'Nuke the fridge'.

In my online curiosity today, I visited Urban Dictionary today. Added to the site was an expression, birthed at Ain't It Cool News, considered as a cinematic corollary to 'jump the shark'. In this instance, 'nuke the fridge' is another way of saying that a movie franchise has passed a particular point of no return.

In Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Indy escapes capture by the Russians and happens upon a small suburb, hoping to get help. It turns out to be completely deserted...and is also about to be wiped out by an atomic bomb for nuclear testing. It's impossible to get away in time on foot, so he crawls inside a lead-lined refrigerator for safety. The blast decimates everything, but blasts the fridge to safety. In the desert, Indy gets out of the fridge, no worse for the wear.

This is but one of several peculiar instances in the new Indiana Jones movie. I liked it, even with the multitude of 'WTF?!' moments in David Koepp's script (though nothing quite matched the 'I'm not familiar with the type of thing I'm seeing' feeling I got from Peter's dancing in Spider-Man 3).

As ever, it's amusing to read the bitching in the Ain't It Cool News talkbacks, even if I can't quite agree with it. Even with the absurdities, Crystal Skull is still a more entertaining movie than Transformers.

Other things I noticed:

- One of the government agents accusing Indy of being in league with the Russians was Neil Flynn (now the janitor on "Scrubs"). After all these years, he's still up in Harrison Ford's grill.

- I can't be the only person who thought of Hot Fuzz when Indy was told to drop the gun...

- ...and then, along comes Jim Broadbent (Frank Butterman) to deepen the connection.

Interesting note: the "South Park" episode "Free Hat" is concluding as I type this.