Monday, September 20, 2004  At the Movies  So I saw Sky Captain
and the World of Tomorrow yesterday. It was ok.  Visually it is
pretty amazing. Well most of the time. Art deco robots stomping
through 1939 New York. Giant rocket ships and lots and lots of
references to old Republic serials. The "most of the time" comes
in because some shots are just really bland. If you've seen
trailers, you know that the movie's color scheme has a very
washed out feeling to it. It works fine for the most part, but
if there isn't anything interesting going in the shot, then the
lack of color makes it amazingly boring. Several reaction shots
throughout the movie are set like that deliberately. We have an
actor and nothing interesting behind them but drab alleyway or
black mineshaft reacting to something we can't see. Boring. If
you have technology to show the monster like we do, then show it
and let the audience react. Then show the protagonist doing
something. Don't show people reacting to something we've already
seen.  Writin