UFOria (1981)

Great performances, great social comment, funny and great music. Saw it over twenty years ago at a film festival in country Australia. Everybody I spoke with really enjoyed it. I would love to see it again. It would be very interesting to see how the social comment in the movie stands up today I also consider it to be a minor classic.

It took the producers of "Uforia" five years before they could find a distributor willing to release it. My guess is that distributors couldn't think of an easy way to market a movie that is very unconventional and doesn't follow an easy-to-report formula. This is a character-based movie, not really one with a substantial plot, but don't let that discourage you from giving the movie a try. The characters are not only all likable, they all have various quirks that make them interesting to watch talking and interacting with each other. As a bonus, the movie has a great country and western soundtrack (and I normally dislike that music genre!) The only real flaw the movie has is the very ending, which seems out of place for a movie that otherwise focuses on characters. But despite that ending, this movie is a gem well worth your time.

The title is no less silly than anything else in this disarming, oddball comedy, which sat on a shelf for half a decade because (most likely) its low budget charm is so at odds with Hollywood's megabuck mentality. No one will ever mistake it for a great film, but it's hard to resist a movie drawn around such eccentric characters, including charlatan preacher Harry Dean Stanton, lovable con artist and Waylon Jennings wannabe Fred Ward, and naïve supermarket cashier Cindy Williams, who only wants to warn people about the imminent return of Noah's extraterrestrial ark. Add the usual quota of Western small town dreamers and drifters and you have, literally in a nutshell, a modest and enjoyable diversion that (thankfully) doesn't take itself too seriously.

I haven't seen this gem in years, which is my loss. I came to IMDB hoping to see that it was out on DVD. Alas, no. The characters are funny and quirky (not Hollywood phony-quirky) and the story unfolds organically. Having grown up in the 1960s, there were moments that made me laugh out loud in recognition.Two in particular: Toby (Darrell Larson) a wide-eyed hippie-innocent and his wife are cuddling their newborn son. Toby asks her "Do you think JesusKrishnaBuddha is too heavy a name for him?" Later, when supermarket checker Cindy Williams asks him if he believes in flying saucers. He replies, with a beatific smile, "I believe in everything." It's a great companion line to the hippie in Louis Malle's "Atlantic City," who is cautioned to buckle her seatbelt on the airplane and replies sincerely, "Oh, I don't believe in gravity."