journal features

movie review - In the Shadow of the Moon

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-eight years and a million words

Toronto, 2019.10.16

This is, at first glance, a murder investigation. But the trail of the killer goes dead when she falls in front of a subway and is killed. Then years later she shows up again, and the killings resume with the same tell-tale marks on each victim's neck. The same detective becomes involved in the second series of killings, and to everyone's dismay it seems to be the same killer. Sooner than you can say "time traveler with an agenda"* the cop is himself stepping through the gate.

Recommended. For that kind of night when you've had that kind of day and just need a little space between you and reality. I think you know what I mean.

*Is there any other kind? Time travel has always seemed like the most ridiculous .. wishing.

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