July 29th, 2008, 1 Comment »
Apparently there’s a new phrase in town for TV shows and movies that have crossed the event horizon of just plain silly:
In recent weeks, a similarly ridiculous episode — in this case from the movie “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” — has produced a similar term, “nuked the fridge,” that is gaining traction online. A Google search comes up with 64,000 hits.
In “Indiana Jones,” the hero’s improbable achievement was to survive a nuclear blast by hiding in a refrigerator. Hence, “to nuke the fridge” means to introduce a wildly implausible element to a once-respected franchise, or more generally, to signal the abandonment of past standards of quality.
There are already battling websites: Nuked the Fridge and Nuking the Fridge. Two will enter, one will leave.
I’m not sure we really needed a new phrase, but what the heck? ‘Nuked the fridge’ is a suitable replacement, as it seems even more improbably and ridiculous than ‘jumped the shark’.
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July 7th, 2008, 7 Comments »
Rebecca wrote a short history of the Stanley Theatre, and it reminded me of one of my favourite movie-going experiences.
On May 24, 1989 (I know the exact date thanks to this page), Rob Stover, Steve Lee and I cut out of Grade 10 afternoon classes. We drove (Steve had his license very early) all the way from our safe West Vancouver enclave over to the Stanley Theatre. We sat in the front row of the balcony and watched the first matinee show on the opening day of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
My friend Rob was a huge Indiana Jones fan, but it was a bit of a thrill for all of us. That was in the midst of my Premiere-reading period–I was a cinephile from early on.
The Stanley was a gorgeous cinema, and I miss seeing movies in that grand old space. It’s a lovely theatre, too, of course. It’s a pity the Arts Club doesn’t make consistently engaging shows to play inside it.
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May 30th, 2008, 9 Comments »
Yesterday I watched Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, which was as mediocre as the name implies. When old auteurs return to much-loved franchises, they round off all the corners. All the blood, dirt and sex that made Raiders of the Lost Ark so great has vanished in the fourth installment. Steven Spielberg is still one of the finest cinematic storytellers around, but the story wasn’t quite up to the task.
But I digress. The fourth Indiana Jones movie was indisputably better than Transformers, which is where I first saw Shia LaBeouf. Er, check that, that’s where I first knew his name. He had some smaller roles in movies like I, Robot and Constantine.
In any case, I think he’s got a long career as an action hero in front of him. He’s not yet a particularly versatile actor (or he hasn’t had a chance to show his range). Still, he has that certain indiscernible quality that makes for a good male lead in modern action movies. He’s handsome, but not ridiculously gorgeous. He’s got a certain fallibility and a willingness to be goofy that I see in both Harrison Ford and Will Smith. And, having just watched the extremely busy trailer for Mummy 3, he’s got something of Brendan Fraser in him too. He also has a bit of John Cusack’s ineffable likability.
I don’t think he’ll Mr. LaBeouf will win an Oscar any time soon, but I’m guessing he’ll be entertaining us and avoiding computer-generated giant killer things for the next thirty years.
On a related note, I wanted to download the first Indiana Jones movie to watch it for, like, the twenty-fourth time. This doesn’t look promising:
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June 22nd, 2007, 2 Comments »
This photo, via Digg, thrills me way more than it should:
I rank Raiders of the Lost Ark among my top five favourite movies. The rest of the trilogy couldn’t quite recapture the first movie’s magic, but I’m still psyched for the fourth one. And glad that Sean Connery won’t be reprising his gimmicky role from The Last Crusade. Cate Blanchett will make for a more than adequate replacement.
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