After several years of whispered promises, the band's long-awaited movie is here. Unfortunately, it comes to us without any new Christmas songs, unless you count Fred Armisen singing "Silent Night." The soundtrack CD consists entirely of instrumental background music from the film, which is kind of neat in a cheap sci-fi way, but it will never pass for holiday music. As for the film, you can tell it was made by a small crew of first-time moviemakers on a small budget, but since it was made as a kind of homage to cheesy old-school space movies, that's really not a handicap. The plot eventually revolves around people on a Mars station slowly losing their grip on Christmas Eve, including a guy who commits suicide in a Santa suit. The mood is attributed to a combination of a faulty oxygen supply and the notion that "humans weren't made to live in space." A mute alien lands at the station and takes over the Santa suit, and his presence appears to bring calm to the station. There are a lot of disjointed narrative points along the way, and the dialogue is weighed down by a surplus of delete-able expletives. Also, there's a bit of an obsession with vaginas, including people who have them for heads in a dream sequence. My guess is that folks who are excessively fond of 50s space and monster movies will catch a lot of homages -- I noticed the opening scene with the woman inside a plastic bubble bore a slight resemblance to "Barbarella" -- and Flaming Lips fans will find meaning in this that many others won't. The Lips do offer some additional Christmas music, but you have to go to their site and order the vinyl version, which throws in a single with "Silent Night," "It's Christmas Time Again" and "Lord, Can You Hear Me."
Christmas On Mars, The Flaming Lips (Warner Brothers)
After several years of whispered promises, the band's long-awaited movie is here. Unfortunately, it comes to us without any new Christmas songs, unless you count Fred Armisen singing "Silent Night." The soundtrack CD consists entirely of instrumental background music from the film, which is kind of neat in a cheap sci-fi way, but it will never pass for holiday music. As for the film, you can tell it was made by a small crew of first-time moviemakers on a small budget, but since it was made as a kind of homage to cheesy old-school space movies, that's really not a handicap. The plot eventually revolves around people on a Mars station slowly losing their grip on Christmas Eve, including a guy who commits suicide in a Santa suit. The mood is attributed to a combination of a faulty oxygen supply and the notion that "humans weren't made to live in space." A mute alien lands at the station and takes over the Santa suit, and his presence appears to bring calm to the station. There are a lot of disjointed narrative points along the way, and the dialogue is weighed down by a surplus of delete-able expletives. Also, there's a bit of an obsession with vaginas, including people who have them for heads in a dream sequence. My guess is that folks who are excessively fond of 50s space and monster movies will catch a lot of homages -- I noticed the opening scene with the woman inside a plastic bubble bore a slight resemblance to "Barbarella" -- and Flaming Lips fans will find meaning in this that many others won't. The Lips do offer some additional Christmas music, but you have to go to their site and order the vinyl version, which throws in a single with "Silent Night," "It's Christmas Time Again" and "Lord, Can You Hear Me."
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