August 5 movie: Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. Georg and I watched this while we were in Louisville. It was the perfect thing to watch while we unwound after a long day of driving. Georg noticed some bad writing -- for instance why does Gwyneth take the one thing the bad guy can't ever have, carry it all the way to the Himalayas and deliver it to his henchmen? (Although I wonder if that in particular was deliberate bad writing, as a reference to the plot contrivances of classic adventure movies.) But there were also moments of great dialogue, like "Just for once can't we die without all this bickering?"
sky captain and the world of tomorrow
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To clarify: I agree that Sky Captain... is a pretty well-written movie, esp. in terms of dialogue. It's got some nice set pieces and bits o' business. But it falls prey to a few too many "stupid" plot devices like the one you mention. As do many movies -- the Indiana Jones movies are all pretty bad, even beyond what can be forgiven by their winking awareness of the creakiness of their plot devices.
what i meant to write (but hit the submit button too soon) is that the Indiana Jones movies are all rife with creaky plot devices, most of which they get away with because they're written with a winking acknowledgement of the creakiness, with an awareness that the plots don't make much sense, that they work more as homages to classic movie serials.