Christmas On Mars (CD/DVD)

The Flaming Lips

Product Details

• Audio CD (November 11, 2008)
• Original Release Date: 2008
• Number of Discs: 2
• Label: Warner Bros.
• ASIN: B001G0LBYM
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #41,265 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

Track Listings

Disc: 1

1. Once Beyond Hopelessness

2. The Distance Between Mars And The Earth-Part One

3. The Horrors Of Isolation: The Celestial Dissolve, Triumphant Hallucination, Light Being Absorbed

4. In Excelsior Vaginalistic

5. Your Spaceship Comes From Within

6. Suicide And Extraordinary Mistakes

7. The Distance Between Mars And The Earth-Part Two

8. The Secret Of Immortality: This Strange Feeling, This Impossible World

9. The Gleaming Armament Of Marching Genitalia

10. The Distress Signals Of Celestial Objects

See all 12 tracks on this disc

Disc: 2

1. Christmas On Mars (Film)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Wayne Coyne’s directorial debut, Christmas on Mars, is a kitschy, homespun masterpiece that subverts film-judging criteria the way Ed Wood’s B-movies must have when they were first compared to horror back in the day. Co-directed by Bradley Beesley and populated with many local Oklahoma City characters, including most of Flaming Lips, Coyne’s brothers, Denny and Kenny, and his wife, starring as the female of the film, Mother (Michelle Martin Coyne), Coyne explains in extras interview footage that the movie took seven years to complete simply because the musician shot between tours. Rumors of this film’s release have been floating around forever, and the wait was worth it. Christmas on Mars, plot-wise, stars Major Syrtis (Steven Drozd), the captain on a spaceship who notices, between hallucinations of a baby dying, that the crew is in danger due to malfunctioning equipment. Clues include psychosis, as experienced by a man the script calls Astronaut Confronting Cosmic Reality (Kliph Scurlock), and other bizarre hardships, as other crew members that Major Lowell (Steve Burns) and the Sunglasses Wearing Astronaut (Michael Ivins) can attest to. The resident Psychiatrist (Adam Goldberg) tells everyone to chill out on the baby visions, which look like 2001: A Space Odyssey and Eraserhead, to no avail. Lucky for everyone, a mysterious green-faced Martian, played by Coyne, comes to the rescue. Christmas on Mars is not about plot originality, as it screens more like a tribute to Coyne’s favorite sci-fi films. Made almost exclusively in Coyne’s backyard, the sets impress because they really transport the viewer to space despite being made of recognizable hardware store materials. Each scene, and its way of either slowing down or speeding up time, feels deeply imagined from the subconscious. What matters is the film’s undoubting sincerity. Filmed mostly in black and white, blasts of color during moments of psychic realization surrealistically tie the film’s visuals to Flaming Lips music, in which guitars and heavy drums explode rhythm. Moreover, the score serves the film well, carefully blending ambient, electronic space-age melodies with moments of sonic chaos. Christmas on Mars is another of Coyne’s attempts at expressing tension between peace of mind and utter insanity, and an undying, Lovecraftian attraction to abyss. —Trinie Dalton

Product Description

Christmas On Mars is a fantastical and
disturbing film freakout. You expected
something less from The Flaming Lips?
Seven years in the making, Christmas On
Mars was directed and written by The
Flaming Lips visionary frontman Wayne
Coyne and features the band members
and many of their associates as actors in a
story set during the colonization of Mars.
The 86-minute film and its original score
are presented in a stand-alone DVD, and as
a CD+DVD package which includes an
audio CD of the score. With Christmas On
Mars, psychedelia finally has its epic film.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars VERY much worth the 7-year-wait..., November 17, 2008

By	Larry Davis "powerpoplarry" (NYC/Long Island, NY) - See all my reviews

This 2-disc CD/DVD of their bigger-budget "home movie" and accompanying score is finally out and, if you know the Flaming Lips music and creators, "Christmas On Mars" makes perfect sense.

First, the score CD: the Flaming Lips have done instrumental music before...the occasional track or song-excursion, like that "Balloon" song on "Yoshimi", which was actually written for "Christmas On Mars", but was deemed too poppy for it but perfect for "Yoshimi". If you like these types of tracks that Wayne & co do, you will dig the score...however if you are a Lips fan strictly for Wayne's SINGING, you probably won't. Me, I dig the crazy creative minds of Wayne Coyne, Steven Drozd and Michael Ivins, so I dig the score (it IS on the short side, 32 minutes and change).

As for the movie itself...it's black & white (with flashes of colour), 86 minutes long (not TOO long), flat-out WEIRD and fun and trippy and you see not only all 4 Lips (yes Klyph Scurlock too), but their family (Wayne's wife Michelle is VERY prominent in it, as are a Coyne brother and nephews and baby niece) and friends...the 7-years-in-the-making "Christmas On Mars" is a film extension of their unique psychedelic freakout/childrens birthday party on acid/warped pop music. How it came into being in the first place was courtesy of Wayne's mom Dolly...Wayne & his bros came home late one night, 2AM, saw their mom crying, as she saw some sad old movie and described it as people in space dying and as they coped with the idea of death, a strange being came down (an alien, God, etc) and comforted them...turns out this movie never existed in the first place...Mrs Coyne saw a combo of bits of old flicks, fell asleep inbetween and dreamt the rest. Well, Wayne was so taken by this "movie" that once he found out it never existed, he took it upon himself to actually make this movie...and actually did it!!! Using family and friends, a handful of them REAL actors, along with locations around OKC, including abandoned warehouses and Wayne's & Michelle's own backyard, scraps of found parts and metal, and sets Wayne built himself, and done in fits & starts, over the course of 7 years, inbetween albums and tours, "Christmas On Mars" is finally complete.

It's worth it...an INSTANT, weird, compelling cult classic...show it to your friends and family, buy multiple copies and give them as gifts for the holiday season!!! Spread the Lips luv!!! Perfect for anyone's warped mind and inner child!!! Equal parts "Wizard Of Oz" and "Eraserhead" and "2001: A Space Odyssey", with a nice dose of Lips warped uniqueness. Perfect!!!

I am looking forward to their next project, now that Wayne & co got this movie out of their system...an instant cult classic you have to experience for yourselves...it was very much worth the wait, oh yes.

Even further, buy the GREEN VINYL version, how cool is that??!!??!!

10 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars nope, December 3, 2008

By	rucktoon (Lincoln, RI USA) - See all my reviews

Love the Lips. Got everything. The soundtrack is interesting, but not listenable. Do not buy it without checking it out first. I was very disappointed with how lame the music was, compared to what they could have created. I expect the DVD to be as silly as it's been made out to be, so no review needed there. Of course I pre-ordered this, but I think reading a review like this one would have saved me 20 bucks. It'll be budget bin in a year.
Too bad - I always look forward to the latest Lips to hear what melodies they've stolen this time (insert smiley face HERE) - but no melodies on THIS puppy. (P.S. - Soft Bulletin is one of the finest albums ever made).

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars awful, July 9, 2009

By	Greg Kinne "Criticaljoe" (midwest) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

"Christmas On Mars" presents The Flaming Lips fully realized sci-fi film that has been gestating in Wayne Coyne's brain for seven years. The film is the culmination of the Lips efforts as it brings their psychedelic vision to a head. The films' plot centers around a colonized space station on Mars. The film's protagonist, Major Syrtis (Steven Drozd) is facing an epic dilemma. The oxygen generator and a gravity control pod are on the fritz and Syrtis is also slowly losing his mind to horrific hallucinations. Enter an alien super being (Wayne Coyne) to the rescue, and a Christmas Baby and you have all the elements for a Flaming Lips inspired oddity.

As the film opens, the weirdness commences, an orb is removed from an alien mouth. The orb then travels through a vaginal constellation of stars before descending upon Mars. Scenes melt together featuring an artificial birth of the Christmas baby, a woman and an egg before introducing Major Syrtis. Major Syrtis then espouses his theory on the universe as he views two astronauts setting up a Christmas tree outside the colony. As the film continues, the astronauts joke that Santa will save them. Clearly you aren't going to get a straight Christmas or Sci-Fi story here, which is fine, but I wish I didn't have to try to enjoy this film.

As I continue to watch this film, I want to make it stop. I don't care if the colony is saved, this film is so overwhelmingly pretentious it makes my head hurt. With its pseudo trippy visuals and grainy film stock it's very obvious that the Flaming Lips are trying way too hard to recapture the feel of a late 60's sci-fi epic. The film is sluggishly paced, like a lobotomized David Lynch film viewed on Quaaludes. The atrocious dialog and wooden acting are equally grating and stoop to sub Ed Wood levels. This wouldn't be so bad if the film wasn't so boring!

As the film meanders along and imposes morality upon the viewer, all story lines are led to their eventual resolution. I believe that those who are chemically enhanced would find some fault with this nonsense and find something else to watch. Thankfully, the soundtrack effectively captures the mood of the piece. Maybe the Lips should have just stuck with that, a soundtrack to an imagined film...what a concept.