Friday, September 12, 2008

Christmas on Mars at KGB


Not much of a Flaming Lips fan these days*, but this looks interesting and unwatchable at the same time. From a press release!:

This fall, legendary cult-rock band The Flaming Lips, Warner Brothers Records, and film company Cinema Purgatorio will bring the long-awaited Christmas on Mars: A Fantastical Film Freakout Featuring the Flaming Lips to offbeat venues across the country.

Christmas on Mars will open theatrically in New York City on September 12, 2008, presented in a custom-designed cinema at the KGB Complex at 85 East Fourth Street, screening in high definition video and the custom designed Zeta Bootis Mega Supersonic Super-Sound Surround System, which the Lips created for the film. Christmas on Mars will screen at unusual showtimes, the first of which have been have been announced (and some have already sold out) on cinemapurgatorio.com. Showtimes will include 7am and 9am showtimes, so audience members can go to Mars before they get to work, as well as some traditional evening showtimes.

Christmas on Mars is the directorial debut of Wayne Coyne, lead singer and frontman for the Flaming Lips. Coyne co-directed with George Salisbury, an audiovisual technician who works with the band. Coyne constructed much of the set - representing Mars - in his Oklahoma City backyard.

The film does indeed take place during Christmastime on Mars, as the colonization of the Red Planet is underway. But when an oxygen generator and a gravity control pod malfunction, Major Syrtis (the Lips' Steven Drozd) and his team (including the Lips' bassist Michael Ivins) fear for the worst. Syrtis hallucinates about the birth of a baby, and many other strange things. Meanwhile, a compassionate alien superbeing (Coyne) arrives, inspiring and helping the isolated astronauts.


More details here.

*It was at this point when I stopped liking the Flaming Lips:



** OK, that was actually pretty cool. And that dialogue!

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