Independence Day Independence Day (Air Date: Week Of 7/2/96)
The Movies Can Be So Instructive! No, really. Here is just Some Of The Way Cool Stuff I picked up while watching "Independence Day": When I meet an alien from another planet, my fist is always gonna be the best defence. I don't have to stock up on ray guns anymore. What a relief, not to mention a valuable tip in household economy! Maybe not 65 million dollars valuable, but it's still pretty handy information. Get it? See, that's the other thing I learned from the movie. If you tell a joke, make sure that you tell it at least twice. Well, three or four times would be even better, because you can tell it again and again and not spend any of that valuable 65 million dollars on more new jokes than you need.
Oh, and here's something else I learned: Jeff Goldblum (he's one of the heroes) works for the cable company and I didn't know those places look like Command Central, did you? I did think it was sort of unpresidential for Bill Pullman to stress out about creating a panic when so many U.S. cities had already been destroyed. That must be why when annihilation is imminent, strip clubs stay open! And I already knew that a teenage girl shouldn't die a virgin on the last night on earth, I mean, EVERYONE knows that, don't you? There's lots of explosions in this movie, exceeded only by the number of lucky coincidences. Shelly Winters isn't in the cast, but Judd Hirsch IS, get it? The girls, even the ones with snazzy job titles, don't get to do much of anything, anyway.
Brent Spiner has been so typecast as an android that he has to play a loopy scientist with matted hair now so he can be typecast as that for awhile. Robert Loggia's general-type medals look like they're on crooked and Will Smith is adorable. Movie Magazine's Julie Long wondered why, with all that cinematic ballyhoo and larceny, someone didn't just make a dress from the curtains, like in "Gone With The Wind", but I think that all the curtains got blown up and anyway, you can't expect a movie to answer every question while it rings up 2-3 hundred million dollars in summer ticket sales. "Independence Day" would make an ideal drive-in movie because it's L-O-N-G and you can time your escapes to the snack bar, so you don't miss anything. Contemporary filmmakers are nothing if not thoughtful and considerate of today's audiences, always.
Copyright 1996 Monica Sullivan