Fourth Indy Movie Coins New Phrase

Oh Indiana, we begged you to stay retired. Now the fourth installment of your famed film adventures has coined a whole new “jump the shark” style phrase: nuking the fridge.

This turn of phrase comes from the Indiana Jones’ sequel’s most implausible moment (which is saying something in a movie about alien crystal skulls with superpowers) namely, when Indy survives a nuclear blast by locking himself in a lead-lined refrigerator. Yahoo Movies’ Jonathan Chow chronicles the fridge incident and some other really silly movie moments in a feature today.

Image: Paramount Pictures 2008

It’s not surprising that some sci-fi blockbusters,and those that aspired to be, hit this list. George Lucas is a multiple time offender. Not only did he give us the scene that inspired the phrase, but he decided it would be funny to make Jabba The Hutt’s uncle look and sound like Truman Capote. In an animated  Star Wars film. Because obviously there’s no better place to perpetuate gay stereotypes.

Shia LaBeouf appears in two of the films on this list, the Indy sequel and Eagle Eye. In this one, Shia’s on the run from a rogue defense computer that can make power lines come apart and kill people. Boy, Transformers 2 can not possibly get here fast enough to save his career, can it?

The Happening made the list for the entire film’s implausibility. In case you hadn’t heard (and by the looks of the box office receipts you hadn’t) The Happening is about pollen causing people to commit suicide in gruesome fashion. See, we’re killing the planet so it’s killing us back, get it? Sigh.

I’m not sure why Mark Wahlberg is so upset about that Saturday Night Live sketch in which he talks to animals. Between The Happening and Max Payne, the SNL sketch Wahlberg wasn’t really in was the best thing he was in all year.