Welcome to Earth, a summertime blockbuster remix

“Independence Day”, Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin’s grand summertime extravaganza of 1996, was nothing if not a pop culture mashup. It cribbed from all manner of places: the narrative structure of an Irwin Allen disaster epic, the looming spaceships of “V”, the landmark eradication of “Earth vs. the Flying Saucers”, the common cold corrective of “War of the Worlds”, the spaceship flyboys of “Star Wars”, even the aerial dogfights of “Top Gun” (or maybe “Into the Sun”). It gleefully stuck its hand in every conceivable cinematic cookie jar while adding Emmerich’s skillful propensity for set-ups and renderings of All-American archetypes. It was, and still is, a classic remix of so many of its summer blockbuster forefathers.

Chicago-based InGen Productions’ “Welcome to Earth”, which had a quick four day run a couple weeks back at The Charnel House, billed itself a “summer blockbuster remix” too, employing Emmerich’s 1996 box office champion and its narrative of an alien invasion of our blue planet the eventual human resistance from a motley American crew as its template. It would have been easy and enjoyable for InGen to simply replicate characters and mimic dialogue since most of us, I reckon, who gathered to see it were hardcore fans of the original and would have eaten up a mere lo-fi homage with an ice cream scoop. But “Welcome to Earth” doesn’t just duplicate, it expands, never more joyfully and acutely than through the use of time-specific music, as if DJ Shadow was mashing up a Hollywood blockbuster with the mid-90s Billboard charts.

The wedding of Captain Steven Hiller and Jasmine Dubrow, just a blip in the movie, is blown-out into a brilliant sing-along frenzy, set to All-4-One’s “I Swear”, and including not just the newlyweds and their witnesses but the President and First Lady too, rendered here as a lesbian couple. That last alteration speaks to how “Welcome to Earth” not only nods to the past but celebrates the progress we have managed to make, especially when considering the original ID4 was released only a couple years removed from Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.

The music, however, is not only a supplement; sometimes it’s the work-around. How, do you figure, is the famous sequence of the White House being obliterated translated to the stage? By not even trying, by instead serving up Weezer’s mid-90s anthem “Say It Ain’t So” which improbably becomes the seamless accompaniment for national annihilation (“Flip on the tele / Wrestle with Jimmy / Something is bubbling / Behind my back / The bottle is ready to blow”), and then becomes “Welcome to Earth’s” most prominent leitmotif, as if the L.A. alt-rock band inadvertently found itself the musical documentarians of “The Battle of ’96.”

And because necessary limits given the theatrical environment mean an entire globe of humans and an entire fleet of aliens cannot line up across from one another, “Welcome to Earth” represents each species via one character. For the aliens, it is a woman shrouded in black billed as The Darkness; for us earthlings, it is Uncle Sam. This is funny all in its own, sure, but Uncle Sam also speaks to the movie’s own sense of American Exceptionalism. Because even if the whole planet eventually rallied together to bring down the aliens, it was the Americans who very explicitly concocted the plan and led the charge. And by having Uncle Sam act as Earthly representation, well, suffice to say, this will appeal to any Lee Greenwood acolytes in the audience.

At the same time, “Independence Day” was never an overtly political film. And that’s why Uncle Sam doesn’t take the stage as “Welcome to Earth” begins to recruit us; he takes the stage and does a song and dance. ID4, unlike some blockbusters, possessed less interest in allegory and logic than the simplicity of its own joyful silliness. It's why I found myself so mesmerized by how “Welcome to Earth” communicates the climactic aerial battle. There, the President and a quintet behind her stand in mock formation, swaying side to side, while holding toy airplanes, and when they “flew” away, across the wooden floor, through the curtain, I marveled at the equal absurdity and earnestness. I thought about that absurdity and earnestness again 48 hours later when I suffered through the ghastly “Independence Day Resurgence.” “Welcome to Earth”, it seems, knew what made the original so glorious better than its own sequel did.

Shout-Out to the Extra: ID4 Version

This is the first installment of our new sporadic series in which Cinema Romantico shouts out the extras, the background actors, the bit part players, the almost out of your sight line performers who expertly round out our movies with epic blink & you’ll miss it care. 

For Slant Magazine, I recently watched and reviewed “Elstree 1976”, a crowdfunded movie focusing on ten bit-part players, extras and actors in support, in the original “Star Wars” movies. These genial people warranted their own documentary, of course, because it was “Star Wars”, which is partly what the movie is about. But there were also threads, if not necessarily enough, in regards to the semi-dreary life of a working actor, and that is what got me to thinking. It got me to thinking about all those people on the edges of frames, lurking in the background, doing, like, stuff, probably in take after take, while the real stars stand in the foreground, swallowing up nearly the entire view of the camera. All extras deserve praise, really, not just the ones who were temple guards at the rebel base on the moon of Yavin.

I like to over-indulge on reaction shots in “Independence Day”, and even its follow-up’s trailers, as my longtime and very frustrated readers know too well, and often those reaction shots involve extras. But there is another extra in “Independence Day” that has always caught my eye, one who is reacting, but to someone else in the frame as opposed to special effects on the blue screen. She appears near the beginning, right after the approaching alien ship has become aware to Space Command at The Pentagon. General Grey, played by a gruff Robert Loggia, enters and gets briefed and is told the ship is “slowing down.” And if it’s slowing down.....

He walks to a nearby desk to pick up a phone. As he picks up the phone, however, notice the seated woman just to the left of where Loggia is standing. She’s at a computer bank. She’s wearing a headset. She’s talking to someone on the headset. The actress, though, isn’t content to just sit there and not act like she isn’t really there being the nameless Space Command employee. She notes Loggia picking up this phone, like it’s her phone, like she doesn’t care how many stars this General Dude’s got, whatever, hey, why don’t you ask if you can use my phone next time. Then she goes back to work cuz she’s at work, man, and she’s got work to do. Then Loggia’s General asks for the President. A pause. Loggia barks: “Then WAKE him!” And that actress, she turns, quick, put out - like, why is this General Dude making such a racket? I’m working here, can’t he see that, what’s wrong with him? So rude.

And I love it. I love this extra. She’s there; she’s working; she’s playing something.

Pour one out for the extra.

ID4 Speech As Delivered By Other Living Presidents

This past weekend was 4th of July. That meant a lot of things here in America, of course, but in movie fanatic land it meant a heap of social media references to President Thomas J. Whitmore’s (Bill Pullman) pre-battle speech in Roland Emmerich’s grandiloquent “ID4.” In one way, it’s sort of astounded me that there isn’t more blowback against a speech that declares that “the 4th of July will no longer be known as an American holiday.” But then, it probably gets a pass just because America took the lead on repelling the alien invasion. If, say, France had taken the lead……oh boy. Those Freedom Fries devotees on Fox News would’ve been metaphorically nailing poor Whitmore to the stake. But I digress.

Re-hearing the speech over the weekend (see the speech here) made me wonder how a real President would have handled it. Well wouldn’t ya know, someone went and assembled a plethora of Barack Obama soundbites from various speeches, piecing them together on the Youtube to re-create Whitmore’s speech as given by our current Commander and Chief. And yet, it doesn’t really do Mr. Obama justice. By necessity, it doesn’t sound like a real speech would sound. And in wondering what Obama’s real “ID4” speech would sound like, I found myself wondering about what the other living presidents’ “ID4” speeches might sound like.

Jimmy Carter

All due respect to the well-intentioned, kind-hearted Georgian, but Carter is simply not the one to rally the ragtag troops before “the largest aerial battle in the history of mankind.” I imagine his speech would have meandered into post-invasion policy, like how he would address the dangerous fallout via the ill-fated attempt to nuke the aliens and how his administration would go about re-building America’s infrastructure.

George H.W. Bush

Writing for Slate, Jacob Rubin described H.W. this way: “Bookended by the looming, world-historical charisma of Reagan and Clinton, Bush so often seemed flustered, irritated, a man who felt himself losing a popularity contest.” And so imagine that President giving the “ID4” speech. Not the galvanizing rally cry of Whitmore but the rattled scolding of a POTUS who doesn’t simply see the current situation so much as The End Of The World As We Know It as I’m Not Gonna Stand Up Here And Let You Blame This Whole Thing On Me. “It’s a shame Cheney never advised me of the original alien craft. Might have made a difference. We’ll never know. But I know this, we will never lose to these aliens again. Never, ever, ever, ever.. never, ever again! And I mean never, ever, ever, ever, never ever.”

Bill Clinton

Let’s be honest, William Jefferson’s version of the “ID4” speech would have gone on a lot longer than Whitmore’s, likely to the point that Emmerich would have had to leave a healthy chunk of it on the cutting room floor. But still, it’s my personal opinion that a Clintonian anti-alien screed would have been the best. It wouldn’t have merely been rousing; it would have been deft, cutting and funny. He wouldn’t have just talked up the humans, he would’ve talked down the aliens, exposing loopholes in their battle plans and fundamental flaws in their extermination philosophy. But it wouldn’t have been boring. No, it would’ve been entertainingly verbose and left you wanting to both kick ass and shout “four more years!”

George W. Bush

There’s that moment at the beginning of Whitmore’s speech when he first says “Good morning” into the PA, realizes it’s not on, turns it on, and then says “Good morning” again. Well, you can imagine this immediately rendering the undoing of Dubya, can’t you? It would take him, like, two minutes to figure 1.) The PA wasn’t on and 2.) How to turn the PA on. Then he’d grin, trying to offset the inanity of what just happened, crack some jokes that totally wouldn’t fit the edge-of-apocalypse occasion and then blunder his way through the speech, getting totally tongue-twisted on “tyranny, oppression, or persecution.” “These un-earthly evil-doers have crossed our space borders in attempt to incapacitate our American freedoms.” It wouldn’t do much for anybody, but then he’d pull on the fighter pilot suit and go up into battle with them and give all the other pilots nicknames (like the guy in the Harley Davidson ball cap that he’d call “The Marlboro Man” because he’d mix up his references) and they would win and then he would get re-elected.

Barack Obama

Dude would go to town on the anaphoras. “These aliens picked the wrong planet to pick on. These aliens picked the wrong weekend to pick on it. These aliens only have hate in their telepathic tentacles. These aliens are interested only in extermination. But these aliens didn’t count on our immovable resolve for earthly independence.”

4th of July

Happy birthday, America! And don't forget, even if you're in the midst of a massive alien invasion, there is always time for a frosty Coors Light, the Silver Bullet™.

10 Best Reaction Shots In Independence Day

Gareth Edwards version of “Godzilla”, which was released in early May which in modern-day Hollywood Years means it was released nearly twenty-five hundred days ago, contained what might just go down as my favorite duo at the movies in 2012. No, not the ‘zilla and Mothra – or whomever that was supposed to be – but Drs. Ishiro Serizawa and Vivienne Graham played by, respectively, Ken Watanabe and Sally Hawkins. This is not in any way meant to suggest they possessed deep characterization because they didn’t, but to say these two did not create characters is woefully out of order. These two knew what time it was. These two knew what movie they were in. These two played like Sherlock & Watson if Sherlock & Watson had nothing to do but stand off to the side of the crime scene and gape. Reaction shots, kid, that’s where Ken & Sally made their money! “There’s crap, you two, on a blue screen and you can’t see it but ACT like you can see it!” And they did. Lord have mercy, did they. 

I thought about Dr. Serizawa and Dr. Graham as I watched Roland Emmerich’s “Independence Day” this past weekend. I had so much fun re-watching “ID4” last year over 4th of July and re-embracing by pre-film snobness, that I decided to do it again. And as I did, I realized what was more prevalent than even aliens and fireballs and Jeff Goldblum “Umms” and “Aahs” – that is, reaction shots. It’s the Golden Corral of reaction shots! They’re everywhere! The first 45 minutes of the film is one part exposition, one part special effects, one part reaction shots. Alien spaceships are pretty cool, I suppose, but do you know what’s cooler? A bunch of slack-jawed humans staring up at those alien spaceships! “There’s crap, you guys, on a blue screen and you can’t see it but ACT like you can see it!” And they do. Lord have mercy, do they. 

So I got to thinking. What are the best reaction shots in “Independence Day”? 

10 Best Reaction Shots In Independence Day

Well, this one’s the tone-setter. This one gets the party started. We’re hardly into the thing and the two dudes at S.E.T.I. are staring at the black speaker emanating strange sounds like that wonky equation Stellan Skarsgård puts on the blackboard in “Good Will Hunting”.

There is a Randy Quaid-specific joke to be made here but I will not be the one to make it. Instead I will observe that Mr. Quaid is called upon to react to a forthcoming spaceship as a character who has pronounced for years that he was once abducted by aliens, and that is what makes this reaction shot so exquisite. He is dumbstruck but not dumbstruck because he is in the midst of realizing the human race is not alone in the universe. He has always known the human race is not alone in the universe. He’s dumbstruck more in that way of “Well, well, well, the prodigal aliens return.” (Also, who’s thirsty for some Coors?)

When you're a character actor like Bill Smitrovich called upon for about 57 seconds of screen time, what do you do? You nail that reaction shot.

Classic Emmerich. From left to right we've got a cab driver, a young kid who was just shooting hoops and listening to rap and, I assume, an IBM salesman. #RedWhiteBlue

I love the little girl to the left. She makes it. She knows these aliens are up to some nefarious shit.

Whoops! Wrong movie!

You will notice the gentleman to the left with the as-expected mouth-agape face at the sight of a spaceship engulfing the sky above the biggest city in the world. You will then notice the gentleman to the right registering the presence of a spaceship engulfing the sky above the biggest city in the world by quizzically raising his eyebrows. Gentleman To The Left < Gentleman To The Right

One detail I adore about “Independence Day” and that had not so forcefully occurred to me previously, is how often sequences conclude with reaction shots, like a soap opera. You know, one character says something foreboding and then the film cuts to the other character listening to this foreboding pronouncement as the camera gauges his/her melodramatic reaction just before transitioning to the next scene. This happens several times with Bill Pullman’s President Whitmore, and this is my favorite. It happens the instant after POTUS has been told the alien spacecraft are twenty-five minutes away from entering Earth’s atmosphere. I like to imagine James Madison being told the British are twenty-five minutes away from breaching the White House and looking at John Armstrong Jr. just like this.

Admittedly Harvey Fierstein’s casting and subsequent performance as Jeff Goldblum’s cable company superior might well be the broadest element of an exceptionally broad film. And Harvey Fierstein stuck in Midtown traffic and lamenting “Oh crap” as he watches the fireball from the just-exploded Empire State Building roar down the street toward where he sits in his car might well be the single broadest moment of the broadest element of an exceptionally broad film. Yet as I have matured over the years from a crotchety twenty-something to a romantic thirty-something I have come to view this moment with much more fondness. If (when?) I am staring down a fireball from the just-exploded Willis Sears Tower courtesy of an enemy alien spacecraft, I hope I have the efficacy to wryly say to myself "Oh crap."

Well, Goldblum obviously wins the Reaction-Off here.

In Memoriam: James Rebhorn

Last 4th of July Eve, I curled up on my couch and watched Roland Emmerich’s (and Dean Devlin’s!) “Independence Day” for the first time in a decade, perhaps more. It was a film that long ago, pre-film snob days, I held admitted fondness for, and then fell out of love with – or, pretended to fall out of love with – because I fell in love with Ingrid Bergman movies and you cannot be seen at the art house with your espresso watching “Journey to Italy” while simultaneously waxing poetically about the wondrous moment when “ID4’s” Judd Hirsch expresses astonishment at the presence of a personalized phone aboard the President’s helicopter five minutes before the world may very well be blown to kingdom come.

I had watched “White House Down” – which I absolutely loved – but a few days earlier and its hypnotic overuse* (*compliment) of set-ups in the first act prompted me to reminisce about “ID4”, a film (?) which in retrospect I enjoyed mostly because of its hypnotic overuse of set-ups in the first act. Amidst the free-flowing set-ups we are, of course, introduced to our primary trio – under-the-gun and subtly-named President Whitmore (Bill Pullman), zinging Air Force pilot Steven Hiller (Will Smith) and heroic cable repairman David Levinson (Jeff Goldblum). They are, in order, white, black and Jewish. #America

But there is another character. We are first introduced to him lounging on the Prez’s Oval Office couch where he’s arguing for “targeting some ICBM’s” to “blow” the approaching alien spacecraft “out of the sky”. This is President Whitmore’s Secretary of Defense, Albert Nimziki, and hey, let’s be really clear about this, Nimziki was spot on about the aliens being hostile. But he was spot on about the aliens being hostile because if Secretary Nimziki saw a few Finnish tourists in a hot air balloon in an upstate New York he’d probably want to target some ICBM’s to blow ‘em out of the sky.

Nimziki was drafted as Whitmore’s not-so-gallant antagonist, disagreeing with the Commander & Chief at every turn, espousing the virtues of nuclear retaliation, attempting to upgrade to “DEFCON 4” without the President’s official permission, and, of course, existing to confirm the existence of all-important Area 51. In MFA Screenwriting courses he is what is officially labeled A Trainwreck Of A Character, but on 4th of July Eve he’s just the Dude You Live To Root Against. He was played by James Rebhorn, who died this weekend at the age of 65.

Rebhorn, born in Philadelphia in 1948, made a long-winding career out of those roles. He was tasked to be the D.A. on the “Seinfeld” finale that improbably put Jerry, George, Elaine and Kramer behind bars because, well, who else would have the fortitude to do it? He was the FBI expert witness in “My Cousin Vinny” who fingered our lovable suspects. He was Dr. Larry Banks in “Meet the Parents”, Robert DeNiro’s WASP accomplice, who in the midst of the water volleyball game gone wrong first chastises hapless Greg Focker for not trying hard enough and then, after Greg has tried too hard and spiked the ball right into Jack’s daughter’s face, flip flops and hollers, in my favorite Rebhorn line reading, “It’s only a GAME, Focker!” He was always out to bring you down.

Yet, for all the roles in all the movies, it’s his turn as Nimziki that remains at the forefront of my mind. In “The Day After Tomorrow”, Emmerich created a villainous Vice President who was a curmudgeon and short-sighted, but who also received a comeuppance and learned a lesson. He was also quite explicitly modeled on Dick Cheney, and so it was just sort of Roland Emmerich playing moralist and Kenneth Welsh playing impostor. Rebhorn, on the other hand, was simply Albert Nimziki, a man who received a comeuppance but learned no lesson, a creation unto his own. I think of a prospective Secretary of Peace and I think of what Nimziki’s reaction would be – probably targeting few ICBM’s to blow him out of the sky.

In the manner of modern-day politics, I doubt a consensus could ever form around our foremost film President. There have been so many played by so many different sorts of actors in so many different types of movies that the argument could stretch to eternity. But, our foremost film Secretary of Defense? Well, that’s another story.

James Rebhorn’s Albert Nimziki is our Movie Secretary of Defense Emeritus. R.I.P.