Los Angeles, CA

I don’t know about you, but I am a HUGE Mystery Science Theater 3000 fan — MST3K, for those of you in the know. And if you’re a fan too, then you already know what the title of this post refers to. If you don’t, then I’ll clarify for you: a man is trapped on a bone-shaped satellite orbiting earth, forced to watch god-awful films with two robots he built for company. The point of these bizarre exercises is to try and drive him insane, because the mad scientist hidden deep underground that’s controlling this experiment seems to think bad movies are the key to world domination. At first it was the hapless Joel Robinson who was stuck in space with Crow, the snarky robot who looks vaguely like a giant gold spider, and Tom Servo, the pint-sized converted gumball machine with a voice like butter. Joel finally manages to escape the Satellite of Love (har har), and is quickly replaced by an unlucky temp named Mike Nelson. Mike is a little more with it than Joel, but still suffers through his fair share of awful films.

One of these hideous experiments happens to be Santa Claus Conquers the Martians. It’s about, yes, Martians, who are trying to figure out why their children are so lifeless and glued to their TV sets. Maybe it’s because the Martians have forgotten about love and basic affection? Pft, no! It’s because they don’t have Santa Claus to give them toys, as they see from an Earth broadcast. So the clueless Martians come to earth and kidnap Santa and force him to make their children happy. Also on board the Martian spaceship is an all-American brother and sister duo, and, together with Santa and a seriously stupid Martian outcast named Dropo, they show Mars what Christmas is really all about: toys and acting as stupidly childish as possible. It’s worth noting that this film also marked Pia Zadora’s debut as the little Martian girl Girmar.

What does this have to do with L.A., you may ask? Well, besides being a great film to watch during the holidays (please, only watch it under the guidance of Mike and the ‘bots through MST3K, do not attempt to watch it seriously), you can also see it live! The Maverick Theater in Fullerton is doing a live stage production of Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, I kid you not. I can’t wait to see how they handle it, especially after the friend who told me about this production said he’d just seen the Maverick’s stage version of Night of the Living Dead and it involved a real truck smashing through the set and a real zombie attack. You know it’s going to be good. So if you can at any time between November 23 and December 30, try to catch this show. I’m sure you won’t regret it.

More information and tickets available here.

A new film called Just Buried will be screening at the American Film Market in Santa Monica this weekend. Through a special offer, you can view this film, currently making the rounds at various international film festivals, for free! That’s right, free. What’s the catch? No catch — at least, not really. All you have to do is send an email to justburied [at] trilogyent.com to RSVP, then print out a copy of this Craig’s List bulletin and bring it with you. That’s it!

The screening is at Laemmle Theatres, address 1332 2nd Street in Santa Monica, and will be shown in theatre 1 at 9 AM. If you’d like to learn more about the film before watching it, you can find more at their IMDb page here.

My favorite place to see improv:

The Empty Stage (2372 Veteran Ave.)

Recommended show: The Transformers

The Thrilling Adventure and Supernatural Suspense Hour is a staged production in the style of old time radio. Nicely dressed actors read genre-soaked narratives. A foley artisan creates sound effects that will astound one of your senses. A very small orchestra accompanies all shows. (TTASSH myspace page)

Acker and Blacker and the Work Juice crew return this Saturday for another night of hilarious staged readings, singing, and other special delights. I first saw The Thrilling Adventure and Supernatural Suspense Hour earlier this year and have been dying to go back since. I’ve always thought dinner theatre was completely lame until I saw this show and laughed my bum off all the way through dinner. One of my favorite numbers was Sparks Nevada:

Sparks Nevada, Marshal on Mars is a space-western following the adventures of the heroic lawman stationed in the Western Quadrant of space. With his fairthful Martian companion, Sparks fights off robot outlaws, alien scientists, and space-gangs to keep the peace on the red planet.

The cast is incredibly talented (and features a couple of my favorite L.A. performers Craig Cackowski and Joel Spence) and each vignette is hilariously written. Watching the show it’s really impossible to tell who’s having more fun, the actors or the audience. If you ask me, that’s the best sign of a really great show.

Acker and Blacker’s

The Thrilling Adventure and Supernatural Suspense Hour

August 11th, 8pm @

The M Bar (the southwest corner of Fountain and Vine in Hollywood)

$5 for the show, $5 for valet

to be assured a seat, make a dinner reservation: 323.856.0036

 I’ve been enjoying the subtle hilarity of ‘Clark and Michael’ - a CBS webisodic about two boys in Hollywood trying to sell their pilot.  The  series stars Clark Duke and Michael Cera (of Arrested Development fame).   Duke also stars in ABC’s Greek, and Cera will be on the big screen later this month in Super Bad. 

The series wrapped up their tenth and what appears to be final episode last week.  But you can still check out all ten episodes at the Clark and Michael website and enjoy the show’s funny take on Hollywood’s young and the restless. 

My life is forever changed by the on-the-fly hilarity brought to the world by Guys With Feelings (PG-14ish). Best friends, Jason Nash and Jeff Bumgarner podcast from ‘Stairmaster Studios’ (Jason’s basement??), sharing their innermost thoughts and rants about L.A. life, the biz, and what it’s like to be young male creative types with little babies and wives…and feelings…a plethora of raw, male feelings with no hint of shame or downplay. It’s genius. I love it.

Guys do have feelings. And it’s definitely a laughing matter.

Angelenos, get your Maria Bamford fix all week long!   

WEEK DAYS

Plug in your headphones to the office computer and tune in to Maria’s exclusive web series, The Maria Bamford Show on Super Deluxe.   Each video is about five minutes long making for the perfect work break:  

WEEKENDS

Head out to Los Feliz and catch What’s Up Tiger Lily with Maria and other funny ladies, Mondays at 8pm:

What’s Up Tiger Lily

GOOD LUCK TO ALL MY FRIENDS AND FAVORITE IMPROV CREWS AT THE  DEL CLOSE MARATHON IN NEW YORK THIS WEEKEND!  BREAK A LEG XOXOXO 

Sentimental Lady

Title IX

Cabbages and Kings

Last Day of School

DHT

Great Adventure

Upright Citizens Brigade

ASSSScat

This is one of my favorite Policecat sketches:

Alex Berg and Alex Fernie make up Policecat, the hardest hitting sketch crew to come out of a seven sister school. Catch the Alexes perform with one of UCB ’s (5919 Franklin Ave., Hollywood) funniest long form improv teams, Sentimental Lady on Monday nights. Check the UCB schedule for show times.

Hello 451 readers,

My name’s Paris Lia.  I’m very happy to have been invited to share my thoughts on Los Angeles for 451 Press. 

One of my favorite things about Los Angeles is its vibrant alternative comedy scene.  Many of TV’s funniest people can be found performing throughout the week most notably at IO West and Upright Citizen’s Brigade in Hollywood. 

This summer has seen an amazing line up of comedians - Patton Oswalt, who most recently voiced the character of Remy in this summer’s animated hit, Ratatouille can be seen performing in Comedy Death Ray this Tuesday the 16th at Upright Citizen’s Brigade.  The show is a mix of stand up, characters, and sketch. 

July is also Ladies Month at UCB Theatre.  This Friday I caught the hilarious show Mother F****r featuring some of comedy’s funniest ladies - Jamie Denbo, Dannah Feinglass, Danielle Schneider, and Katie Roberts.  The show that promises balls to the wall improv from ladies with no actual balls lived up to its word and provided just the right size eggs to throw in a face the size of… oh say…Christopher Hitchens’. 

You can catch Mother F****r Saturday, July 28th at 8pm ($8) and Sunday, July 29th, 7:30pm (FREE).