2008 psychedelic Christmas movieRating: 10/20
Plot: A space station floats above Mars on Christmas Eve. Things aren't going well on the space station--supplies are running low, morale is low, there's a bit of cabin fever, and the guy hired to dress up as Santa Claus has gone crazy and committed suicide. They take on a guest, a mute alien, and try to avoid catastrophe.
To say this isn't for everybody is an understatement. It'll attract a certain crowd though--people with a good supply of hallucinogens and holiday cheer. I was impressed with the shoestring budget set design. This was made over an eight year period in the backyard of Flaming Lips' frontman Wayne Coyne. It's definitely a case where the creative minds involve manage to overcome the problem of limited finances to put together some visuals that are really cool. A lot of the sets were put together seemingly with dollar store purchases and household appliances. The pacing is very deliberate, the story is freaky, and the effects are trippy-dippy. Shades of Solaris are within, but this reminded me a whole lot of The American Astronaut and Dark Star. With some Eraserhead mixed in. And maybe a pinch of It's a Wonderful Life. Some of this was pretty funny and a lot of this was really pretty, but there was really nothing to latch on to. The acting is also about as bad as acting gets, and the characters don't have enough substance to make them matter. The dialogue is really poorly written, clunky and unnatural. There are definitely way too many words in this; it would have been a lot better if it had as many as 2001. This is a movie that is fun because it doesn't take itself seriously at all while at the same time being a movie that would have benefited from taking itself a little more seriously.
Bonus points awarded for a scene with a marching band that had female genitalia for heads.
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