METEOR (1979)

A pissed off comet punches a large asteroid in the nuts and now that 5-mile-wide sucker (plus various smaller fragments) is going to hit the Earth in 6 days! Ahh, crap. Luckily, the Americans have a top-secret satellite with 14 nuclear missiles on it. Unfortunately, 14 missiles isn’t enough to stop the asteroid from evolving into a…meteor!!!

On paper, METEOR sounds like a promising film: exciting story (anything about shit crashing into the Earth is awesome); a cast full of well-known faces (at least for the time) and a respectable budget of $16 million (remember ALIEN came out the same year and only cost $11 million). But on paper doesn’t guarantee on-screen excellence. Nope. I have no clue what happened in the making of this clunker, but METEOR is a goddamn turd! I haven’t been this disappointed since the last time I walked into a Best Buy.

The story takes off quickly enough with Hercules satellite designer Sean Connery being informed of the asteroid and put in charge of getting Hercules ready to blast that global killing son of a bitch out of the sky. At the same time, US President Henry Fonda gets Russia to admit that they also have a top-secret satellite armed with nuclear missiles. So the Russians send over a scientist and Sean Connery immediately starts trying to bang interpreter Natalie Wood. Motherfucker, ain’t you got better shit to focus on?! Blah, blah, blah, it goes on and on with all kinds of conversations and romance and bickering. Fuck me. I just want to see some sappy ass heroics and shit blowing up. And don’t even get me started on the special effects. Buck Rogers in the 25th Century looked better.

Long story, short: METEOR is mildly entertaining and fun to laugh at, but if you’re looking for an actually good late-1970’s asteroid story then A FIRE IN THE SKY would be a better bet. Or, you could always just say fuck it and watch ARMAGEDDON again for the hundredth time.

THE X-FILES (1998)

I never watched "The X-Files" when it originally ran on network TV.  It was only recently that I started watching it on Netflix and I really like it.  The chemistry between Agents Scully and Mulder, the crazy stories, quick pace, quirky humor, solid acting.  It's a great show.  That said, I've noticed (I'm currently about to start Season 6) that all of the episodes can be divided between the "Monster of the Week" episodes and the continuing "mythology" episodes.  To me, the "Monster of the Week" episodes are far superior to the slow-moving "mythology" ones, especially the comedic ones!  Unfortunately, this first X Files movie simply comes off as an extended "mythology" episode with a larger budget.

To me, it seems that the benefit of making a movie over a normal network TV episode is you can push the limits and have more things in your bag of tricks in order to surprise and thrill the audience.  Unfortunately, instead of pushing the envelope this film doesn't have any cussing or nudity or excessive violence or expand on Mulder's porn addiction...instead it's honestly just a boring "mythology" episode with a longer runtime.

I still liked it and don't regret watching it, but I was really hoping for much more.  I would have been happier though if the film have been like one of the funnier "Monster of the Week" episodes like "Bad Blood", "Small Potatoes" or "War of the Coprophages".  I'm also getting sick and tired of Scully and Mulder not knocking boots.

Update 1/18/16: Just watched the second X-Files film THE X-FILES: I WANT TO BELIEVE (2008) and it was terrible.  The entire film was dull, dreary and pointless. Even worse, the depictions of Mulder and Scully were so different than from the earlier seasons, when we fell in love with them, that it's almost insulting to the viewer.  I wish I had never watched it.