Customer Reviews

Christmas On Mars

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This is a difficult movie to review. While watching it I couldn't decide whether or not I liked it or if it was meeting my expectations. However, I felt myself being drawn into Wayne's strange and eerie but kinda warm imagination as the movie went along. There is more to the story then what I had heard through other people that had already seen it. In no way is this just some random story with a weak plot and trippy visuals. I rather enjoyed the story and think they did a great job capturing the human psyche and heart. Humans are a resilient bunch of living things and can overcome quite a bit but what the movie really gets at is how humans are not supposed to live in space, at least not with a little help from something supernatural. A good human story in that if you can get past the sometimes week acting and low budget filming you can really enjoy what these guys have tried to do. The reason I give this four stars is not because of the weak acting and low budget filming. I was hoping to see a little more flaming lips music in this movie rather then just backround music the whole time. I see what they were trying to do but maybe if they make another movie it could be more flaming lips music that we all know and love mixed with some random scenes and visuals that only could come out of Wayne's endless imagination. Purchase it and come into it with an open mind. Give it a real chance all the way through to the end and if nothing else you should at least be touched (that is if you are human).

I would be totally unfair, not to mention that this was a self financed film by the band FLAMING LIPS, and as such, is not benefitted by the mulitmillion dollar special effects budgets, top hollywood filmstars, famous directors and writers, and glamorous locales. However, if you believe a good film is something that REQUIRES all those components, then dont even watch CHRISTMAS ON MARS. You'd be confused, disappointed, and bored. However, if you loved CLERKS, for being a $30,000 self financed film, or ERAISERHEAD for Lynch's near 7 year effort to see it completed , or 200 MOTELS for being a rock band film that tried to be bizarre for its own artistic sake, then go ahead and buy this film. You'd enjoy it, even if you never HEARD of the Flaming Lips. Because this film rests on the D.I.Y concept behind Eraiserhead, Clerks and 200 Motels. You dont need to be graduate of Film school, to make a film. Just a lot of Moxie, and imagination, and this movie has plenty of both.

Actually, its safe to say that, like much of the LIPS music, the influences for the film are a strange combination of the surreal, the punk-adelic, and high concept "ART" music, or here, arty concept cinema. CHRISTMAS ON MARS takes a huge influence from Lynch, Krubrick's 2001 A SPACE ODYSSEY, as well as from no-budget scifi 60s films like SANTA CLAUS CONQUERS THE MARSIANS. The film's 2001 SPACE ODYSSEY parody gets underscored by everything from the SPACE BABY, to Steven Drozd's role of some type of psychologist,(HAL) observing an isolated space station, spouting philosophy and failed attempts to analyse his own, and the crews' hallucinations. (If you want a taste of the dialogue, just read ANY of the FLAMING LIPS liner notes on their albums, or Wayne's interviews about his work. Its filled with the same acid head philosophy, and dry, hippie-punk humor.) The movie is mostly in black and white. When it comes time to show us the alien, and how he travels thru space, its accomplished with cheap, tho well imagined, makeup and costumes, along with ultra psychedelic color saturated video effects, and LOUD freak out music. HALUCINATION becomes literal space travel for the Alien. These freak out TECHNICOLOR scenes, coupled with feedback electronics also represent the Mars space station workers hallucinations. The mind of the people, and the station, deteriorates, and only the space alien Santa, and the birth of a baby on Christmas Eve, can save the station. That's the plot, more or less. How much the Space Baby in 2001, or Eraserhead's baby, is a jumping off point for CHRISTMAS ON MARS, and how much is an homage to the meaning of Christmas, who can say? Does it matter? The film is too much fun on its own terms.

This XMAS SCIFI film succeeds for the same reasons good, low budget community theater succeeds. The imagination of the audience is required, to make the whole thing work. The FLAMING LIPS D.I.Y. punk esthetic allows the film to be successful on its own standards. This is why MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR didnt work for the Beatles. They already had a very professional film esthetic developed, when they made a very experimental non professional film. It was not what people expected from the Beatles. This film, however, is exactly what you might expect from THE FLAMING LIPS. They have been working on it for 7 years, and many thought it would NEVER be released. If you enjoyed the way SCIFI comedy was approached by MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000, mixed with wierd band films like 200 MOTELS by Zappa, this film's "concept" will not be lost on you. The most funny, freaky "monster" in scifi history, has to be the space alien Santa Claus. The real monster is THE HALUCINATION BABY carried by some "genital headed" man in a space suit. It's not as scary as Lynch's ERAISERHEAD baby, but its at least as wierd. The SPACE BABY is the theme of the film. The obvious message of a "space" baby born on Christmas Eve, which might save humanity thru hope, is about as subtle as a brick to the head. But , its nice to be reminded of Humanitys need to have hope, and feel faith there's a meaning of the universe. Whats enigmatic, or at least confusing, is that there are TWO babies in the film. What the interaction is between the hallucination monster baby, and the SPACEBABY in the plastic bubble, born on Christmas Eve, who knows. Justaposistion of outer opjective reality and inner, psychic meaning may be part of this film's thematic continity.

Fans of the band will love the film, especially if they enjoy their "YOSHIMI" period. Beyond that, I think fans of experimental, low budget film with a freaky conceptual basis, would enjoy the film as well. Some of the sets have a sort of "FOUND ART" beauty in them. Visually, the film looks as tho a lot more money was spent on sets and scifi experimental gadgets, than was actually spent. If you liked the artwork for the YOSHIMI album, and CD singles, then you'll like the visual feel of this film. There's lot of extras on the DVD, including interviews with all the band members, and a nice segment where Wayne shows you his storyboards, and visual concepts, behind the development of this project. Personally, this is a film you either really like, or hate. I love SCIFI, i love the band's sound, and i love this type of "positive attitude" hipster philosophy, and i love the D.I.Y. look of the film, so I think the whole thing is great.

Just what I would expect from Flaming Lips but a big disappointment.

sad too because the doc. Fearless Freaks is great.

I love The Flaming Lips, and this film wouldn't be hard to watch if it were shorter. The scenes where the characters were just walking in silence I sped up and enjoyed the film as I wondered "what is the point?" But in the end there seems to be a point. Watch it. Rate it.

It's impossible to believe that Wayne Coyne was high during the seven years it is said to have taken to make this movie, but it's also hard to believe that Coyne didn't expect the audience for it to be high. It's that kind of movie. Except...the movie is so trippy to begin with that springing for herb seems like a waste of good money.

This is the most schizophrenic I've felt about a work of "art" in a long time. It's lame, it's brilliant; it's dull, it's engrossing; it's banal, it's deep. And the reason I'm all over the board on this movie is that it's just so damn strange. At times it was too strange for my mind to find any traction with the material, and it was just sort of free-floating and slipping around, which is fun for about a minute and then just gets dull. Like, "Yeah? What else ya got?" And then something would happen--a ridiculous line of dialog or a bizarre visual--that would be arresting, and would pull me back in for a while. The "story," such as it is, is very impressionistic and I think is sort of an inkblot test for the viewer, who is invited (literally, by Coyne in an interview included among the DVD extras) to assign his or her own meaning to the narrative.

I would take major issue with anyone (as one reviewer he did) gave it one star because he was expecting something slick and Hollywoody. No one approaching a Flaming Lips artistic endeavor has the right to anticipate convention. But I can easily imagine hating the movie on its own merits. Does it succeed, and if so, what does it succeed AT? Maybe the film is just a ridiculous vanity project and should be ignored as the spastic mayhem it most appears to be.

But no. Ultimately Coyne exhibits a feature, a trait, that is precious because it is so rare, and it is the source of much of his genius. Coyne seems seldom to come up with an idea that he merely censors out of hand for being "too stupid." An image of a terrified Santa running down a hallway that Coyne sketches on a phone pad, plus a childhood memory of his mother's description of a movie she claims to have seen (the movie does not exist but is perhaps pieced together out of dreams and parts of two or more movies)is enough to inspire Coyne to work diligently creating something like "Christmas on Mars." He gets strange, ridiculous, maybe stupid ideas, and HE FOLLOWS THROUGH WITH THEM. Lesser minds might take such ideas and only create junk. And sometimes, Coyne comes very close to that mark. There are things in "Christmas on Mars" (a marching band of vagina-headed musicians crushing the head of a baby) that are pure crap. But something in Coyne's willingness to do anything, to follow things where they lead, even stupid and ugly things, gives a nobility and grace to all of his efforts--"Mars" included--that is unique. There is something of Andy Warhol in Coyne's efforts that elevates it beyond philosophically burdened kitsch into something quite admirable.

I liked the innovative spaceship parking job (definitely the highlight of the film), and the initial color swirl thing. But the dialog was slow and repetitive, and the acting was terrible.

I really wanted to like this thing. I like The Flaming Lips and then whe I saw Fred Armisen I wanted to like it even more . But I couldn't make it past the first half hour. It really started to irritate me.
Intentionally trying to make a "bad" movie rarely works and at least in my case it didn't this time either.

I watched this film on Sundance Channel. I am also NOT a hardcore Flaming Lips fan, though i think they're a very interesting band and i have a couple of their albums. This film, years in the making, is just plain terrible on every level - acting, technical and otherwise. There's no nice way to put it. The plot, if you call it that, is nearly incoherent - something having to do with the impending birth of a baby on a remote space station, a crew member going slowly insane, and the arrival of a mysterious alien (played by Wayne Coyne). The acting is terrible. The dialogue, loaded with profanity, is even worse-than-terrible. Virtually nothing offends me, but the dialogue was so awful and profanity ridden (at one point, i thought it was going to challenge "Scarface" for most 'f-bombs') that i found it just plain juvenile and pointless and it became a chore to sit thru this movie (and it's only 82 minutes long). How Christmasy! Also - no 'real' Flaming Lips songs here, just score. Fred Armisen and Adam Goldberg, among others, show up in this mess. If the intention was to make a bad kitschy film, they needn't have bothered - they could've just rented "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians".

And get ready to have your senses blown in this eargasm of sounds with a fantastical mix of visuals that will give you eyeboners. This is a must for any David Lynch fan! And a holy relic to all flaming lips fans. This is an instant cult film.

How many stars can I give? ***** There, there's five more stars. Ten stars!! I love this movie so much, it just makes me giddy to think about. The highest praise. So good.