The Classics According to Keith - Project: Alf
EVERY TIME I DIE frontman KEITH BUCKLEY waxes cinematic on the more important films of our time—sort of.
PROJECT: ALF (1996)
STARS: ALF, Martin Sheen, Ed Beagly Jr.
THE PLOT: Doth my eyes deceive me? Have I truly happened upon the Sangreal of made-for-TV movies? Picking up where the popular ’80s continual acid trip left off, Project: ALF finds Gordon Shumway (aka ALF) under government custody after a failed attempt to return to his home planet of Melmac. Uncertain as to how to proceed with their unparalleled find, Col. Milfoil (Sheen) decides to take matters into his own hands and inject ALF with a poison to spare the world from his affinity for—I shit you not—eating cats. Armed with the charm and wit of a sexually abused fourth grader and the hair of most screamo bands from California, ALF escapes only to cross paths with a self-serving ex-NASA scientist looking to sell him to the highest bidder. Oh, ALF! Can’t they just let you masturbate to Lynn Tanner and play the saxophone?
THE POINT: Having never satisfactorily conveyed the moral underpinnings of the original TV series, writers Tom Patchett and Paul Fusco once again took it upon themselves to address the resurgence of a nationwide crisis in 1996, this time by means of a full-length movie. That catastrophe, which is just as pertinent today, is the consumption of our country’s felines. Using ALF as a metaphor for the leading contributor to cat intake—the household dog—these brave men have shown us that if not truncated by brutal force or immoral euthanasia, these best friends to man will be the end of an entire species. Michael Vic, hold your head high. I doubt not that you, too, understood the importance of this movie, and I revere you as the George Washington of dog slaughtering.
