Get Your Kicks with Martial Arts Films

January 6, 2025January 3, 2025 / Susan O. / Leave a comment

Ever wonder how much of movie fight scenes are staged and faked, and how much is real? Today, so much is done on a green screen, even the locations are unconvincing. You can be sure, however, that martial arts films are very real.

Martial arts films have some of the best action and fight choreography you can find in film, and they often span multiple genres. Some are written specifically for comedy (most American Jackie Chan films, like Rush Hour), while others are mind-bending (The Matrix). Some are more realistic (Enter the Dragon), while others are not (John Wick 4. Thirteen consecutive hits by cars? I think not. Don’t get me wrong – the John Wick series is in my top 20 films, but this pushes credibility.) Foreign films tend to focus more on the art and less on a story line (sorry, subtitles or overdubbing, the dialogue in Jackie Chan’s Police Story is downright painful, even though the action and car chases are superb), while American films tend to have a story line that is stretched to make room for the action scenes (If John Wick can kill three men with a pencil, does that make the Joker, who kills one, also a martial artist?). Some movies are very good (Ip Man 2, which is a lot like Hong Kong Rocky) while others are cringeworthy and forced (American Kickboxer, for one).

Few martial arts movies are “pure” – there are few “karate” or “judo” or “jiu jitsu” films. Most martial arts films use mixed martial arts, as the actors are usually multiply trained. Bruce Lee, the granddaddy of martial arts stars, didn’t hold a black belt in anything, but invented his own school called Jeet Kune Do. Lee studied under the actual Ip Man, Yip Kai-Man, who invented the school of Wing Chun. The incredible Donnie Yen, whose greatest American films have been Star Wars: Rogue One and John Wick 4, has black belts in Wing Chun, Judo, a sixth-level black belt in Tae Kwon Do, and a purple belt in Jiu Jitsu. Keanu Reeves, of John Wick and Matrix fame, holds a black belt in Jiu Jitsu, as well as black belts in Judo and Karate.

What’s the difference between all the different martial arts forms? Generally, they’re very minor. Some use open hand, some used closed. Some are meant to deflect and defend, others to overpower (Krav Maga). Some emphasize hand work over kicks. Aikido deflects the energy of an attacker, rather than responding. Jiu Jitsu is about pinning and dominating an opponent. Wing Chun focuses on the center of the body and rapid-fire punching, similar to boxing. A second difference is the concept of “belts.” The “belt” level concept is Japanese in origin, while the Chinese systems don’t always use it. This is partly why some of the greatest martial artists of film – such as Bruce Lee – don’t have black belts in any denomination. Traditionally, the forms using belt levels are karate, tae kwon do, judo, and jiu jitsu.

You might be surprised to know there are a number of western action actors who are more than proficient at various martial arts, including Iron Man actor Robert Downey Jr. (Wing Chun), Wesley Snipes (5^th level black belt in karate, 2^nd level black belt in Hapkido, plus jiujitsu, kickboxing, kung fu, and capoeira), and Steven Seagal, a 7th-level black belt in Aikido. Chuck Norris has a tenth-degree blackbelt in Tang Su Do. Jean-Claude Van Damme has black belts in karate and kickboxing. Sean Connery, the first James Bond, had a black belt in karate. Jason Statham has a brown belt in jiu jitsu. Even Willie Nelson is a fifth-degree black belt in Korean Gongkwon Yusul, which he has studied for more than twenty years.

On the other hand, Michelle Yeoh, who stars in many martial arts-action films, has no formal training at all, but chalks up her moves to dance training. On film, no one can tell.

Don’t skip a movie just because it’s in a foreign language. Movies like Ip Man 2 and Seven Samurai are well-worth reading captions. Whether you like your action cheesy and fun, or serious and deadly, check out these films that feature martial arts or martial artists, and be careful what you kick or punch!

8 Movie Action Pack

Art of Self Defense

As Good as Dead

Big Trouble in Little China

Blade

From Russia With Love

Embattled

Everything Everywhere All At Once

Hero

Keeper

Mulan

Sakra

XXX Return of Xander Cage

Unorthodox Aliens

December 23, 2024December 23, 2024 / Adam / 1 Comment

Reading science fiction can be overwhelming — what on earth is a chrono-synclastic infundibulum? Despite the tough jargon and speculative concepts, it’s quite an inward-looking genre. These stories typically loop back around to reflect something about ourselves — an assumption or expectation or fear that could use some interrogation. Aliens are possibly the most overt display of this narrative device. They are funhouse mirror versions of ourselves: the same but different. Aliens carry all the social, cultural, and political baggage we tend to associate with Otherness, but evoke sympathy too. At the end of E.T., are we not puffy-eyed to see that strange creature, who’s been nurtured and accepted, finally return home?

And don’t we all feel like E.T. — an alien, a pariah — in some way?

Here are some novels and stories that feature subtle and unconventional alien characters.

Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut

Kurt Vonnegut loves his unorthodox aliens. Hand-shaped Tralfamadorians play a significant role in Slaughterhouse-Five, but I’d like to mention a minor alien race from Sirens of Titan. In a slight deviation from his main journey, protagonist Malachi Constant crash-lands on a planet populated by harmoniums: flat, kite-shaped beings that cling to cave walls and only perceive the world through touch. They communicate with limited telepathic abilities and are able to send two possible messages:

The first is an automatic response to the second, and the second is an automatic response to the first.
The first is, “Here I am, here I am, here I am.”
The second is, “So glad you are, so glad you are, so glad you are.”

Hyperion by Dan Simmons

Hyperion borrows its framing device from The Canterbury Tales. Its narrative unfolds as each of six pilgrims tells their portion of the story on their way to the time tombs, where they plan to confront the omnipotent Shrike. The Shrike fits your evil-monster-alien archetype (with some twists along the way), but there are other alien beings that populate the many planets of Hyperion. Most poignant is Simmons’ depiction of a human race that has lost its home: the Earth. They become aliens in their own right, establishing new civilizations around the galaxy but ultimately “alienated” in one way or another.

Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang

“Story of Your Life,” from the short story collection Stories of Your Life and Others, is about language, specifically the field of science known as linguistic relativity. Researchers in this field try to determine whether the language we use affects the way we think. For example, some languages describe time using distance terms (like “short” and “long”) and others describe time using quantity related terms (like “much” or “little”). A study from 2017 concluded that, under certain circumstances, these language differences result in actual differences in time perception.

Chiang takes this idea to its extreme and introduces an alien race that communicates in a completely circular language. As a result, these aliens perceive time as though it were a circle, living the entirety of their lives simultaneously- past, present, and future.

What if a human were to learn their strange and powerful language? “Story of Your Life” was adapted into the 2016 film Arrival.

The Paper Menagerie by Ken Liu

Some might be familiar with Ken Liu’s translation work. He’s best known for the English translation of The Three-Body Problem, a sci-fi epic by Liu Cixin (now a Netflix Original). He also writes novels and short stories that blend sci-fi, fantasy, and folklore.

His short story collection Paper Menagerie opens with “The Bookmaking Habits of Select Species.” The title says it all — how might alien races create persistent representations of their language and thoughts? I particularly like how he describes the Allatians: they stick their proboscis onto an impressionable surface, and as they speak, their proboscis vibrates and etches a groove into the surface. To read what another Allatian has written, one drags their own proboscis through the groove, and a hollow part of their skull amplifies the sound; the voice of the writer is recreated.

The Book of Strange New Things and Under the Skin by Michel Faber

Aliens are a recurring theme in Michel Faber’s writing. His 2014 novel, The Book of Strange New Things, takes place on a far-away planet that has been introduced to Christianity. Missionary Peter Leigh becomes the new minister of a docile alien congregation but struggles to reconcile his ecclesiastical commitment and the guilt of leaving his wife back on Earth, where climate change and political turmoil conspire to topple civilization.

Under the Skin, Faber’s first novel, paints a darker portrait of humanity (or alienity, ha). It’s the kind of book that holds its cards close and lets the reader marvel (and shudder) as the story progresses.

Faber presents a kaleidoscope of Otherness; themes of exploitation, gender, immigration, class politics, and animal cruelty are woven throughout and explored with satirical levity. The book was loosely adapted into a movie of the same name in 2013 with Scarlett Johansson.

Which “Unorthodox Aliens” am I missing? Let me know in the comments section below.

The Library of Congress Needs Your Help!

December 10, 2024December 10, 2024 / Kristy / Leave a comment

I recently took a class on archives and manuscript management- as one does- and learned about a problem in the world of museums and archives. Many of them have large numbers of old documents they have scanned into their digital collections for preservation, but they’re not searchable. What do I mean by “searchable?” Let’s say you’re doing research online, looking for information on feral pigs in North America in the 19^th century. Now, it turns out the Library of Congress had a bunch of letters donated to them that discuss precisely this, and you could read all about the problems Matilda had on her farm in Cheshire as she writes to Cletus in Middletown. Unfortunately, you’re not likely to find these letters by blindly sorting through the images that make up the archives’ massive collection. Those letters first need to be transcribed, where someone looks at the pictures taken of the letters and types what is written there. Once this text has been typed, the computer is able to match your search for “feral pigs, North America, 1800s” with the text that was entered via transcription.

Here’s the problem: it takes a lot of time to transcribe all those old historical records. The solution? You.

That’s right! There are all kinds of archives and other historical organizations looking for volunteers to transcribe and review old documents. What does this look like in action? Here’s an example from a transcription I did on the Library of Congress’s We the People website:

Above is an article written by Frederick Law Olmsted, the “father of landscape architecture in the United States,” best known for designing Central Park in New York City. Here, he enthuses about the “Lungs of London,” another term for London’s Royal Parks. Even within this brief two-page document, there is so much to sink your teeth into. He describes the necessity of public parks that do not exclude the working class:

Money, and their legs, will carry [genteel people] whither they will; but with the poor artisan or labouring man it is not so. He cannot afford time or means to set out with his wife and children on a Sunday voyage of discovery – and to find the shades of night, perhaps, falling around him just as he has succeeded in refreshing his eyes with a bit of anything green.

Poetic! And relevant 185 years later… When opening up a new document to transcribe, there’s no telling what you may find.

This kind of project is perfect for history buffs, puzzle hounds, those interested in volunteering their time, or anyone who has ever thought, “Gee, I bet I’d make a good code cracker.” Each organization has slightly different guidelines for transcription, so definitely peruse those before you get started. Generally, these institutions want to make it easy for volunteers to provide their help, so it doesn’t take more than a few minutes before you’re transcribing your first document.

Here are a few of my favorites:

The Library of Congress– Probably the quickest to get started, with the easiest-to-use interface. You don’t have to have an account to transcribe, but if you create one (it’s free), you can track your hours.

National Archives– Volunteers here are called “Citizen Archivists,” and have more options outside of straightforward transcription like their “Outside the Box Missions.” This one wins for coolest branding.

Historic New England– They’re focusing on transcribing the Casey Family Papers right now, and from what I can tell this is a family with decent handwriting, great for beginners.

There are also many other smaller institutions looking for transcription help, along with international archives. Try googling “archives transcription volunteers” or “digital transcription volunteers” if none of the above suggestions tickle your fancy.

Questions? Did you try it? What did you think?

Getting Cult-ured

November 25, 2024November 25, 2024 / Susan O. / Leave a comment

We’ve all heard the term, “It’s a cult classic,” “It’s a cult film,” but what actually is a cult film? For one thing, it has zero to do with charismatic leaders or brainwashing. Cult films can be weird, but some are wildly popular.

While the definition itself is elusive, and films can theoretically lose their cult status if they become mainstream, there are several factors that help define which films can fall in that category. For one, it has to bomb at the box office. This doesn’t mean it was a bad film – Donnie Darko did lousy because the film revolved around a plane crash, and it was released just weeks after 9/11, and all the advertisers pulled out. The Princess Bride became a wildly popular film that did poorly in the theaters, mostly because the studio didn’t know how to market it – kid flick, or adult? Love story, fantasy, or comedy? With no marketing, it didn’t fare well.

A second common requirement is the movie has to be unconventional. It’s not something that will appeal to everyone. Quentin Tarantino films are widely lauded, but Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs aren’t for everyone. Neither are David Lynch films. I love Eraserhead, but it’s a bizarre, trippy, nightmarish film of a man trapped in a dystopian Philadelphia, caring for his grotesquely deformed infant. It is not going to be a runaway hit. Lynch’s TV series Twin Peaks falls in this category, too.

A third is a wildly loyal fan base, who not only quote the film but can often recite most of the dialogue. Many films, of course, fall in this category, but don’t meet the other criteria. Thousands of people are rabid Star Wars fans, or Wizard of Oz fans, or Casablanca fans, but those are mainstream films that appeal to the masses. Fight Club can fall in here. Also Jim Henson’s Labyrinth and The Big Lebowski.

Some claim a cult film must be subversive – this opens the door to a host of horror (Human Centipede, Nosferatu), exploitation (Freaks), pornography, over the top documentaries (like Reefer Madness), and more, but that’s not always the case. Traditionally, cult films gained their popularity from midnight movie showings. Now thanks to streaming, any film on the internet can become a cult film.

Other films fall into the campy, grade-B (or -C) genre films under the guise of “It’s so bad, it’s good.” Jane Fonda’s Barbarella can fall under here. Attack of the Killer Tomatoes was written specifically that way. Also Attack of the 50-foot Woman, Forbidden Planet, and Plan 9 From Outer Space – a movie credited with being the worst motion picture of all time. You have to laugh at how bad it really is.

The Granddaddy of all “Cult” films, of course, is Rocky Horror Picture Show. It checks every box – subversive (open sexuality!), midnight showings, camp (Tim Curry vamping it up in leather and lace), a guilty pleasure, definitely not mainstream, and a rabidly loyal fan base who can sing and quote the entire movie from memory, while throwing toast and raising umbrellas depending on the scene. It’s a great, if strange, film with a fabulous soundtrack, but not family friendly. It struggled in theaters initially, but Rocky Horror is currently the seventh highest grossing rock film when adjusted for inflation, and at 49 years old, it is the oldest continuously released movie in history – you can still find it playing in a theater somewhere. It now on the National Registry of films as culturally important.

So much for non-mainstream and subversive.

TV shows can be cult as well. The original Star Trek would qualify – a show with such poor ratings it was cancelled after two seasons, only to have a huge outcry from a fanbase that got it renewed for a third season … and then a mega-empire of movies and TV series. Firefly too – a show of only 14 episodes with a fan base so active it spawned a motion picture (Serenity) – as are Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Lost, Arrested Development, South Park, and The Simpsons. While both South Park and The Simpsons were wildly popular, they’ve been in production for 26 and 36 seasons, respectively, which puts them into cult status.

You probably already love a “cult” film, but give some of these a try and see if you agree!

Eraserhead

The Man Who Fell to Earth

Plan 9 from Outer Space

Princess Bride

Barbarella

Big Lebowski

Big Trouble in Little China

Monty Python and the Holy Grail

Napoleon Dynamite

Night of the Living Dead

Pulp Fiction

Reservoir Dogs

Rocky Horror Picture Show

This is Spinal Tap

Tommy

Kung Fu/ martial arts films such as Enter the Dragon

Hocus Pocus

Books and Shows to Confirm Your Growing Technological Anxiety

November 11, 2024November 11, 2024 / Lauren / 1 Comment

“Have I told you all about the time that I got sucked into a hole through a handheld device?” asks the narrator of a song from the Arctic Monkeys’ 2018 album Tranquility Base Hotel and Casino. Technological ambivalence (or perhaps anxiety?) is a recurring theme. I can relate. I spend too many nights sitting down to unwind for just a few minutes, and somehow two hours pass by, during which I’ve clicked link after link on my phone while the dirty dishes sit neglected in the sink and my toddler’s toys are still strewn across every floor. If you’ve ever lost an evening of your life to Wikipedia or Youtube, or ever looked up from staring at a screen to wonder if you still have long-distance vision, you can relate, too.

While I can’t give you advice on how to stop the vicious cycle of passive consumption – every time I delete a time-sucking app, I seem to replace it with another one – what I can do is suggest some slightly more cerebral time-killers to add to your queues.

To Read/Listen to:

The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr

As we enjoy the Internet’s bounties, are we sacrificing our ability to read and think deeply? The printed book served to focus our attention, promoting deep and creative thought. In contrast, the Internet encourages rapid, distracted sampling of small bits of information. As we become ever more adept at scanning and skimming, are we losing our capacity for concentration, contemplation, and reflection?

The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness by Jonathan Haidt

Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt lays out the facts about the epidemic of teen mental illness, then investigates the nature of childhood, including why children need play and independent exploration to mature into competent, thriving adults. Haidt shows how the “play-based childhood” began to decline in the 1980s, and how it was finally wiped out by the arrival of the “phone-based childhood” in the early 2010s. He presents more than a dozen mechanisms by which this “great rewiring of childhood” has interfered with children’s social and neurological development. Most important, he describes steps that parents, teachers, schools, tech companies, and governments can take to end the epidemic of mental illness and restore a more humane childhood.

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

Many folks would point to Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World as fitting in best with this post’s theme, but those screen-covered parlor walls in front of which Mildred parks herself in Bradbury’s book-burning dystopia come to my mind more often than the Shakespeare-quoting John. Plus, Bradbury’s foretold degradation of the human attention span has supposedly come true.

Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business by Neil Postman

It’s hard to believe this book is almost 40 years old, but the thesis is just as relevant now as it was back when Family Ties and 60 Minutes were among the top television shows. Postman posits that the visual medium of television has led to the decay of rational discourse by turning information into entertainment. On paper (or screen) it might sound like Postman is a technophobic curmudgeon, but one need only think back to how often misinformation under the guise of “news” has spread like wildfire via social media over the last ten years to see his point.

Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention – And How to Think Deeply Again by Johann Hari

Like so many of us, Johann Hari was finding that constantly switching from device to device and tab to tab was a diminishing and depressing way to live. So he went on an epic journey across the world to interview the leading experts on human attention – and he discovered that everything we think we know about this crisis is wrong. He introduces readers to Silicon Valley dissidents who learned to hack human attention, and veterinarians who diagnose dogs with ADHD. Crucially, Hari learned how we can reclaim our focus, if we are determined to fight for it.

Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence by Anna Lembke

This book is about pleasure. It’s also about pain. Most important, it’s about how to find the delicate balance between the two, and why now more than ever finding balance is essential. We’re living in a time of unprecedented access to high-reward, high-dopamine stimuli, and we’ve all become vulnerable to compulsive overconsumption. Dr. Anna Lembke, psychiatrist and author, explores the exciting new scientific discoveries that explain why the relentless pursuit of pleasure leads to pain . . . and what to do about it.

To Watch:

2001: A Space Odyssey

Stanley Kubrick’s classic film, and its sentient computer that turns murderous, has been so influential that even AI voice assistants will often respond back with a knowing reply if you quote the film at them. This is a film that tells its story mostly through the visual medium with little dialogue, so you’ll have to put aside from time to watch this one without compulsively scrolling on your phone.

Black Mirror (available on Netflix)

Twilight Zone for the information age. This Channel 4 / Netflix drama is composed of standalone episodes where technology complicates, or more likely completely destroy, the lives of the characters. In one story they can store, replay, and delete memories via an implanted device in their skin. In another, social interactions are given ratings, and they affect one’s socioeconomic status. Every once in a while you’ll have a happy ending, but you’re usually buckling in for a dystopian take on the computer-based tools we already use. Watch it via Netflix or purchase episodes through Amazon Prime.

The Social Dilemma (available on Netflix)

This docu-drama explores the dangerous human impact of social networking, with tech experts sounding the alarm on their own creations. It’s no mistake that Google’s own (former) design ethicist is a key narrator in this Emmy-winning documentary. Watch it via Netflix.