Independence Day
Posted on July 4, 2008 at 8:00 am
In this heart-thumping, slam-bang action extravaganza, aliens arrive and blow up the world’s major cities. The president (Bill Pullman) and fighter pilots (led by Will Smith) must find a way to fight back. Some kids will find this too intense and scary, but others will want to see it over and over (and over) again. Themes to discuss include behavior in a crisis, honesty, the dilemma faced by the president in making the choice to use nuclear weapons, and, for film fanatics, finding all of the references to other classic films, from Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
Parents should know that the movie was justifiably accused of being sexist. One of the female leads is a stripper. We see her perform, though she remains covered. Her lover resists marrying her because it would hurt his career. Another couple divorced because she was too committed to her career. In addition, parents may be concerned about an unmarried couple that is clearly inti¬mate, and by the tension as the characters are in peril, as well as a massive number of deaths, including two of the main characters.
A gimmicky thriller without much of a gimmick or many thrills, “Vantage Point” suffers, too, from being out of synch with its time. Its premise may be current — an assassination attempt at an anti-terrorism summit — but its tone is off. A good thriller — or even a good episode of “Law and Order” — uncovers our underlying fears, recognizes that they are closely tied to curiosity, and pushes them to the point of pleasurable fear and cathartic release. This film clumsily builds on the headlines with a simplistic story that, even told in mosaic bits and pieces is obvious and clunky, with big logical gaps. It would be more intriguing to see the same story told several times from different perspectives, each one adding another layer of information, if the underlying story was worthwhile. But this story of a terrorist attack at an anti-terrorism summit, is too thin to withstand the repetition. Instead of making it deeper and more complex, the retellings get tiresome and overblown.
“Definitely, Maybe” is the story of the three great loves of a man’s life. That’s “story” in the literal sense, as in the bedtime story he tells his young daughter, who wants to know how he met her mother and, implicitly, why they are getting divorced.
‘s Abigail Breslin), just out of her first sex education class, asks him how he met her mother, and he answers by telling her about all three of the women he loved, making her guess which one became his wife. Both of them realize that it is not really how they met but a better understanding of what went wrong that matters.
The best-selling series of books about children who find their mysterious old house surrounded by magical creatures has been turned into a visually sumptuous treat for fans of fantasy and imagination.
) plays twins Jared and Simon Grace, who with their sister Mallory (Sara Bolger of 
) and mother (Mary-Louise Parker) move into a spooky old mansion that once belonged to their great-uncle. Mallory and Simon have accepted the move but Jared is furious about their parents’ split and unhappy about the new home.