Saturday, March 14, 2009

Nuking the Fridge: The new "Jump the Shark"

**SPOILER ALERT** I thought the scene in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull where he escapes the nuclear blast was incredible. I mean, at that moment when I realized he was in a nuclear test site and there was no way out, I thought he was dead meat. And then he escaped in a fridge. I thought "wow." But it turns out that scene was so controversial that it coined a new term: “nuking the fridge, a scene in a movie so outrageous that it kills the rest of the movie or the rest of the film series. I didn’t think it was that bad, but thinking back…it was. I found myself asking, “Well, is it possible to survive a nuclear explosion in a fridge?" The answer is obviously no, but I thought this scientific explanation was good. Makes only slightly more sense than hiding under a school desk.

Oh, and in case you're wondering, you also can't use a snake as a rope to pull yourself out of a sand pit.

And speaking of George Lucas, here's more evidence that he is an idiot when it comes to good writing. It was his idea to put Indiana Jones up against aliens, which Spielberg and Harrison Ford correctly thought was ridiculous. I found the idea of aliens less believable than Indiana finding the Lost Ark of the Covenant.

Worst Movie Career Ever: Aaron Eckhart's Bad Judgment

Aaron Eckhart is a good-looking guy, he's got strong screen presence, he's a good actor, but he's nowhere near where he should be. That's because, in my opinion, he has the worst judgment on choosing movie roles of anyone in Hollywood.

His first breakout role was as Chad in In the Company of Men, a movie role so reviled by women that he gets nothing but grief for it. In an interview on Fresh Air, when Terri asked him about it, Eckhart actually said a variation of "I was young, I needed the money" as his explanation for doing the movie. But he finally achieved mainstream success with his performance as Two-Face in The Dark Knight. And what does he follow it up with? Towelhead, where he plays an Army reservist turned child molester. The movie tanked and got horrible reviews.