Many rock bands have experimented with film making and some of them have come up with slick films like Pink Floyd’s ‘The Wall’, while other have made charming showpieces like Led Zeppelin’s ‘Song Remains the Same.’ The movie ‘Christmas on Mars’ is a similar project attempted by the alternative psychedelia rock band The Flaming Lips from Oklahoma. Seven years in the making, this fantasy science fiction film has been written and directed by the Flaming Lips frontman Wayne Coyne. It features band members as well as actors like Fred Armisen, from “Saturday Night Live,” and Adam Goldberg, as well as Isaac Brock of the band Modest Mouse.
The entire film is mostly shot in Coyne’s backyard in Oklahoma. The plot of the movie revolves around the colonization of Mars, where Coyne appears as a horned alien and Steven Drozd as a haunted astronaut in a claustrophobic red-planet outpost. There are no performances in the film, but the soundtrack is created by the Flaming Lips. Fans who have heard Lips album “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots” will relate to the dreamy quality of their music. The psychedelia genre finally has an epic film that can quickly reach cult status.
