Sun Ra & His Intergalactic Solar Arkestra: Space Is the Place Movie Review

Home video rescued from limbo this long-unseen indie production showcasing the cosmology of jazz-improv innovator and self-styled space-age prophet Sun Ra, mythologized as a shaman who descends in a starship that looks like a pair of blazing eyeballs. Accompanied by an entourage of Egyptian gods (who are cooler than their big-budget counterparts in Stargate), Sun Ra puts on a few concerts and informs Oakland's skeptical black youth that he can save them from oppression and self-destruction via relocation to a paradise planet. Uptight FBI types watch nervously, certain it's some scheme to launch an African space agency. Strange, surreal, politically simplistic, and more than a little self-indulgent, it's not for all tastes but certainly a trip. Watusi; Outer Spaceways Inc.; The Satellites are Spinning.

1974 63m/C D:John Coney; W:Joshua Smith.VHS RHP