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 But ripping on a movie because of its outdated effects isn't fair.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!!