To the world at large the Flaming Lips are a One Hit Wonder for their odd and haunting song Do You Realize. The Flaming Lips must have done something else over the years, but none of it has crossed my path. Until I found a blurb on BBC about The Flaming Lips making a movie called Christmas on Mars.
Christmas on Mars is the story of a handful of people living on Mars. A group of men, one woman, and a baby make up the people inhabiting the Mars station. During Christmas they are visited by an alien who never speaks and it is never explained why he stops by in the first place.
Which is not all that surprising, as nothing is explained and nothing makes any sense whatsoever. The story drags from one pointless scene to another. The cast seems to be made up of random people pulled off the streets and given a script to read, or just told to go with the flow, as it is hard to imagine there was a script to this mixed up mishmash. The only recognizable actor is Adam Goldberg and it is flatly baffling to see him in this horrid bit of business.
The acting, such as it is, is awful. The use of black and white makes it look even worse than it should have. The only real special effects in Christmas on Mars involve the use of vagina headed space suits. In addition to the use of animatronic female genitalia there is a lot of profanity in what little dialogue exists. The multi-antennaed alien is just silly looking.
Christmas on Mars is easily the worst movie I have seen in a long time. Christmas on Mars has been compared to Eraserhead, Magical Mystery Tour, and even 2001:A Space Odyssey-though I would rather sit through any of those than watch Christmas on Mars a second time. It reminded me of a similarly bad sci fi movie called Pi-which was filmed in black & white and in which nothing much happened. It’s the kind of film that you expect one of those Woody Allen moments where director Federico Fellini steps on screen and tells The Flaming Lips what they are doing wrong.
It seems The Flaming Lips have been working on this POS film for 7 years. I even saw a comment that said it was better than the previous versions. The mind boggles. Maybe if I were a die hard fan of The Flaming Lips I would like, or at least, understand Christmas On Mars. This is a clear case of someone wanting to make a movie, but not really knowing how.
It does seem that The Flaming Lips read a lot Stanislaw Lem before making Christmas On Mars-as his brand of Sci Fi is interesting, but often confusing. The Flaming Lips nailed the confusing part.
