Strong and Moving!

Admirable film.

A Major Disappointment

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

This is a fun little movie. It falls apart a bit at the end, but given that it must have had a budget of about $1.69, it does very well for itself, and at times achieves true strangeness.Basically, it's a science-fiction film about Mormonism. I have no idea how it plays to non-Mormons; but if you ever wanted to sing "Maybe!" during the first verse of "Shall the Youth of Zion Falter," or giggled when the congregation sang "Yoo-hoo unto Jesus" in the old version of "How Firm a Foundation," it's definitely a must-see.With what I can only call affectionate blasphemy, it pays homage to the inventive weirdness of 19th C. Mormonism. Most people know about the polygamy, but if you're not familiar with the background, you might think a lot of the other stuff that gets mentioned along the way was made up for the film. Not so. The Deseret Alphabet exists. God's home planet really is called Kolob, in Mormon theology at any rate. Porter Rockwell is widely held to have been one of Brigham Young's chief enforcers (it's a controversial point), and by all accounts was a very rough customer. Beehives are in fact a characteristic Mormon motif; Brigham Young was very big on them. And the ritual gestures and postures are real, but ... let's not talk about that.The song about Kolob you hear throughout the movie is "If You Could Hie to Kolob," an early Mormon hymn. It's normally sung to the tune hymn geeks know as "Kingsfold," but you can also sing it to the tune of "The Beverly Hillbillies."Some of the details are right -- and funny -- in ways I can't begin to explain, like having characters named Larsen and Talmadge; but I promise that if you were to say "The spaceship looks like a giant flying Liahona," every veteran of Mormon Sunday School would know exactly what you meant. And to my mind the funniest line in the movie is one that goes straight to the heart of the Mormon experience: "Just because it's made up doesn't mean it isn't true!"I'm sure Plan 10 shocked some of the brethren and sistren. Tough noogies. Any robust religion will have jokes made about it by its members. The ones who can't bear humor of any kind are the religionists who secretly fear the jokes might be right.

Good for Trent Harris, who against all odds and commercial interests managed to make a small handful of truly unusual films in the 1990's. Plan 10, though nowhere near as good as Rubin and Ed, defies categorization, touching on parody, surrealism and a wee bit of spirituality. Young Salt Lake City resident Stefene Russell aspires to become a writer, although she's somewhat held back by the unusual characters in her life. Her panty-sniffing brother Patrick Michael Collins receiving messages from space, which sends him to a mental institution; father Alex Caldiero, who reads experimental poetry in wheat fields for tourists, doesn't really seem to care. Worst of all is neighbor Curtis James, who spends all his time dancing with his shirt off in front of a window, clearly visible from Russell's typewriter. While sunning at the lake, Russell stumbles upon a metal plaque with some strange inscriptions. Determined to decipher, she brings them to a series of experts, eventually landing her in James's swinging pad. Together they find a book which explains a confusing conspiracy theory: feminist aliens started the Mormon church in order to impregnate humans. Her story ends her up at the insane asylum, from which she soon escapes to finish translating an ancient alien text, hopefully in time to save Salt Lake City from interstellar attack. Early in the film, Harris includes a brilliant, mostly true documentary on the Mormons, to not only give a little background but also show off his ability to mimic other genres. He's clearly an adept director, and the parts that feel awkward or unusual may well be completely intentional. Plan 10 occasional clunkiness comes from a highly unconventional approach to storytelling, very much in the mold of American comedy yet created from a maverick perspective. The cast is made up entirely of no-names; I'm guessing that Harris put all his friends in the movie. Indeed, some of the characters seem so superfluous that I wonder if he wrote in small parts for pals. Head alien Karen Black stands out as an exception, but I'm guessing her scenes were shot in a day. Harris has a keen sense of the absurd. While not quite a genius, he's certainly a visionary, and the world would be a better place if he kept on making movies.

Don't let the "exploit" title of the this production fool you. It's funny and a times, even charming. Stefene Russell is quite a find, and the film has a nice, quirky feel about it. Has a lot of cute comments and satire about Utah.

This campy surreal dreamworld presents metaphysical paranoia at its best. Talmage, Lucinda, Larsen, Nehor: who's in charge of this fluid Mormon ooze? No need to be a Mormon to appreciate this subtle satire, but by god it helps. Have interdimensional aliens slipped one past Smith? Collecting wives, should Brigham have overlooked that titillating alien? Karen Black's breathtaking performance as... Nehor? is superb. No better sendup of Mormonism on this or any other planet. Unrated; full bacchal nudity; Brigham fu; mind-boggling interstellar vehicle; Danite mayhem; ancestor fu; electroconvulsive flashbacks; gold plate ground hog fu; Warhol relics; recurring Smith sphinx; straight-arrow sex-mad angels; revelating aliens; weird damn fu. Dave Bob sez check it out.