CLASSICS OF CRAP: VOLUME 17-Santa Claus Conquers the Martians

Ho Ho Ho, and happy holidays, bad movie buffs! This week's Classic of Crap is an obscure 1964 stinker called Santa Claus Conquers the Martians. If you've seen this flick, you probably watched it on MST3K, as I did. It is unspeakably bad. Bad movies for adults are one thing, but once you enter the arena of watching bad movies made for kids, hooo boy. It's a whole different ball game.

So, about the movie. Martians kidnap Santa Claus and force him to give presents to the good little martian children. Santa, plus two obnoxious kids, fight them off with toys. There's also a giant robot. Yep. I really don't know what else to say about this one. It made me want to gouge my eyes out with a mellon baller. So, should you watch it? Hell no. Stay far away. Just watching the trailer will break your soul.

CLASSICS OF CRAP: VOLUME 16-The Lawnmower Man

Hey bad movie lovers, and welcome back to Classics of Crap. Today's crap movie is one that probably means a lot to you if you were a kid in the early 90's. I remember seeing The Lawnmower Man with friends at a mall in Chicago, and afterwords watching other kids use a virtual reality simulator they set up in the mall, very similar to what you saw in the movie. At the time virtual reality was quite a hot idea. You paid 40 bucks for a half hour of pretending you were in a virtual room picking up a virtual pencil, or blasting a virtual mech suit.

Lawnmower Man came right at the crest of the fad, trumpeting its revolutionary computer effects. Were they impressive at the time? Sure. Do they age well? Hell no. But ripping on a movie because of its outdated effects isn't fair. I'd rather champion this movie for all it does right. For example: Virtual Reality possessed monkey getting blown away! Guy getting chopped up by a lawnmower! Virtual sex scene! Bad guy's face getting turned into marbles! Priest bursting into digital flame! Incredible homosexual tension between the two male leads! Wait, what? Yup. If you haven't seen Lawnmower Man in a while, go back and rewatch what could possibly be the most overt sexual tension between two guys since Lord of the Rings. Check it out, and I'll be back next week for another Classic of Crap!

Sketching away again

Some more pages of breaktime sketches...

CLASSICS OF CRAP: VOLUME 15-Plan 9 From Outer Space

Welcome movie nerds, and thanks for reading my 15th edition of Classics of Crap, where every week we take a look at cinema's finest failures. "Plan 9 From Outer Space" is probably the best known "so-bad-it's good" movie ever. Made in the 50's by Ed Wood, it was pretty much ignored until the early 80's, when it was famously dubbed, "The worst movie ever made", and garnered a whole new following from college stoners to ironic hipsters. I first saw this flick in college on video and I thought it was pretty awesomely terrible. There were so many bad 50's b-movies, but this one really stood out to me as being more incompetent than most. (Best part: recently zombified slab of beef Tor Johnson struggling to get out of a grave.) The 1994 film Ed Wood, which shed some light on the making of this movie, really piqued my interest in Ed Wood, and gave a little context to the making of his cinematic disasters. Should you watch it? Definitely. It makes a great double feature with Ed Wood's next best film, "Bride of the Monster". If you don't think you can watch the movie by itself, Rifftrax has a great commentary DVD on it that makes the pill a little less bitter. But really, this movie is awesome. You'd have to have a stupid Earthling mind to miss it. Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!

CLASSICS OF CRAP: VOLUME 14-Manos, the Hands of Fate

Well, here we are at last. One of the foulest cinematic turds of all time. Manos, the Hands of Fate is by itself, virtually unwatchable, but I, and I'm sure most people have seen it with the brilliant Mystery Science Theater commentary track playing at the bottom of the screen. Where do I begin? The movie looks like a snuff film, is one of the most technically incompetent movies ever made, and routinely makes the lists of the worst films of all time. I first saw this MST3K episode in college, and it quickly became one of my favorites. What can you say about Torgo, the half man, half drunken satyr/housekeeper? And how about Tom Neyman as "The Master" sporting the brilliant costume of a black robe with two red hands on them? Holy God, just thinking of this movie makes me want to drink bleach.

Watch a clip...if you dare...

Warmup sketchin'

Before I start drawing, I find it relaxing to draw cartoons of faces I see in magazines. Here are some of the drawings that I am not horribly embarrassed to show. Stay tuned---another Classic of Crap is coming soon!!

CLASSICS OF CRAP: VOLUME 13-Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS

Hey guys! Welcome back to Classics of Crap, where we dig up cinema's finest garbage.

The early 70's brought a strange resurgence of Nazi imagery to pop culture from the satirical (The Producers), the psychological (The Night Porter), to the exploitational. Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS was the first of several Ilsa movies that I caught a few years back on video. Like most mondo cinema, these bizarre Nazi torture porn movies were all about degrading and objectifying women. I found a lot of what was in them really distasteful, but since the movie is so over the top, it because almost humorous. My favorite Ilsa movie, "Ilsa, Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks" is actually quite hilarious and features a German caricature being offered a young boy to, um, service him. He protests, acting as if he is in a sitcom, proclaiming he is not gay. Then, when the boy takes off his clothes, he changes his mind. Hey, what are you gonna do, right?
I actually don't recommend watching these. They are pretty hardcore, especially for squeamish viewers, but if you are in the mood to see some goofy topless Nazis torturing and killing, knock yourself out.

Yep. More sketches

Sorry to take a break from Classics of Crap, but I wanted to share a few fun sketches from our breaktime drawing jams at work:

CLASSICS OF CRAP: VOLUME 12-TRANSYLVANIA 6-5000

Welcome back to Classics of Crap, another sojourn into the wild world of awful, but great, but awful films.

I love monster mash movies. When I was a kid, I adored Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein, The Monster Squad, Son of Frankenstein, anything that paired up classic monsters. There was something so whimsical about them. For me, they had lost the power to scare, and had, by the mid 80's, been relegated to only spoofs. Enter the barely remembered Transylvania 6-5000, a hokey monster goofball flick starring Ed Junior Begley and Gold Jeffblum, if I'm remembering that right.

And then there's Michael Richards. As a kid, I thought his wild antics were the zenith of comedy. After reviewing the movie again, well, not so much. Still, there is much to like, such as Geena Davis' 'sexy' vampire costume. A few of the one liners are pretty memorable, like "I never counted on bazonkers!" I have fond memories watching this movie over and over as a kid, nearly pissing myself laughing. Watching it again, i think I cracked a smile once or twice. It's the perfect movie to watch after a lobotomy.

CLASSICS OF CRAP: VOLUME 11-STOP! OR MY MOM WILL SHOOT

Welcome back again, dear readers, to another edition of Classics of Crap, where every week I take a look at one famously awful movie and illustrate it.

Sylvester Stallone has made some terrible, terrible movies. Rhinestone, Judge Dredd, Assassins, Daylight, Oscar, The Specialist, The Expendables, etc etc. But of all the lousy films he's made, Sly (according to IMDB), thinks that Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot is his biggest failure. That pretty much says all you need to know.

This movie is mostly remembered as the one with Golden Girl, Estelle Getty holding a handgun and swearing. But it is so, SO much more. It has endless, repetitive jokes about moms talking about their grown sons when they were babies, hilariously bad action scenes, Stallone in a diaper, and possibly the worst tag/joke at the end of a movie I've ever seen. What is it? I'll never tell. So, should you track this movie down and watch it? Heavens, why not. It's not like you are doing anything else this weekend.

CLASSICS OF CRAP: VOLUME 10-BATTLEFIELD EARTH

Hey guys, and welcome back to Classics of Crap, where I illustrate one of my favorite so-bad-it's-great movies every week. For my money, you can't have a list of crappy movies without including John Travolta's epic sci-fi clusterf**k, Battlefield Earth. Set in the year 3000, this would-be epic pits the last few remaining humans against a race of conquering aliens called Psychlos. Because the humans have regressed back to an almost primitive state, you could have almost called this movie "Cavemen vs. Aliens". That sounds pretty awesome, but alas, what is on the screen is nothing short of a hilarious cinematic disaster.

Much ink has been spilled over how bad this movie is, so I won't delve to deeply into criticizing the direction, the acting, etc. What I will say is that it makes for a spectacular lesson in celebrity schadenfreude. Pushed into production by devout scientologist and canned ham John Travolta, he bites off more than he can chew, not just producing this disaster, but also starring in it as the evil Psychlo Terl. Chewing up the scenery, he is buried beneath possibly the most awkwardly designed alien costumes ever created. This decision nearly cost him his career. If you have two hours you'd like to waste on this trash, Battlefield Earth is streaming right now on Netflix. If you have more important things to do with your life, like, you know, ANYTHING ELSE BUT THIS, here's a clip.

CLASSICS OF CRAP: VOLUME 9-SHE

Hey guys! Thanks for coming back for another entry into the weekly series that I do illustrating the best of the worst movies out there. This one is pretty obscure. It's a 1982 fantasy(?)/sci-fi(?)/post apocalyptic vampire/nazi/totally bugnuts crazy flick that you pretty much have to see to believe. Found by my friend Joseph and I on one of our many, many trips to the back of local DVD rental store, Video Hut, we were just expecting a typical 80's Conan rip off. Little did we expect the cornucopia of delights "She" had to offer. A robot Frankenstein with an exploding head, a cult leader with telekinetic powers, a fat hairy guy in a tutu, lepers, nazis, cowboys, knights, and quite possibly the strangest and most annoying character in film history: Xenon. Like the bastard child of Robin Williams and Groucho Marx, he literally stops the movie dead in it's tracks with horribly unfunny schtick, and is possibly the most memorable thing in "She". Watch the embedded clip and just see if you can tolerate him for more than 12 seconds. I bet you can't. Anyway, "She" is streaming right now on Netflix, so grab your swords and Sandahls (heheh), and give it a watch!

CLASSICS OF CRAP: VOLUME 8-SUPERMAN IV

Welcome back to Classics of Crap, where I take a look at some of the most notorious cinematic stinkers of all time, and illustrate them. Last week, I examined the movie that killed the Batman franchise, (for a while, anyway). This week, I think it's only fair that I look at the movie that killed the Superman franchise- the odious Superman IV: The Quest for Peace.

I was 9 when this movie came out, and was already a die hard Superman fan. This movie holds a special place in my heart as the first movie I can remember walking out of thinking it was a horrible, horrible disappointment. So now, nearly 25 years later, how does it old up? Not well, I'm afraid. The effects still look incredibly bad, even worse than the original Superman made 10 years earlier. The jokes aren't funny, but much unintentional humor comes from hammy performance by Mark Pillow as the evil Nuclear Man. I blame schlock-merchant producers Golan-Globus for slashing the budget so far as the director had to recycle shots of Superman flying over and over again. So, should you watch this? Sure, it's 90 minutes of goofy, awful fun. Best part? When Nuclear Man kidnaps Star 80 and takes her into outer space. Where she can breathe. WTF?

CLASSICS OF CRAP: VOLUME 7-BATMAN & ROBIN

Hey batfans! Welcome back to Classics of Crap. Today I'm shining the bat-signal on the Citizen Kane of bad superhero movies-Joel Shumacher's Batman & Robin. This movie is such a heaping pile of fail, it's tough to know where to even start. From the notorious Bat-nipples, to Mr. Freeze's endless ice related puns, this movie sucked the life out of the franchise so hard that it took years for it to recover. I think it's safe to say that the suits at WB deserve a lot of the blame for this one, making Batman so over the top and campy just to sell merchandise that it turned off just about anyone who saw it. Luckily, Batman is an extremely durable character, so this awful movie is just a speedbump in an otherwise great film series.

The zenith of Batman & Robin's total insanity is a point midway through the film where Batman pulls out his bat-credit card, and says, "I never leave the cave without it". Akiva Goldsman didn't win an Oscar for this screenplay, but a few years later, the Academy realized their mistake and gave it to him for a Beautiful Mind, as an apology.

So, grab your pink gorilla suit, and fire up your dvd or blu-ray. (Robin wants a blu ray player. Chicks dig the blu ray players) For extra fun: have a shot every time Mr. Freeze makes a terrible pun!

Chhh chhh chhh ahhh ahhh ahhh

A quick doodle after work to get into the Halloween Spirit! BOO! >:}

CLASSICS OF CRAP: VOLUME 6-FASTER, PUSSYCAT! KILL! KILL!

Hey, bad movie fans! Welcome back to another exciting edition of Classics of Crap! Today's bad movie is the Russ Meyer Boob-sploitation masterpiece, Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! It features a wildly colorful cast, anchored by a snarling lead performance by the terrifying tower of ta-ta's, Tura Satana. I just watched this movie for the first time this week, and it was incredibly entertaining. The acting was rotten across the board, and the 'driving' shots looked phony as hell, but it was always luridly fascinating. So should you watch this flick? Well, if you like busty babes, sexist hillbilly grandpas, and neurotic bodybuilders, you should come to my house for Thanksgiving some time. If you want to see sexy 60's girls on bikes screwing and killing their way across America, you should rent Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!

This week's sketches

Here are just a few bonus sketches I did this week...See anyone you recognize?

CLASSICS OF CRAP: VOLUME 5-GHOULIES

Welcome back to Classics of Crap, where every week I take a look at one famously bad movie and illustrate it. This week's film is Ghoulies, a 1985 cornball witchcraft-meets-Gremlins type of movie. As a kid, I was deathly afraid of the cover art on the VHS tape, which depicted a little green bald monster popping out of the toilet with the tagline, "They'll get you in the end". For years I was terrified that these creatures would come grab me while I was relieving myself. I was a more than a little disappointed that at no time in Ghoulies does anyone get attacked while on the john. And, to add insult to injury, that Ghoulie on the cover never even wore that outfit in the film!

To think I was even afraid of this movie! It's little more than a hodgepodge of different 80's horror conventions. It borrows the scary clown from Poltergeist, a tongue attack that would feel right at home in the Thing, and much more. The villain is laughable, and fatally for the film, the Ghoulies barely do anything. They could have left them out completely and the movie would have been more or less the same. But, the film has it's merits. It's often really funny as the cast of 40 year old "teenagers" attempt to conjure occult spirits, and it has some of the wildest overacting I've ever seen on film. It's streaming on Netflix as of this writing, so you can summon up Ghoulies right now!

Afterwords, check the toilet twice for monsters, just to be sure.

CLASSICS OF CRAP: VOLUME 4-Birdemic

Technically, the full title of this movie is called Birdemic: Shock and Terror. And boy, oh boy, they weren't kidding. It's only SHOCKING how TERRIBLE this movie is. If you haven't yet heard of this flick, it's a relatively new movie that has quickly been adopted as one of the best cult movies of the past decade. I think of all the movies I will profile on Classics of Crap, it's probably the most amateurish. Sound levels are all over the place, and there is no coherence to the editing or even the writing. BUT, as with most so-bad-they're-good movies, it's utterly hilarious. The signature scene, which I chose to illustrate, is a bit where the "heroes" fight off the "killer birds" with the only weapon they have around: a bunch of coat hangers. The killer birds, I'd just like to point out are just animated gifs, cloned again and again (a technique i used for my drawing, hehe). Also, the birds are apparently filled with explosives, since they inexplicably detonate upon impact. (huh?!) So anyway, I'd highly recommend Birdemic, as it features some of the best bird-on-human violence I've ever seen, as well as some of the most hypnotic hovering eagles ever shot on film. And the best part is, they're making part 2--in 3-D! Good lord! *Choke!*

ClaSSICS OF CRAP: VOLUME 3-Showgirls

Welcome back to this weeks edition of Classics of Crap. Today's drawing is of the 1995 stinkbomb, Showgirls. Believe it or not, I actually paid to see this movie in the theater. I was 17, and since this was one of the first mainstream Hollywood movies to be rated NC-17 and given a wide release, I expected nothing less than the sexiest movie of all time. I was pumped, nervous and excited. 2 hours later, I sat befuddled. I had been had. Showgirls was a total let down, possibly the UN-sexiest movie ever. I slunk out of the theater, disappointed.

Years later, I was talking to a friend about what a crappy movie it was, and he suggested I see it again, but this time, with a different frame of mind. He was totally right. Watching it again, I finally got the joke. On the VIP edition of the DVD, the commentary by David Schmader was hilarious and reassigned this movie as a camp classic. It remains one of my most beloved 'bad movies', every frame bursting with tacky, glittery awfulness. For my illustration, I really wanted to highlight some of the "what were they thinking?!?" lines in the movie. They are taken out of context, but in the film, they are howlers. If you haven't seen Showgirls, slip into something more comfortable, grab a pole, and give it a spin!

CLASSICS OF CRAP: VOLUME 2-THE ROOM

Oh HAI, guys! So for this edition of Classics of Crap, I wanted to share one of my newest favorite bad movies, Tommy Wiseau's, The Room. I first heard about The Room as it was making headlines here in LA for being a popular midnight movie. I found a copy of the dvd and gave it a spin. It was amazing. After watching it about 5 times, I went to the theater on Sunset where it was playing and got to see it live, with Tommy himself in attendance. He was running up and down the aisles, shaking people's hands, signing autographs, obviously having a great time. His Hollywood dream had come true.

About the movie--A personal story about a man who thinks of himself as a giving lover, only to be betrayed by his girlfriend, The Room is horribly amateurish production. Plot threads and characters appear and disappear without notice, and the acting is flat across the board, save for some over the top outbursts("You're tearing me apart Lisa!") I cant even decide what is the best part of the movie. Is it watching Denny get chewed out by Lisa's mom, the headspinning flowershop doggie scene, or watching the Brittany Spears-esqe Juliette Danielle moan in ecstasy as she clutches Tommy Wiseau's gefilte fish textured back? If you haven't walked into The Room yet, I highly recommend it. Just bring a framed picture of a spoon with you.

CLASSICS OF CRAP: VOLUME 1-TROLL 2

Hi guys! I'm starting a new feature on my blog called Classics of Crap, where I draw some of my favorite "so bad, they're good" movies. Kicking off this event is Troll 2, a movie I discovered one fateful night flipping around basic cable stations in the early 90's. I had seen and enjoyed the first Troll a few years earlier, so I figured, why not. After sitting through the whole thing, waiting for an actual troll to show up (Spoiler alert: they never do), I logged this one away as just another disappointing experience. After moving to LA, I met one of my best friends, Joseph, and he told me of a similar experience. As we watched it again, we discovered out opinion had completely changed. Suddenly, Troll 2 became a unintentionally hilarious comedy. Apparently, some other people thought so too. The "Oh my godddd" clip has been viewed on YouTube millions of times, and Troll 2 still plays at midnight screenings all over the country. So, remember kids, Nilbog is Goblin backwards, and remember to eat the ice cream. It's nice and creamy!

I'm Still Alive!

Hey guys-this is embarrassing, but it's been SO long between posts. It has been a combination of freelance jobs, which unfortunately, I can't share, work being crazy busy, and working on personal art projects, which, again, I'm not ready to share just yet. I still keep up with my sketchbook, so here are a couple of doodles I like. Thanks for looking! More artwork coming soon!

Don't Go to Sleep!

Here's a little bit of fan art for my favorite horror movie of all time, the original Nightmare on Elm Street.

Piles o' Doodles

Hey Guys! I haven't posted anything in forever, so I apologize for that. Late last summer, I was promoted to Lead Artist at my job at Nickelodeon Virtual worlds, and that has proven to be quite stressful and has taken a lot more out of me than I had anticipated. I started to slide on my personal sketchbook drawings, doing maybe one doodle a week. So, my new years resolution for 2011 was to start drawing more, and what I'm posting is just the beginning. I've done 100 or more pages that I'm not going to post up, cause frankly, they aren't that good, and I hate scanning. So, anyway, sorry again for the lapse, but I hope you'll see something you like here. Thanks for looking!