"Christmas on Mars" in New York.

Tuesday, August 19, 2008 | 9:25 AM

"Christmas on Mars" is the first feature film from the Flaming Lips, one they've been working on for seven years and one that is, in character with the band, a sci-fi flick that sounds utterly and incredibly insane, written and directed by frontman Wayne Coyne and starring, among others (including all of the band members), Adam Goldberg, Isaac Brock of Modest Mouse and SNL's Fred Armisen. The film, which premiered at the Sasquatch Music Festival in May, has been described by Coyne as being set on a crumbling Mars space station and involving a futuristic pregnancy, the death of Santa Claus, a Martian, "gaping vaginal orifices" and so on.

Coyne told MTV he hoped to have screenings of the film be something like the Lips' concerts: "We want to show the movie with a mega-sound system and snow machines and just make it like a bigger event than what has become the typical movie-going experience. I'm hoping that people can watch this movie while they drink beer, smoke cigarettes, and have a good time." And it's just been announced that the film's first theatrical tour stop will be in New York, in the East Village in a promised "superb screening room with high definition video and the custom designed Zeta Bootis Mega Supersonic Super-Sound Surround System, which the Flaming Lips created specifically for this film" -- there's more info and a link to purchase tickets here; the trailer is up on YouTube here.

[Photo: "Christmas on Mars," Warner Brothers Records, 2008]

+ First NYC showtimes for Christmas on Mars: A Fantastical Film Freakout Featuring the Flaming Lips (Cinema Purgatorio)
+ Christmas On Mars - a film project by the Flaming Lips (FlamingLips.com)
+ Flaming Lips Spew About New Album, Martian Christmas Movie (MTV)
+ The Flaming Lips' Christmas On Mars trailer (YouTube)