (We aren't whores.)
• Two words: Chainsaw. Duel. = +80pts
• Gold ball = 0pts (We said we aren't whores! Although a laser that makes things explode and can saw its way up and through a man's back before getting stuck in his jaw comes close.) Who are we kidding, we are total whores! = +50pts
• Three words: Chainsaw. To. Balls. = +30pts
• Turns out shotguns do work. = -25pts
• "Hey, Mike. Remember back in the original Phantasm when you fell into the interdemensional doorway and almost died? That couldn't possibly happen again, right? Mike? MIKE?!" = -10PTS
• The scene with the Tall Man dying from what looks like a transfusion of frat urine. = +20pts
• The final scare in which a main character dies, thus negating a majority of the voiceover. = -50pts
  

Progressive Cinema Score Total: +240pts

Final Note: A classic piece of frankensteined genres that somehow finds itself as the highest scoring film reviewed so far. Good on you, Mr. Don Coscarelli. You completely untalented hack, you.

The Progressive Cinema Scorecard: Monkey Shines

The Progressive Cinema Scorecard for Monkey Shines:

• Um, the title. We can't help it if "Monkey Shines" sound vaguely racist to us. = -100 pts
• The disclaimer at the beginning of the movie that speaks to the virtues of "The Helping Hands" program, apparently a "real" monkey training program designed to help the disabled, and the assurances that no monkeys were harmed in any way during the making of this movie. Talk about buzzkill (in 1988 = -25 pts) Now = +25 pts.
• The naked male calisthenics scene. (Only pussies take the time to put on underwear before doing the splits rubbing their sweaty ass and balls on the living room carpet.) = +10 pts
• Living in Chicago and seeing a jogger get hit by a car for running in the middle of the road within the first 2 minutes. = +50pts (Since "dream come true" has no real point value)
• Holy shit, is that Stanley Tucci?! With muscles?! = +10pts
• For the handicap sex scene, which would have scored higher if it hadn't been accompanied by all the monkey orgasms. = -30pts
• Lamest suicide attempt ever. = -10pts
• The monkey & man slow dance scene. = +10pts
• Hiring the red stapler guy from Office Space and having him play the mean animal doctor guy. = +10pts
• The creepy mom sponge bathing son scene. = -20 pts
• A grown man losing a hand-to-hand battle with a monkey the same size of the monkey from the The Hangover = +50 pts
• Watching a handicapped lead "race" across the house only to lose the race to a monkey, who then somehow wrestles all 300 pounds him (chair and all) away from the ringing telephone while tying him up with the cord of the phone at the same time. (I did not make that up. It actually happened.) = +25pts
• The monkey licking the mouth scene. Gross, and not in a good way. = -5pts
• For having a scene where a monkey pees on a man in a wheelchair. = +75 pts (Almost priceless.)
• Watching the main character chew a monkey stuffed animal to death. = +30pts
• For being boring = -50pts
  
• For calling yourself a horror movie = -50pts

Progressive Cinema Score Total: +30 pts

Final Note: Once again the Progressive Cinema Scorecard tells you everything that you need to know. In this case, the closer to zero a movie scores, the crappier it probably is. That and George Romero is going to have to do something truly spectacular to wipe the stink of this off of him.