Le martien de Noël

I've often wondered if the scene/ concept of creating a trail of Smarties/M&M's candies to lead the alien was copied from this movie by Spielberg in E.T. It's just such a glaring similarity!!

An odd little film which anticipates "E.T." with its story of a friendly alien who is hunted by the local law enforcers but befriended by two children who help him repair his flying saucer. This slight story is bolstered by plenty of shots of people driving around on snowmobiles and shots of the snowy landscape which means the film often resembles a tourist travelogue. Still it is one of the only SF films made in the French Canadian region which gives it a slight curiosity value.

The alien resembles a circus clown whose make up was devised by Andy Warhol. He indulges in some lame slapstick and low key alien behaviour which confuses the local adults and delights their children. This film has a warm fuzzy feel to it which stops me being particularly vitriolic about it, but I can't seriously recommend it to anyone either due to the rather slow pace and predictability of the whole affair.

Well, it has been a very long time since I have seen this film. In fact it is so long ago that my memory of it is probably more filled with nostalgia rather than reality. But that is probably a good place to begin. If I were 4 or 5 years old as I was when I saw the picture I would seriously impress upon you the qualities of this film. Thinking about it now I am not to sure why?

What I remember is strange events - People flying around on giant match sticks, odd coloured sweets, a strange alien sort of chap and a snowy Canadian landscape. And also the fact that I really enjoyed it at the time (Christmas). Often when you manage to catch a hold of things from your childhood they are not as well made as you remember them, but, if it really sticks in your mind they must have got something right other than just glossy special effects we now come to expect. I would definitely recommend this film as I guess the makers good intentions and hardy endeavours were matched by the resulting unique Christmas fantasy.

I hope i never see this movie again.

Not in a bad way though, it's just the memories of this film give me a warm, fuzzy, nostalgic feeling & i wouldn't want to spoil this by watching as an adult.

I've given this movie 10/10 just because of the nostalgia factor, if i watched it again as an adult, i get the feeling it'd struggle to get past 3.

I've kinda spoiled some TV memories by re-watching old shows & we all know that however much we want to, we cant feel the same way about the things we loved as kids.

Anyway, I'm off to watch reruns of Diff'rent Strokes.

:-)

XX mojo XX

"Le Martien de Noël" ("The Christmas Martian) is a very low budget and cheesy French-Canadian film. The version I saw was dubbed into English and the print was extremely overexposed.

I noticed that several reviewers gave this film a high score and loved it growing up. Well, perhaps you might love the film if you grew up watching it. As for me, I never saw it before today and thought it was a rather silly and cheesy film...sort of like a lower budget "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians" in quality. In other words, it's a pretty dopey movie...the sort most people either would never watch or they'd watch it an make fun of it.

The story is set in some small Canadian town. Two young kids happen upon a creepy Martian (he is essentially a guy in a raccoon coat with a net over his face) who has a strong penchant for eating candy. They play together in the snow quite a bit and help him repair his ship so he can head back home.

By most objective standards, this is a bad movie. The acting is amateurish, the costumes pretty cheap and the sound effects rather poor and a bit annoying. But if you enjoy this for nostalgic reasons, more power to you As for me, as an adult seeing it for the first time, it was pretty tough viewing.