UFOria (1984)
IMDb meta-data is a runtime of 1 hour and 34 minutes, rated 6.2 by 498 cinematizens.
Genre: Sy Fy; Species: Comedy.
DNA: Area 51.
Verdict: Engaging.
Tagline: Believe!
Combine one part charming drifter with another of cynical revivalist preacher, and season with a bored supermarket check out woman…and the result is… a story about love and redemption. It brought to mind Jean-Paul Sartre’s hymn of commitment. He who had so many and varied commitments. It matters less what you commit to than to commit to something to give your life (external) meaning, weight. Put on gravity boots to compensate for the unbearable lightness of being. Not very discriminating that, but when the polysyllabic verbiage is pared away from Sartre that is what remains. This is the same Sartre who committed to Fidel Castro, Leonid Brezhnev, and other Gulag architects.
Some of the preachers’ followers believe in Jesus, others in UFOs, a few in both, and the drifter declares his god-given right to believe in nothing at all. The plot might as well have been lifted from Leon Festinger’s sociological study, When Prophecy Fails (1956).
The players are marvellous – Shirley from Laverne days, Gus Grissom from The Right Stuff, and Harry Dean Stanton from too many to name. Harry Carey, Jr and Hank Worden also deliver on cue in support.