Entertainment Editorial: Drive In Movies

I try something the site never has before with this item: nostalgia. I can still remember the first time I went to a drive in theater. It was the Summer of 1996 and the Drive In had just opened–this was before the traditional movie theater went bankrupt and used as a squatter building for meth heads–and a car load of people were all ready to see Independence Day.

So just imagine the 4th of July weekend, a movie about the world fighting aliens called Independence Day, Will Smith in full cocky mode, and a car load of people going to an outdoor movie screen with our own refreshments (you don’t have to sneak them into the drive in…which kind of takes away half the fun). I mean, throw in Apple Pie and even Sarah Palin would have been proud of me. It was such a moment of pure Americanism I’m surprised Clinton was president.

As a kid watching Independence Day on that Drive In screen during the last minutes of sunset, I thought it was the best movie ever made. [Citizen Kane who? Godfather what? The best is Will Smith sassing aliens!] As a fully grown adult whose last movie review was Midnight in Paris, I think things have changed a little bit. [At one time I also thought Eraser was the best movie ever made, and Broken Arrow was the greatest movie that ever would be made]. But now watching Independence Day on basic cable with a small screen TV, I can safely say the movie…well, kind of sucks…but only kind of.

As I grew up I thought each successive 4th of July movie was worse than the last one from Michael Bay’s stupid Armageddon to Michael Bay’s brain dead Pearl Harbor. Now I can barely muster up a cell of excitement over Michael Bay’s Transformers 4 which promises to be another big, loud explosion fest on the 4th of July.

And maybe that’s telling of what the entire country went through while growing up from the big, dumb Reagan years (the era Michael Bay’s 4th of July fits best in) and its shallow patriotism and false heroics to the Obama years (Larry Crowne) and its more nuanced, thoughtful approach to butt kicking in the Jason Bourne films where the bad guys look an awful lot like the good guys instead of literal aliens from another world.

I’ve grown up to find that the Drive In is hot, overcrowded, bug infested, and doesn’t have a picture the Hubble Telescope could see clearly. Just like we’ve grown up into a country that hopefully likes a little more reflection in our politics. Still, 4th of July creates a slight tinge of nostalgia for the drive in, and probably a slight tinge of nostalgia for the cold war of the 80’s in a more complex web of global alliances. And that isn’t such a bad thing…to think of it only as that belongs in the past.