Los Angeles United Film Festival 2009

A fantastical and disturbing humanistic freakout. As much about bleak isolation as it is about exaggerated colorful optimism. The long awaited feature film by The Flaming Lips is set in outer space on the surface of Mars. The double failures of a clunky old oxygen generator and an exotic but finicky gravity control pod have conspired to weaken the resolve and psychological judgment of the crew and the film’s protagonist Major Syrtis. This means he has horrific hallucinations that are centered around the artificial birth of the Christmas baby. An alien super-being arrives and with his otherworldly powers fixes the oxygen generator but it’s the station’s genius mechanic who fixes the gravity problem. And in a way that crystallizes The Flaming Lips philosophy “It’s magic and hard work that really gets the job done.” Beware, it is a strange experience not meant for children, but for the inner child in all of us grown-ups.

*Appearances by Adam Goldberg, SNL's Fred Armisen, and Flaming Lips own Wayne Coyne who also directs.