The actual plot of the 2004 Appleseed movie isn’t all that interesting, despite frequent references to Greek mythology and a Utopian city half-populated by “bioroids.” In fact, I’d be hard pressed to even tell you what the movie was about after watching it in Japanese once, English once and reading the Wikipedia entry on it. Characters seem to know each other, but its never really explained. I’m also not really clear on the government of this futuristic city, ruled by a prime minister, a military dude, a bunch of old men hooked up to life support and an Artificial Intelligence.
What I do like about it is the animation, particularly during the fight scenes. One of my favorite moments is when the main character, the “legendary warrior” Deunan (the chick that looks like a 13 year old boy), and her now-cyborg ex-lover Briareos (the dude that looks like a cross between a Cylon and the rabbit from Donnie Darko) square off against three sexy robots that use whips as weapons. The scene peaks when Briareos punches one of them in half.
The soundtrack, mostly by Boom Boom Satellites and Tetsuya Takahashi is also pretty good. The opening credits scene, with the Basement Jaxx’s “Good Luck” is also sweet.
Props to the Trash Menagerie kids for serving up that timely track. You can find more Justin Faust on MySpace or buy his stuff here. More Pelifics here (looks like he’s another Scando).
Kevin from Daze of Thunder hit me up with a couple of their tracks the other day, describing them as “dirty electro.” He must know my tastes, because one of them was also a remix of Wu-Tang’s C.R.E.A.M.
The two tracks make for great accompaniment to that image of Iron Man versus Dr. Doom that I snagged from the Marvel website.
I totally should have posted this earlier, but a few weeks ago I was Break Thru Radio’s featured music blogger - they did an interview with me, and let me choose some tracks for their show.
Their site is a Flash nightmare, so you’ll have to dig into the archives to find my stuff, but it’s there in the Anatomy of a Blogger section for February 5th, 2009.
For your pleasure, one of those tracks reposted here:
The Metal Gear wiki has the full story, but basically the combination of a cybernetic suit of armor and a High Frequency blade makes for one wicked ninja.
This week my friend also reminded me of the genius that is the GZA (aka the Genius). If RZA’s futuristic personality is some sort of crime-fighting pimp, then the GZA will definitely be reincarnated as a cyborg ninja in the future.
I’m not really clear if RZA’s alter-ego Bobby Digital is supposed to be some sort of futuristic ghetto protector or if he’s just a cyborg pimp. Either way, he’s pretty awesome. I mean, just look at the album cover: huge circuit-board gun, Mad Max shoulder pads, sniper honey, Kung-Fu, van driving out of explosion. It really has everything.
I also think it is pretty awesome that members of the Wu-Tang make numerous references to the fact that if their group was Voltron, RZA would be the head. Equally awesome is that in almost every single account of the rise of the Wu-Tang clan that you’ll read, there is mention that RZA asked the other members to give him full control of the group for the length of one “dynastic cycle,” after which time he’d relinquish control and basically hand them an empire.
If you’re into hot, robot-on-robot love then this Bjork video is for you. Even though it is from almost 4 years ago, it sill looks and sounds pretty fresh. I don’t know how it took me this long to see it, and the images of a robot being put together really remind me of the opening credits of the first Ghost in the Shell movie.
After reading about him on Tzero I haven’t really stopped listening to Scotty Dynamo. It really doesn’t get much better than white teenagers making club raps about partying and living the good life. Seriously.
One of the reasons I think that The Firm might be one of my all time favorite albums is this song, Phone Tap.
While a lot of rappers like to casually drop rhymes about how they be textin’ they honeys and gettin’ pages from they boyz, The Firm knows that the reality is that anyone can be listening into these conversations.
This track is basically a phone conversation between what sounds like two drug dealers, and the listener is able to hear both their conversation the radio traffic of the authorities tapping their phones.
With lines like “I hit you right back because the static is thick” they constantly remind you that they’re on cell phones, talk of their kids is interspersed with the chorus letting you know that their phones are tapped. The whole thing sends chills down my spine, and this feeling is reinforced further with foreshadowing when one of the guys on the phones tells the other that it is “all good” but that he shouldn’t use the phone tomorrow.
