Project: Alien

THE STORY: Project: Alien is like a ninety minute X-files episode without Fox Mulder or Dana Scully. I'll have to check, but it was probably made for TV or HBO. At least it seemed like it.

Jeff Milker, a reporter and his rival George Abbot a TV newsman, investigate the sighting of UFO's in Norway. There's also a plane that crashed in the area. NATO under the command of  a really fatass US Air Force officer, Col. Clancy is also on the scene suppressing any information. Milker hooks up with daredevil female pilot, Bird McNamara. McNamara flies supplies into the area to a group of archeologists studying something out there in some caves. Soon, there are cattle mutilations, gypsies in the area fall sick and disappear and the area is restricted by the military. The pilot of the plane that crashed is found wandering around in Oslo. He remembers nothing, but a wound on his neck is stitched up. Defying the restricted zone, McNamara and Milker fly to the archeologists encampment. One of the scientists, Prof. Stein is missing and the other, Frank is super-sick. McNamara flies Frank back to the airport and Milker stays to look for Stein. Col. Clancy captures and interrogates McNamara but she escapes and flies back out to the zone with George. They find a secret base where the dying gypsies and Milker being held. They free Milker and kidnap Col. Clancy in a stolen helicopter. Clancy spills the beans. there are no UFO's. A secret spacestation crashed and spilled genetic waste around the area...that's what caused the sickness. NATO tries to shoot down the 'copter and fails. George and Milker go public with the news, even though they aren't really believed.

About 2/3's through this movie I knew there weren't going to be any aliens...just like in the X-files when Mulder seemingly has concrete proof of aliens and then its something else or completely unprovable. Still, it didn't piss me off. The movie was at least interesting enough that I kept watching until the end because I wanted to know what was going on. Man, Charles Durning is FAT. I mean Brando Fat!

Best Lines: "You can't take a crap anymore without some asshole sticking a camera in your face...'How was it? did it feel good?' "-Colonel Clancy complains about reporters.

"Your boss is gonna say 'Milker, that limey on the telly has a dead cow! Where's your dead cow?' "- George ribs Milker about his interview with a farmer and cattle mutilation.

1.) Good god that colonel is Fat! Oh...its Charles Durning...man, he sure ain't missed too many meals! You can see his belt holding in his gut. Well, he's playing an Air force colonel, so I can buy that...I saw an air force colonel once at the pentagon that was so fat I almost went up to him and said "Sir, you are the biggest tub of lard I have ever [unwrite]in' seen! I'll bet your ass as its own friggin' zip code!" ( I don't mean to tease my Air force brethren in arms...oh, yes I do! Hey, we're all on the same side, but a little intra service ribbing comes with the territory. When I was in training the drill sergeant told us once "Don't [unwrite] with the marine students...they'll probably kick your asses...and don't [unwrite] with the air force trainees...'cuz everyone can kick their asses!"  Ok, I am ONLY kidding, so Air Force guys do not flame me! Hell, the air force guy I work with teases the [unwrite] outta me about the army)

2.) hmmmm...military jets, restricted no-fly zones, UFO sightings, cattle mutilations, vanishing people and a weird illness...yet Milker decides to hang around and look for Prof. Stein when McNamara flies the gravely ill Frank back to the airport. She asks him "Are you as good in bed as you are at your job?" before she leaves. Double-hmmm. A choice between looking for a guy that's probably dead in a military restricted tiptop secret zone in the middle of the forest, or going back with the leggy blond pilot to make hot monkey love? I'd pick the leggy blonde pilot. Better [unwrite]ed than [unwrite]ed up!

3.) Yow! McNamara's a slut! She actively tries to get picked up by strangers to get laid! Aren't there any Sexually transmitted Diseases in Norway? Talk about living dangerously!

4.) If there's no UFO's how did the cattle get mutilated? Its never answered. Clancy never said anything about NATO doing it to make the UFO cover plausible. I'm talking these cows are completely emptied out of their vital organs.

5.) Milker tries to steal some film that McNamara is taking back for Frank to be developed. In order to make him give it back, McNamara does some loopedy-loops with the plane to scare him. This makes Milker throw up and he gives it back. I think he should have called her bluff. Its not like she's going to crash on purpose.

NUDITY AND SEX: McNamara is having loud, noisy sex when Milker first meets her. You see her nude from the back. Nothing too saucey, but she is a bit of a slut.

HUH?: Bull[unwrite]! When McNamara, Milker, and George kidnap Colonel Clancy in a stolen helicopter Norwegian fighter jets come after them with the intent to shoot them down. Now, McNamara evades one missile, which I find unlikely, but then she fires one at the jets (from a helicopter!) and blows it to hell! The other jets then break off their attack. Huh? They were going to shoot them down! McNamara just destroyed one of their planes (which I still find unlikely unless the movies trying to say that the Norwegian air force sucks) Even more incredible, the pilot of the destroyed jet is seen parachuting to the ground...( just like those old GI Joe cartons when the Joes would blow up a COBRA aircraft, yet the pilot would manage to bail out just in the nick of time)

THE TALLY: Hey, it wasn't too bad. I could have used a little more action, but you can't have everything you want. I still can't get over how fat Durning is, though.