Speed Racer **

Director: Andy Wachowski, Larry Wachowski

Cast: Emile Hirsch, Christina Ricci

Matthew Fox, Susan Sarandon, John Goodman

Paulie Litt, Benno Fürmann, Roger Allam

The good news: the Wachowski brothers have made a faithful adaptation of the 1960's famous Japanese anime series.

The bad news is that this adaptation is so true to its source that it even acquired its sense of irrelevance, dullness and an idea of fake nostalgia powered by the same sense of expectation that made it popular during its era.

Story goes something like this, Speed (Hirsch) is the second son of the Racer family. Since he was a little kid he's been obsessed with cars, no wonder considering his whole family has been in the business forever. When he grows up he becomes a professional racer trying to live up to his, deceased, brother Rex's legacy.

His life, when he's not racing, pretty much consists of his interactions with his family. Pops (Goodman) is a jolly, overprotective man, Mom (Sarandon) is a perky, barely there female role model.

There's also his youngest, mischievous, brother Spirtle (Litt) who's always getting in trouble with his pet chimpanzee Chim Chim, loyal family mechanic Sparky (Kick Gurry) and Speed's girlfriend Trixie (Ricci), a feisty racer herself, who bats her eyelashes whenever she needs to prove her own driving abilities or when trying to get Speed out of the chastity they live in.

After his great performance in several races, Speed gets contacted by Royalton (Allam) a corrupt corporation owner who offers to sponsor him in exchange for wealth beyond his imagination.

When Speed refuses, Royalton tries to take his career down, leading the hero to team up with the mysterious Racer X (Fox) in order to uncover an evil plot, compete in the Grand Prix and live up to having a movie named after him.

The ultimate in CGI extravaganzas, the Wachowski brothers create a complete, saccharin infused universe made out of colorful buildings, video game like skies and camera flashes.

Somewhere in the middle of this we're supposed to catch the jaw dropping races all the characters keep referring to, but what we see is mostly flashing, "whoosh"es and our watches as the film extends to a luxurious, and unjustifiable, 135 minute running time.

The cast does its best to play the flat part of anime characters, with Ricci and especially Fox (who combines angst, sexiness and raw manliness in completely unexpected ways) stealing each of their scenes.

Hirsch might come off as one of the biggest problems since he never becomes more than the cartoon character. His heroic qualities come to him by default as we never feel the spark that makes him want to race so much.

He talks about it and his concentrated frown seems to be tailor made for us to realize he's going through some deep enlighting process, but Hirsch is as wooden and distant as anyone from "The Matrix".

Then again, wasn't the original Speed Racer the exact same way? Hirsch might be in fact giving a good performance that we're unable to enjoy because the character he's playing isn't worthy of being emulated.

A confusing experience, in more than one way, the Wachowski brothers try to deliver a political essay that talks about the dangers of capitalism.

But what exactly do they have to say for themselves when they try to shove this into a multimillion summer blockbuster?

Even more, how can they justify these thoughts when they go and use Speed in the very same way they condemn their characters for trying to do.

To the Wachowskis, Speed Racer is nothing more than a commodity; a perfect excuse to try out their new technological gadgets while underestimating an audience that needs much more than speed.

For teenagers "Speed Racer" doesn't come near to delivering the thrills and excitement they get from being the heroes behind the wheel, in real life or in the ever more realistic video games that are released every week.

Plus, when they're playing they don't need to go through the characters' unsufferable line readings and emotionless actions.

For little kids the experience might feel more like a mission to go through than any fun and for parents who might worry their kids will suffer some kind of seizure with the cornucopia of color and movemement, watching the film will probably be more about keeping an eye out on their children. But they not need worry, for "Speed Racer" drags so much that they'll be long asleep before any risky sequences.

For a movie that brags so much about being driven as opposed to merely driving, "Speed Racer" is often in urgent need of a tow.

Teeth ***1/2

Director: Mitchell Lichtenstein
Cast: Jess Weixler, John Hensley
Josh Pais, Hale Appleman, Lenny von Dohlen, Ashley Springer

"They're all unfamiliar, unless they're yours."
Michael C. Hall talking about genitals in "Six Feet Under"

Since the beginning of time, human beings have been fascinated by the mysteries of sex.
Early during life, men and women become aware that they are built differently; turning the genitals into the Rosetta Stone to be deciphered in order to find the ultimate secret.
For teenager Dawn O'Keefe (Weixler) this is no problem, she is the local chastity group's most comitted member and has promised to remain a virgin until the day of her wedding.
Dawn believes so much in her cause that she has never seen what her own vagina looks like (she assumes it must be something like the monsters from B horror films), condemns masturbation and is fearful of the "heavy making out" featured in PG-13 films.
Her life at home doesn't help make things easier. Her mother (Vivienne Benesch) is suffering from a life threatening disease, while her stepfather (von Dohlen) looks after her.
She must also deal with her rebellious stepbrother Brad (Hensley) who chain smokes, does drugs and kicks girls out after loud sex sessions.
One day she meets Tobey (Appleman), the cute new kid in town who gains her trust and reveals that he tried sex once, but has remained celibate ever since.
Dawn believes that anyone who experienced its dangers and reformed, is worth her admiration (and her erotic dreams). When he tries to rape her, Dawn discovers that she has something more unique than her convictions; a toothed vagina, which bites off anything that tries to enter its domain.
As if the awkwardness of coming to terms with her sexuality wasn't enough, she must deal with the mythical "vagina dentata", which ancient civilizations said could only be conquered by a worthy hero.
This twist has us wondering about all her possibilities that range from denial to a search for "the one".
But the film is so well made that it can afford the luxury of making us doubt whether it's about actual vaginal mutation, mere coming of age metaphor or psychosexual repression manifested by a physical reaction and hallucinations.
Rarely have movies tapped with such accuracy into the conflicts of growing up and director Lichtenstein makes justice to his last name's legacy by creating a stylized pastiche of genres.
Dawn's heartbreak is treated like you would see in a Molly Ringwald movie, while her approach to sexual themes is straight off a 1950's educational film.
And when she decides she's a Gorgon in the middle of a group speech, the scene achieves Greek tragedy connotations highlighted by a choir's response to her Cassandra like affirmations.
Weixler anchors the film with a flawless performance that draws from iconic work by Reese Witherspoon, Sharon Stone and Sissy Spacek.
Bringing a sense of wholesomeness to Dawn, she is able to be naively sexy and deliver dialogues that walk a fine line between sincere genre conventions and unintentional camp (especially in the film's best scene, a risky medical visit featuring the incomparable Pais as a gynecologist).
She moves across the frame with affecting honesty and even her slightest gestures and movements (like the way she dives her head underwater as if to baptize and cleanse herself after a heated moment) only help us know Dawn better.
She is the kind of actress that makes you wonder whether every single element of her performance was rehearsed or if she built it along the way; the kind of enigma without which the film couldn't lead to its unapologetic, chilling conclusion.
As impossible to classify as its complex center character, "Teeth" works as a cautionary tale, an empowering female treatise and a wickedly clever teen sex comedy, among others.
Dentata is Latin for teeth and "Teeth" apparently means unexpectedly brilliant filmmaking.

Iron Man ***

Director: Jon Favreau

Cast: Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow

Terrence Howard, Jeff Bridges, Shaun Toub, Leslie Bibb

Tony Stark (Downey Jr.) builds weapons. He inherited Stark Industries from his father and has become one of the most important names in the business.

A child genius and flawless engineer he spends his free time gambling, partying and bedding beautiful women.

During a trip to Afghanistan where he's to demonstrate a new missile, his convoy is ambushed and Stark is captured by a guerrilla group who demand he builds weapons for them.

Trapped in the mountains he, and fellow captive Dr. Yinsen (Toub) tell them that they will make weapons for them, but instead forge a power armor, fueled by an arc reactor (that also helps keep Stark alive after the attack) that ends up as a prototype for what later becomes the Iron Man suit.

After his return to the States, Stark decides to stop making weapons and as Iron Man travels the world over to destroy them.

This doesn't come as good news to his business partner Obadiah Stane (Bridges) nor to the Afghan group that still wants revenge.

Favreau's film is a great introduction to one of the most unknown characters in the Marvel repertoire and one, for that matter, that does a satisfactory job in catching us up with why Stark deserves to be known as well as we do Peter Parker and Jean Grey.

Shot in a hyper realistic style that tries less to evoke the visuals of comic books and is more about how the scenes should play in your imagination, "Iron Man" provides a visual effects extravaganza that for once provides us with not more or less than we would've expected.

At the center of it all is a maniacally great performance by Downey Jr. who in a way seems to have been born to play Tony Stark.

His evolution from careless playboy into ,self, conscious superhero is one that needs the other to fully shape the man. Stark is a cocky man who you hate to love. At film's start he's shown in some mock magazine covers and when he appears on "Rolling Stone" you realize that we indeed live in a world that worships power regardless of where it comes from.

The thing about Downey is that when he realizes the truth of what his business does to the world, you believe his change completely, if only because you know that this is a man so selfish that this is the first time he's actually opening his eyes to something bigger than himself.

While a superheroe's costume is supposedly designed to keep his identity safe, Downey Jr. never completely vanishes inside his metal armor.

The animation job is obviously magnificent, because even while dashing across the skies or shooting missiles from his shoulder, Iron Man is still Tony Stark.

The supporting cast does a terrific job as well including Howard as Tony's friend Lt. Colonel James Rhodes, Clark Gregg as a nosy agent who by film's end makes you go "oh!" and the always magnificent Bridges who with a shaved head and full on beard gives a deliciously evil performance of power gone bad (in more ways than one).

Stealing every scene she's in, Gwyneth Paltrow plays Pepper Potts, Stark's loyal, and leggy, assistant who perfectly embodies damsel in distress with a twist.

She gets some of the film's best lines and often gives it a warm heart. Most dazzling of it all is the sexual chemistry between Paltrow and Downey Jr. which sometimes gives out more energy than any of the featured gadgets.

We grow up thinking that you grow up being a superhero, which is why Iron Man's midlife crisis enlightenment comes off as an invitation to change in the midst of a world that seems to be closing in on us.

It delivers the ultimate corporate wars to the baby boomers all over the world while reminding us that it's never late to make a fresh start.

Have the lambs stopped screaming?

After having just watched "Untraceable", a film which a critic referred to as "The Silence of the Lambs" for the internet age, I couldn't help but wonder, has any other thriller since Jonathan Demme's 1991 masterpiece been so influential and impossible to overshadow?

While some might mention "Se7en" and recent films like the "Saw" series or "Hostel", has there been any other film that so uniquely brings together horror, suspense and art house filmmaking like "Silence" and has the reviews to prove it?

Untraceable *

Director: Gregory Hoblit

Cast: Diane Lane

Colin Hanks, Billy Burke, Joseph Cross, Mary Beth Hurt

What happened to the time when an old fashioned movie psychopath was just that?

Now, if they don't have some sort of terrorist trauma or a bizarre, unknown until then, illness they are plotting some sort of over the top, ridiculous revenge that honestly doesn't need all the fuzz.

Regardless of the reason the filmmakers choose, we rarely have to deal with that much more creepy realization that comes with not knowing why people act how they do.

Early in this film we discover the reasons why a young man is kidnapping people and then torturing them to death, while he streams the video online.

He has a website named killwithme.com in which as the number of viewers rise, the victim dies faster.

Not to try to make some deeper sociological remark about this, but in a way isn't this what goes on all the time in shows like "American Idol"?

Anyways, the always fascinating, Diane Lane plays Jennifer Marsh, an FBI cybercrime agent who gets assigned to the case along with a local detective (Burke) and her own tech guy (Hanks).

From this, the film evolves into a very by the number thriller that showcases elaborate action scenes while trying to deliver an intelligent message.

But it's in its message where it crashes, because instead of turning out a Hanekean essay on the acceptance of violence, it actually loves the gore and sickness it condemns.

And not only that, but it doesn't even bother to live up to trashy entries of its genre.

People have always loved unjustified violence, maybe because the distance of watching it is enough to satisfy the morbid desire to experience it.

"Untraceable" seems to have forgotten that what it shows is child's play compared to the things we can find for free online or out in the streets.

Death Defying Acts **

Director: Gillian Armstrong

Cast: Guy Pearce, Catherine Zeta-Jones

Saoirse Ronan, Timothy Spall

The year is 1926 and noted escape artist, magician and actor Harry Houdini (Pearce) is trying to debunk fake spiritualists and mediums.

He places the ultimate bet; a $10,000 cash prize for anyone who can tell him what his dead mother's last words were.

Mary McGarvie (Zeta-Jones) and her daughter Benji (Ronan) are con artists who have earned a reputation for their team act during which they make believe audience members they have made contact with their deceased loved ones.

When they learn about Houdini's challenge they find the perfect opportunity to get out of poverty, once the magician arrives to their hometown of Edinburgh the run into the one thing they weren't expecting as Houdini begins to fall for Mary.

With a plot that tries to cover as much fields as its subject did, the film fails at most of them more often than not.

It establishes itself as historical fiction, but assumes that just because it talks about a magician it can just go ahead and assume we'll all suspend our disbelief immediately.

While Pearce gives a rather good performance as Houdini, Zeta-Jones never really convinces us that she has the charm to knock the guy's socks off.

What makes this woman believe she's so good at fraud that she'll get Houdini too is something we never fully understand.

While the romantic subplot seems to be something used as a safety net in case everything else fails.

It could have also tried to exploit Harry's obsession with debunking mediums and what did his fixation on death had to do with how he approached his craft and even the possibility of love.

For a plot with so many possibilities it's ironic that everything ends up feeling so trapped.

The only thing that remotely apporaches magic here is the lovely Ronan, who pulls every card from under her sleeve and gives a rich, if sometimes obnoxiously mature, performance that within itself reminds us that a magician's biggest aid are his secrets.

Carrie On!

Finally a poll where I can agree with Americans.

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