July 4th weekend is typically reserved for huge blockbuster releases, particularly those starring Will Smith and/or showcasing America as a force not to be messed with (against aliens or the British). Very, very rarely does an independent release even bother trying to go up against the studios during the big holiday. For example, the only option for an American indie we have this weekend is IFC’s wrong-holidayed I Hate Valentine’s Day, which is uneventfully the second Nia Vardalos movie in a month. And this year we don’t even have the usual sort of event movie debuting on July 4th weekend. There’s just Public Enemies and Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs. Boring.

Isn’t it ironic that independent films can’t open on Independence Day? It would make sense for there to be a number of good U.S.-produced indies opening this week, going up against the big guys with their American spirit (including their disregard for broad, worldwide marketability) and evidence of the American Dream come true. Wondering if there have ever been great independents released at this time of year, we took at look at the last 30 years of cinema and found only a few significant titles.

See what little (American) films bucked the 4th of July weekend release system after the jump:
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• Sony’s making a sequel to The Pink Panther. Yeah, the Steve Martin one. The one that was delayed for a year and only barely made back its production costs at the domestic box office. Judging by the cast they’ve put together (which includes Aishwarya Rai, Jean Reno and John Cleese), the studio seems to be banking on international appeal to put the franchise in the black.
• Brian Lowry reviews NY77, a documentary about the emergence of punk, hip-hop and “a sexually-permissive club scene” in New York in the late 70s. The film, which was produced by Nanette Burstein and premieres on VH1 this weekend, “methodically recreates the period’s vibe — with Geraldo Rivera recalling how at Studio 54, it was ‘absolutely appropriate’ to have sex in the bathroom stalls. (Today, sadly, he can only approximate that experience via his appearances on Fox News.)”
• Motion capture effects house Mova demonstrated a new 3-D technology at SIGGRAPH this week, aimed at creating life-like models of actors’ faces. According to Mova founder Steve Perlman, the future of 3-D won’t involve plastic glasses, but will be “more like theater in the round, where you can either walk around the scene or move into the scene itself.”
• Tom Hanks and Nia Vardalos are among the complaintants in a lawsuit filed against financing company Gold Circle Films. Hanks and crew claim Gold Circle “cheated” them out of profits on My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Variety’s Janet Shprintz notes that while Wedding is “one of the most successful indie films of all time”, it’s also “spawned an extraordinary amount of litigation” — this is the third lawsuit involving Vardalos alone.