Yowazzup: A Directory of Happening Things

Speed Racer is a movie based on the popular 1960s Japanese anime series of the same name. The movie stars Emile Hirsch as Speed Racer whose older brother Rex (Scott Porter) died in a racing accident a decade ago.

SPOILER WARNING: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The race cars in Speed Racer are beautiful like candies

The movie opens with flashback of Rex’s racing days mixes with Speed Racer’s attempt to beat Rex’s record at a race. After the flashback is over, it is learned that Rex is killed in an accident in The Crucible race many years ago. When Speed becomes popular despite having not won a Grand Prix just yet, Royalton (Roger Allam), the owner of Royalton Industries pays the Racer’s family a visit. Royalton makes Speed a lucrative offer. After considering, Speed pays Royalton a visit only to reject the offer, angering Royalton while he learns that Royalton has been cheating and fixing races all the while.

When he does not qualify for the Final Grand Prix after Royalton’s effort to him out of the races, Speed with his Mach 5 joins Racer X (Matthew Fox) and Taejo Togokhan (Rain) to enter The Crucible in order to expose the Royalton’s dirty business. Since his family does not support him to enter The Crucible as that’s very dangerous race where his brother is killed, Speed and his girlfriend Trixie (Christina Ricci) fool his dad by telling him they are going on a skiing holiday.

Speed Racer (Emile Hirsch) and his supportive girlfriend Trixie (Christina Ricci)

As Pops Racer (John Goodman) and Mom Racer (Susan Sarandon) find out about Speed racing in The Crucible, they want him to leave the race but eventually show him their full support. When Speed wins The Crucible together with Racer X and Taejo, Taejo betrays them by not exposing Royalton’s secret.

Horuko (Yu Nan), Taejo’s sister comes to find Speed in order to give him a special access card which will allow him to gain a wild card entry into the Grand Prix race since her brother, Taejo is not interested in the race and she feels ashamed of his family’s wrongdoing.

In the end, Speed manages to win the Grand Prix with his new Mach 6 car and Royalton is exposed. Quite a happy ending and predictable plot but the movie is just awesome with the candy-like buildings, landscapes and cars. Speed Racer reminds me of colorful movie The Cat in the Hat but with a mixed of Hanna-Barbera’s popular animated series, Wacky Races with everybody trying to whack everyone’s else during the race. Maybe since Hanna-Barbera is absorbed into Warner Bros. in 2001, they incorporate Wacky Races into Speed Racer.

Overall, the movie is wonderful to watch as besides the never-seen-before stunning visual effects, it has its amusing moments especially with Paulie Litt as Spritle, Speed’s younger brother and his chimpanzee pet, Chim Chim.

My ratings: 8 out of 10.

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After confirming her engagement to Ryan Reynolds, a brimful Scarlett Johansson shows off a sparkling diamond ring at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute Gala in New York City.

Scarlett Johansson showing off her engagement ring

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Google has set up a page to support disaster relief in Myanmar (Burma). There are two options of donation — donate to UNICEF or donate to Direct Relief. For both of these, 100% of your contributions will go to the programs. You need to have a Google account though as both of these use Google Checkout to process the donations.

Let’s help the survivors of the cyclone to rebuild their communities, and their lives.

Go to www.google.com/myanmarcyclone/ and start donating.

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Guess who’s the luckiest man on earth? Definitely Ryan Reynolds, no maybe.

Scarlett Johansson, 23 and Ryan Reynolds, 31, the star of Definitely, Maybe and the popular sitcom, Two Guys […] Continue Reading…

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Good morning!

If you haven’t heard about the cyclone in Burma, until now, more than 10,000 dead and thousands missing in Burma cyclone. Let’s pray for them.
Cruelty never stops as […] Continue Reading…

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Did you know computer keyboards are way filthier than toilets?

The British consumer-advocacy group, Which? Computing had a microbiologist test the bacteria levels on the 30-plus computer keyboards in its […] Continue Reading…

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Tina Fey plays a career-driven single woman who hires a surrogate mother (Amy Poehler) to carry her baby.

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It’s Yowazzup’s birthday today. It was exactly two years ago since the first post on this blog — when I decided to blog casually. My main purpose is to […] Continue Reading…

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There are heroes… there are superheroes… and then there’s Hancock.

Hancock (Will Smith) is an alcoholic and sarcastic superhero who is misunderstood by the public.

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After checking out my Leslie Bibb Is Hotter Than Iron Man post, Parisa Vahdatinia of Current TV has emailed me a video of Leslie Bibb.

Leslie looks really adorable in […] Continue Reading…

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