journal features

movie review - Mulan

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-eight years and a million words

Toronto, 1998.01.07

This is an animated story about a young lady in China who disguises herself as a man to join the army in her aging father's place. Of course, she's inevitably thrust into a role where she must reveal her identity as part of her efforts to save the kingdom. This is simply the best Disney effort I can remember. It's a treat to look at, and a cut above the usual story-telling from Disney.

Recommended.

rand()m quote

Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them. In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.

—Michael Crichton