Christmas on Mars

i'm not talking about the movie... i'm talking about the other two commentors... i come here because i'm trying to get some sort of handle by which to navigate the corridors to the films that i might enjoy...stop me if this sounds familiar... and then i get to this place where people involved with the film aren't bright enough to at LEAST vary their blurb... their 'free advertising'/hype, as it were... am i the only one that thinks that the same references, referred to in slightly varied wordings, is more than a coincidence? or maybe these two had a latte after their film festival viewing and we're privy to their all too similar insights? what are the chances?

can't we, the people who are tired of these cheeseballs, do some sort of aesthetic cleansing?

Okay. To try & sum this trippy little film up in (at least)one sentence: Take a jigger of Andre Tarkovsky's original Russian version of 'Solaris',mix in a dash of David Lynch's 'Eraserhead',fold in a pinch of '2001:A Space Oddyssey',add elements of John Carpenter's 'Dark Star',and just a tiny bit of 'Tetsuo:The Iron Man',shake well,pour into your cerebral cortex (with plenty of LSD),and Shazam, you have 'Christmas On Mars'. This is the absolute midnight cult film (if any cinemas had half a brain to screen midnight films,these days). This is the first feature film from the Oklahoma based rock band, the Flaming Lips. Wayne Coyne,who co writes the screenplay & co directs the film, also has a role as a space alien who never so much as speaks a word, but you somehow know exactly what he/it means. The film also features acting (?) performances by fellow Lips member,Steven Drozd as a freaked out astronaut,as well as other members of the band (and also Isaac Brock from Modest Mouse)in other roles. This film was shot over something like seven years, on a shoestring budget. Although there is no concert appearances by the band,the music & sound design was performed by the Flaming Lips (mostly a lot of deep space ambient sound). I especially admired the films visual look (which was filmed mostly in high contrast black & white with psychedelic colour bursts from time to time). This is the kind of film that will be a treat for some viewers (mostly Flaming Lips fans,who the band eternally thank at the film's conclusion), and a crashing bore to others (those who have no tolerance for something really different). The choice is yours. No MPAA rating here, but would easily snag an "R", due to course language, and some really surreal pseudo/quasi pornographic hallucination sequences. Leave the little one's home (who would probably be bored and/or confused out of their skulls,anyway).

Believe me, I like horror movies. I like science fiction movies. I like independent films. And, I like low-budget, B movies.

Sometimes, I even like bad acting, plodding scripts, wooden lines, improbably situations, and the like. However, I did not like Christmas on Mars.

It just doesn't work on so many levels. For all the reasons listed previously, and many more. That includes the nonsensical, blatant use of images of female genitalia. And the many allusions to male genitalia, in a very Freudian way.

I am convinced this is purely from ineptitude. As opposed to some attempt at doing something really different. I mean any movie that takes years to film, just cannot keep up the level of congruity and focus demanded by modern audiences.

I had hoped that the whole movie was just a dream or hallucination by the main character. However, sadly, it was meant to have happened, as we saw things unfold on screen.

About the only kindness that I can express, is that the image at the end was stupendous. If this had been used at the beginning, instead of the end, it could have allowed the film to take off where 2001 ended...

To bad they didn't try that instead. I just don't understand what was so important about this film that it even had to be made. Was it the plot? Surely, it couldn't be. Was it the characters? I doubt it; I mean, I could live without knowing about Ed 15. Was it the dialog? Emphatically, no. The music? Perhaps, but more-likely the unvarnished ego of the principals needing to be stroked.

Much better efforts have died on the cutting room floor.

The film is an absolute snoozer. Comparing this to Eraserhead, Solaris, etc. is like comparing Christmas to Kwanza-one is the established real deal and the other is a pale, pale wannabe.Yes, they both occur in December but that is where the similarities end. The only thing I can recommend about this film is the soundtrack and the incredible 5.1 surround mix. Kudos to whomever was involved in mixing. Both the music and the spoken audio are taken to new places by this mix. That would be it for anything positive I would have to say. Low low budget coupled with non-actors, no script, and the realization that nobody gives a tinker's damn about any of the characters, let alone what is happening to them weighs this turkey down. 83 minutes shot to hell.

Christmas on Mars, the debut feature of Wayne Coyne and my beloved Flaming Lips, is just as psychotic, obtuse, and delightfully up its own ass as anyone familiar with the band might expect. The film is centered around a small human colony on Mars, its patrons just barely coping with existential despair in the face of vacuous space as Christmas approaches--of course.

The medium offers mixed returns for the Lips: besides its obvious psychedelic opportunities, film allows Coyne and company to occasionally subvert cultural iconography and to deliver an endless barrage of vaginal imagery; the former visual tactic being arguably more artful. Film also means dialog, however, which isn't Coyne's strong suit: where his music often packs big ideas into few words, his sprawling drugisms have trouble supporting a narrative diegesis.

If there's one thing that's truly excellent about the film, it's the trippy, operatic music--one wishes the Lips were approached for film scores more often. It is also buoyed by a few fun performances: guitarist Steven Drozd is charismatically subdued, and Mark DeGraffenried adds an essential sense of humor as the foul-mouthed Captain Icaria. I can't say how well this film will play to those uninitiated in the Flaming Lips' discography, but for those of us who are fans, there's a certain pleasure of recognition in seeing Wayne Coyne in green antennae inexplicably dropping out of space to don a Santa suit: it's completely unexpected, and that's just what we expect. -TK 9/21/10