The annual 4th ritual
Jul. 4th, 2005 11:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pjthompsonNo, not the firecrackers or the flags or the barbecue. The watching of Le Independence Day!
Every year I get suckered into watching that movie. I think, "I'll just drop in long enough to watch my favorite part, then move on to something else." But I usually wind up watching the whole thing. Last night was no exception, although I read while watching most of it. (It's not like the movie requires one's full attention at all times.) What I like about it is the sheer aw shucks unpretentious, unapologetic popcorn appeal of it. It doesn't pretend to be anything else but what it is.
What's my favorite part? Watching L.A. get blown up, of course. I enjoy watching New York explode equally well, but there's something about watching that ugly bank tower in downtown L.A. turn into smithereens that—in the immortal words of Laurell K. Hamilton—"flat out does it for me."
When I watched ID with a real live L.A. audience in a theater, one of the biggest laugh lines for that audience was when the space ship first comes in over town and the earth shakes. Viveca Fox's character wakes up bleary-eyed and says, "That's not even a 4-pointer. Go back to sleep." That was such an L.A. moment. I've said similar things myself.
The great irony of the movie for me, though, is that Wil Smith's character is stationed at El Toro Marine Air Station and that some key scenes happen there. Almost at the same time as ID was released, the Pentagon decided to close El Toro—it didn't survive the previous round of base closings. And the folks in Orange County have been fighting over that prime real estate ever since. Condos vs. private airfield vs. park, round and round and round. But the air base is long gone.
I visited El Toro once with my dad, The Marine. A sleepy little place, like a little town out in the country. Well, except for the big honking aeroplanes.
So, off to mom's for the rest of the 4th ritual. No firecrackers, but some BBQ, and undoubtedly some flags. She was married to a 30-year Marine, after all.
Every year I get suckered into watching that movie. I think, "I'll just drop in long enough to watch my favorite part, then move on to something else." But I usually wind up watching the whole thing. Last night was no exception, although I read while watching most of it. (It's not like the movie requires one's full attention at all times.) What I like about it is the sheer aw shucks unpretentious, unapologetic popcorn appeal of it. It doesn't pretend to be anything else but what it is.
What's my favorite part? Watching L.A. get blown up, of course. I enjoy watching New York explode equally well, but there's something about watching that ugly bank tower in downtown L.A. turn into smithereens that—in the immortal words of Laurell K. Hamilton—"flat out does it for me."
When I watched ID with a real live L.A. audience in a theater, one of the biggest laugh lines for that audience was when the space ship first comes in over town and the earth shakes. Viveca Fox's character wakes up bleary-eyed and says, "That's not even a 4-pointer. Go back to sleep." That was such an L.A. moment. I've said similar things myself.
The great irony of the movie for me, though, is that Wil Smith's character is stationed at El Toro Marine Air Station and that some key scenes happen there. Almost at the same time as ID was released, the Pentagon decided to close El Toro—it didn't survive the previous round of base closings. And the folks in Orange County have been fighting over that prime real estate ever since. Condos vs. private airfield vs. park, round and round and round. But the air base is long gone.
I visited El Toro once with my dad, The Marine. A sleepy little place, like a little town out in the country. Well, except for the big honking aeroplanes.
So, off to mom's for the rest of the 4th ritual. No firecrackers, but some BBQ, and undoubtedly some flags. She was married to a 30-year Marine, after all.