The Flaming Lips "Christmas on Mars"

http://paxarcana.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/coyne_xmasmars.jpg
http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/news/146171-flaming-lips-wayne-coyne-talks-christmas-on-mars

The Flaming Lips - Christmas on Mars ENGAGEMENTS

Playing now until the end of the year if not the end of time:
New York, New York: The KGB Complex's Kraine Theater

From October till the end of the year:
San Antonio, Texas: Alamo Drafthouse, starts October 19

Limited Engagements:
Des Moines, Iowa: Nova 10 Cinemas, October 1
Columbia, South Carolina: The Nickelodeon, October 3-5
Moline, Illinois: Nova 6 Cinemas, October 5
Atlanta, Georgia: Plaza Theatre, October 8
Peoria, Illinois: Reynold's Cinemas at Landmark, October 10
Naperville, Illinois: Nova 8 Cinemas, October 11
Nashville, Tennessee: The Belcourt, October 17
Dallas, Texas: Landmark Inwood Theater, October 17-18
Whitewater, Wisconsin: Theatres of Whitewater, October 17
Lake Geneva, Wisconsin: Geneva 4, October 18
West Bend, Wisconsin: Paradise Theatre, October 19
Madison, Wisconsin: The Orpheum, October 21-24
Waterville, Maine: Railroad Square Cinema, October 23
Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Brattle, October 31-November 9
Omaha, Nebraska: Film Streams / Ruth Sokolof Theater, October 31
Cleveland, Ohio: Cleveland Cinematheque, November 8-9
Columbus, Ohio: Landmark Gateway Theater, November 14-15
Denver, Colorado: Landmark Esquire Theatre, November 14-15
Hartford, Connecticut: Real Art Ways, November 21-23
Minneapolis, Minnesota: Landmark Uptown Theatre, November 22

I remember reading about Christmas on Mars before the Yoshimi album and now it's 6 years later and it's finally coming out! Anyone seen this? I like the previews I've seen and the music they've released from it. Psychedelic orchestral stuff!

west bend & lake geneva? weird. i'll probably go see it in madison, why not.

Only a single day in Des Moines, so I missed it. wtf?

For people who know movie composers, I would say it ended up, for me, feeling like a cross between Bernard Herrmann, who has done Albert Hitchcock and Martin Scorsese, you know, real dense, not fully orchestrated, but strange, dense orchestration. And then stuff that is as elaborate as, say, Igor Stravinsky. Abstract and very ornate and complex and Eastern European-sounding stuff. A lot of people that would come into the studio while we were making it thought that we had somehow sort of got a Russian orchestra, or a Russian composer to make this music. Because some of it feels like it came from Siberia or something, which I thought was perfect. Little by little, as we went, I wanted it to feel like some kind of drug-damaged foreign film that you found in your collection, that was actually made 60 years ago. So as we went, I think me and Steven kept pushing it to the denser, just more exotic strangeness. So that's what we kind of ended up doing. But most of that really happened at the very end of the film.

Oh hell yes.

Just saw it, twice. First time through it was actually....pretty boring, I'd have to say. Lots of long, boring scenes interrupted by psychedelic sequences. Not that I was disappointed, but I'm sure I was so happy that this band I loved from before high school got to make a movie that it clouded my judgement. The second time through it was after I'd had a drink or two and it seemed like the crowd was mostly high (first run through had nowhere near the giggles) and I got right up in the second row and had a much better experience. The music is really cool and the sound design is absolutely fantastic. Lots of beautiful photography as well. Some of the special effects come off cheesy to me but then again in the back of my mind was how you'd do all this stuff in After Effects. The Wayne spaceship was AWESOME. The scene with the vagina-spaceman holding a dead baby was a let-down because the original shot from the first trailer that came out years and years ago was absolutely beautiful and here it felt like they cheapened an amazing image with a bunch of special effects.

I think the more I see this movie the more I will like it. And I'd still rather see this than 90% of the crap they show in movie theaters these days.

this is the only movie i've truly anticipated for the last 5 years

Naperville? Naperville? Really? Come on Chicgao, jesus.

Go find your local arthouse theater or whatever and ask them if they're gonna do it. I'm sure the Lips have very limited options when it comes to bringing this to theaters but honestly seeing it on a big screen, with a big stereo, is the way to go!

That trailer on PF is nice!

Coyne's predictably wacky house gets profiled in the NY Times Home & Garden section: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/09/garden/09coyne.html?ref=garden
fun stuff, though the article contains a profoundly lazy bit of writing: "...influenced a generation of artists, from Radiohead to Coldplay." but what the hey ...