Christmas on Mars |
USA • 2008 • 83m •
  • Directed by: Wayne Coyne, Bradley Beesley, George Salisbury. • Starring: Steven Drozd, Wayne Coyne, Steve Burns, Fred Armisen, Scott Booker, Al Cory, Dennis Coyne, Kenny Coyne, Mark DeGraffenried, Adam Goldberg, Freddy Harth, Peter Hermes, Josh Higgins. • Music by: The Flaming Lips.    Major Syrtis goes insane as he tries to improve morale in an abandoned colony on Mars through a Christmas pageant, where the first colonist baby will be born.
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Review:
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.
Review by Ted from the Internet Movie Database.
Movie Database