I really just do not know where to begin with this. Not just in terms of snarky commentary, either — I’m having trouble just digesting this as an individual consumer of movies.
First, understand: I think RZA is something of a musical genius. As far as hip-hop production goes, he is up there with DJ Premier, Prince Paul, Dan The Automator, and maybe (MAYBE) DJ Shadow as far as I’m concerned. I love Wu-Tang, and even his comedic acting cameos in Coffee & Cigarettes, Funny People, and especially the ‘Wu-Tang Financial’ skit on Chappelle’s Show are freaking amazing.
And on the surface, this is the sort of movie that seems like it was developed in a lab for me and my friends: Tarantino is involved, RZA does the soundtrack, and there are copious amounts of bloodletting. Meredith will be the first to tell you about my love of cinematic decapitations.
Still, there’s a strong whiff of “movie-jail” here, but for now let’s just bathe in the nonsensical, ultra-violent glory of this red-band trailer:
• RZA is an African-American blacksmith in China during what appears to be late-19th century China.
• Despite the period, every character eschews the efficiency of guns for ornate bladed weapons, including token-grizzled-white-gaijin Russell Crowe.
• Everyone speaks perfect(ish) English, regardless of cultural origin. Ken Watanabe is as close as we get to a plot-relevant accent.
That’s a LOT of suspension of disbelief. Still, I was pleasantly surprised by Inglorious Basterds; let’s hope this can do the same.
Not to get too “inside baseball” with you guys, but this new-ish College Humor vid really speaks to both my college student-self, as well as my pre-Ex-Boyfriend working stiff-self. I apologize for nerding out on you!
Have you ever wondered about the physiology of music? Not the actual physiological make-up of music, but the body parts most often sung about? Well, the good folks at fleshmap.com have done all the heavy lifting for you, compiling data gleaned from over 10,000 songs (genre-independent) to create a pictographic body rebus. The diagram illustrates a genre by genre breakdown of body parts mentioned in song lyrics and their frequency. It’s pretty interesting. For instance, 77% of all songs feature the eyes as the most dominant lyrical body part. 22% feature the hands (blues and gospel). 11% (the percentage of hip-hop songs studied) featured the butt most prominently-in fact, within genre, the butt takes up the largest piece of the pie, with 20% of hip-hop body references relating to the booty (they like big butts and they cannot lie.) That said, hip-hop also offers the most physiological variety in terms of lyrical topics, with nearly twice the number of discrete body parts mentioned than any other genre.
I was a bit surprised that the eyes won out within the metal genre; I thought for sure the pictogram at the top of that list would feature a dragon, or maybe Satan. But I bet if the researchers went back and listened for context, the eyes in question would belong to dragons and/or demons. Glenn Danzig would happily grudgingly lend his personal library for cross-referencing this, I’m sure of it.
So this got me to thinking: what body part(s) do my commenters’ favorite artists/songs favor? Please respond below with artist, title, and excerpted lyric quoted.
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