(no subject)

I am attempting to read another essay by Gayatri Spivak.
I am once again reduced to highlighting every sentence that I can make sense of in English.
So far this means only sentences in quote marks, from other people.

Uncanny martial arts

I watched a couple more martial arts movies today and figured something out about the fights I like. It's like a martial arts equivalent of the uncanny valley for robots. There things that are closer to human are liked better, until they get a bit too close and then everyone is aaagh aaagh take it away, and then back to liking actual humans. Well for martial arts I like it plenty when it's proper magic and showing off with big gravity-optional tricks or something, and I love it when it's people pushing the limits of what humans can actually do, but then there's a point in between where you can see the wires, or in slightly higher budget movies the places where wires necessarily are. And then it's no fun. Almost-but-not-quite possible, almost what humans can do but pushed just a bit further, and there's a zone where I'm not awed or having fun with the magic, I just feel like it's trying to fool. I get grumpy about it or just end up reading something until it gets over it.

But I liked in Tai Chi Master when he was making water or air spin from all his cool flowing moves, and he span the water into a whirlpool that broke the pot, and the wind into a vortex that picked up leaves and made a ball of them. That was just cool.

The part of that film where the plot was 'bad guys are really bad! good guys are crazy and lols! fight!' ... that was less cool. Sticking the fight scenes to each other directly would have made more sense sometimes. You could skip the talking parts and just explain everything via fight. Like a ballet only with blood and crunchy bone noises. (I'm not a fan of crunchy bone noises, the shudder beats the appreciation of technical expertise. But the crunch is sort of honest.)



Also today I watched a lot of ads in the Also Available sections of the Cine Asia DVDs. There was one that advertised itself as 'no stunt doubles! real injuries!' and showed real screaming crunching and being taken away in a neck brace.
... and this is a selling point?

I like martial arts movies because it's like Road Runner and they can crunch as many times as you like and get up and go home again no problem. 'real injuries' is just disturbing. I think there should be a rule of no selling your film if you hurt people to make it.

... then I couldn't watch The Crow again.

... always with The Crow I think the guy died trying to make story so it would be a waste to not watch story. I guess that applies to other story too. But still it feels like there should be massive disincentive to actually crunching people.



(Today I finished reading three essays for college too. I'm bored of these units. If there's anything new to learn about Jane Eyre none of these essays is saying it, they're just saying same like each other now. Makes it difficult to concentrate even if there is more pile still to read.)