Back in the olden days, "jump the shark" was the phrase used to describe a moment when a franchise went bad.  Here on FilmDrunk, we use the phrase "durst" or "dursted", in honor of Fred Durst.  But look out, vernacular, there’s a new kid in town. Via Urban Dictionary:

The word for June 03 is nuke the fridge
Nuke the fridge is a colloquialism used to delineate the precise moment at which a cinematic franchise has crossed over from remote plausibility to self parodying absurdity, usually indicating a low point in the series from which it is unlikely to recover. [SPOILER ALERT]
The term comes from the film Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, in which, near the start of the movie, Harrison Ford’s character survives a nuclear detonation by climbing into a kitchen fridge, which is then blown hundreds of feet through the sky whilst the town disintegrates. He then emerges from the fridge with no apparent injury. Later in the movie, the audience is expected to fear for his safety in a normal fistfight.
Guy 1: "Wow. Did you see the new Indy movie? What the hell was that? It was like I was having some kind of flu induced absurdist nightmare."
Guy 2: "Yep… did or did not that series permanently Nuke the Fridge?"
Guy 1: "Oh, totally Nuked the Fridge! But I guess Spielberg is happy as long as he has the money of the people who trusted him." 

I don’t have much to add to this, but I’d like to come up with a term to describe the moment at which a crappy movie becomes so crappy that it transcends its crappiness and becomes awesome.  I’m thinking maybe "tossed the elephant".  As in, Boy, Wicker Man really tossed the elephant when Nic Cage punched that lady while dressed as a bear. Or, For me, Bangkok Dangerous tossed the elephant when Nic Cage fed that elephant. 

Thanks to B-ryce for the tip

Bestweekever today has a sneak peak at the five rejected screenplays for Indiana Jones 4. The best part is, the brains behind Indy 4 really did go through five drafts before finally settling on the alien/monkey fight/snake rope one.

In a further stranger-than-fiction twist, the Bestweekever parody script I’ve included at left may have wound up as the Terminator 4 script:

[From the Wired article I linked this morning] The Connors (along with all of humanity) are still on their primary mission — to stop Skynet from destroying humans — but amnesia-riddled figure Marcus Wright, played by Sam Worthington, throws a wrench into the mix.

Then again, it could just be a coincidence. I mean, amnesia, aliens, time travel, multiple personality disorder – if Hollywood is any indication, there really aren’t that many plot devices to choose from.  Next time they should just hire a foreigner.  Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Sullen (It Was A Meditation On Feminism The Whole Time) has a nice ring to it.

Surprising few, Indiana Jones and the Holy Crap, How Many More Fake Names am I Going to Have to Come Up with for This destroyed the competition at the Box Office this weekend, raking in $311 million dollars worldwide during the long weekend.

    Paramount Pictures estimated the action sequel made $151.1 million in the U.S. and Canada from Thursday to the holiday Monday and $160 million overseas.
    It marked the second biggest Memorial Day weekend opening ever, behind only "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End," which made $153 million domestically from Thursday to Monday last year.

Even accounting for the film’s $185 million dollar production budget and reputed $100 million dollar marketing budget, it still earned approximately a buttload.  Congratulations to Executive Producers George Lucas and Steven Spielberg – no one can write an unsarcastic scene in which Shia LeBeouf fights communists using an army of monkeys like they can.   

Uwe Boll’s Postal also did well, earning $8200 on ten screens – at least enough to cover Boll’s bullhorn and funny hat budget.

OPENING THIS WEEKEND
Indiana Jones and Remember That Time You Were a Kid?
You already read my review of it.  But if you’ve got the stomach be sure to also check out Harry from AICN’s mind blowingly sycophantic 8 jillion word review in which he basically calls it the best thing to happen to the universe since the big bang.  “Our childhood dreams captured at 24 frames a second and projected for us to relive laughing, clapping, gasping and shouting enthusiastically for."  Some say I shouldn’t be so negative.  To those people I say do me a favor and die in a fire.  Anyway, the movie’s at least worth seeing so you can make fun of the monkey scene.

The Children of Huang Shi
The movie has “Wang” in the title and was directed by Roger Spottiswoode.  I defy you not to giggle at that.

The Edge of Heaven
Critically acclaimed German film about a Turkish girl.  The trailer features both guns and skeezy euro hookers.  Looks pretty sexy, actually.  Also, the music makes me want to dance around my apartment like a Bollywood video.

Postal
At least seven of my readers live near a theater where this is playing. 

War Inc.
This military-industrial complex satire starring Ben Kingsley, John Cusack and Hillary Duff is probably going to suck, but that’s not going to stop me from continuing to refer to Ben Kingsley as Special K. 

Uwe Boll based a large part of his publi-shitty campaign for Postal around the notion that it’d be opening the same weekend as Indiana Jones and the Monkey Circle Jerk.   But while Indy opens on 9,500 screens, Postal, which had originally targeted 1,500, will be opening on just 13-15 screens*.

    A spokesman for the AMC theater chain said, "We carefully evaluate the movies that we choose to play in our theaters and elected not to put this film in our theaters because we feel is does not have potential for commercial success in the U.S."
     …Distribution will be limited to New York, Los Angeles and a half-dozen or so other markets.  -[THR]

As much as this movie looks really stupid, Uwe Boll is a big girl for not fighting me, and the entire concept of movies based on video games is retarded, I have to take Uwe’s side on this one.  Is Postal really going to be any worse than Meet the Spartans?  Doubtful.  A snuff film starring my mother wouldn’t be worse than Meet the Spartans.  I guess what I’m trying to say is that instead of making movies, the guys behind Meet the Spartans should fight Uwe Boll in a gladatorial death match and have someone else film it.  Retard Knife Fight will be the best work they’ve ever done.

*Robo previously quoted a report saying Postal was only opening on four screens, but that now appears to have been slightly exaggerated.