They call him Wolverine, and he’s the best at what he does, and what he does is shred the box office with berserker rage!  Okay, enough of the Wolverine analogies, but you can’t help but be impressed with the $87 million haul of X-Men Origins: Wolverine!

What a way to start off the summer–with the 2009 box office up over last year, people are still hungry for movies, even in this economy. Fox need not fret any more about the pirated version that leaked out, hurting the box office, because the Hugh Jackman-starrer proved that people love to see movies in the theaters.

The Oscars attempt (emphasis on the word, “attempt”) to recognize cinemas greatest achievements each year. The Razzies, on the other hand,  recognize cinema’s greatest underachievements each year.

After seeing the nominees for this year’s Razzie Awards, I’m beginning to think that the Razzie judges need to be given jobs on the Oscar selection committee. Maybe then the Oscar noms would be a little bit more spot-on.

Here are the 2008 Razzie Award nominees for your viewing displeasure.

Short version: Speed Racer is strictly for kids, big time nostalgia-feeling fans of the original series and perhaps video game addicts.

Considering all I’d heard about and seen via trailers and clips about Speed Racer, I was almost concerned about what it would be like to watch it on a gigantic IMAX screen. I thought perhaps it would give me a huge headache or perhaps induce some psychotic state in me, or worse – my daughter.

Ah, but 11 year olds brains are hardwired for this kind of stuff, so not to worry – she’s fine.

Ok, folks… here’s your chance to get a real taste of what Speed Racer will be like before you decide whether to plunk down your hard earned money for a ticket.

I’m not going to tell you what I think until I see a few of your reactions below. BTW, I will be adding my two cents to the list of Speed Racer reviews some time this weekend. I wanted my first viewing of it to be in IMAX so I didn’t catch a pre-screening of the film.

Last week I wrote that I thought it was a ridiculous theory that the release of the Grand Theft Auto IV video game would hurt Iron Man’s box office numbers. Instead I wondered whether the release of Speed Racer during the second weekend of the armored avenger’s run would put a dent in Tony Stark’s armor.

Well it looks like he’ll be holding up pretty well against the race car flick as well.

Everyone is buzzing about how the release of Grand Theft Auto IV (do people who like that game even know how to interpret Roman numerals? Ok, ok… don’t get all mad) is going to hurt Iron Man box office in it’s second week of release. The word is that GTA 4 is set to bring in $400 million in it’s opening weekend, and that gamers will stay home to play that instead of leaving their darkened bedrooms to go see the awesome Iron Man movie (yes, I’ve seen it).

I don’t buy the logic.

The last time a movie doing poorly was blamed on the launch of a video game the same weekend was when Halo 3 was released on the same weekend as… um… some Ben Stiller movie.

Yeah, right. That’s like blaming cow farts for global warming. Oh, wait…

Anyway, I think that there’s something else that could put a bigger dent in Iron Man’s armor than Grand Theft Auto 4:

Speed Racer

Strangely, when I first heard about the Speed Racer movie by the Wachowskis, I was reserved in my anticipation. Then, when I heard it was going to be sporting some serious CGI, I got depressed because I didn’t think it would meet my hopes.

However since then I’ve seen the movie trailers and they’re so cool my wife has to bring me down afterwards. It looks like it’s going to be true to my memories of the show.

In the upcoming movie version of Speed Racer, the Mach 5 is built by Speed Racer’s dad, Pops Racer, and it’s got some pretty cool features like the auto jacks and tire belts, just to mention a few.

As far as specs on the Mach 5 go it’s been said to have 5,000 horsepower distributed to all four wheels evenly. Whoa… I was really hoping for a little bit more than that. “-)

So that’s a bit of info on the movie version of the car, but did you know that there have been a few real Mach 5’s built over the years?

Another weekend, another Weekend Movie News Wrap Up.

This week:

Legion starring Dennis Quaid and Paul Bettany, Tom Hanks quits Fahrenheit 451, Nic Cage hunts for more National Treasure, Battlestar Galactica producer plans to make a television adaptation of Children of Men, Surrogates with Bruce Willis and Radha Mitchell and news on when we can expect to see a trailer for Star Wars: The Clone Wars.

For details on the above items, read on.

Geez, I’ve heard rumors about trailers that were supposed to be playing in front of the extremely weak 10,000 B.C. before I went to see it and since. Everything from the new Iron Man trailer, The Incredible Hulk and The Dark Knight to this new Speed Racer trailer. I sat through the damned thing and didn’t even have the satisfaction of seeing one single new trailer for anything coming out this year.

On the bright side, at least seeing the Indiana Jones trailer on the big screen finally managed to get me fired up about that one.

In any case, here’s a brand new trailer for Speed Racer, and I’ll be damned if it doesn’t actually look good to me! Now we all know that a great trailer does not a great movie make, but it’s a much better omen than a crappy trailer in IMHO.

Check out the new trailer below.

My buddy Alex over at First Showing shot me an email saying that he’s gotten verification that the Wachowski’s will-it-be-PG-or-won’t-it live action version of Speed Racer will have an IMAX version released along with the regular theatrical version.

If ever there was a movie that looks like it was destined for IMAX, Speed Racer is it.

So an early review of Speed Racer has popped up on AintItCool.com. Overall despite being very rough regarding completion of visual effects and not having the actual movie music soundtrack, it was fairly positive.

As far as the announcement early on that the Wachowskis intended on making this a G-rated movie – it never really set right with me. I certainly don’t have anything against movies that are rated G, but a live action version of a story involving villains, car crashes AND made by the Wachowskis?

I never really bought it. And the review mentioned above confirms it, unless some cuts are made between this and the released version.

I’m not quite sure what I think of this Speed Racer trailer. I don’t think one can really complain because it looks like it will be about the most faithful translation of an old cartoon series to a big screen live action movie. Earlier today we brought you a bunch of Speed Racer images and now the trailer those images are from is online.

It looks rated G. It looks really simplistic in it’s writing. And it looks more like a cartoon come to life than anything I’ve ever seen before with the super bright primary colors and effects. If nothing else it looks like the Wachowskis (who brought us The Matrix, as if you didn’t know) will once again contribute a groundbreaking film to the masses.

Trailer after the jump…

Here are some crazy, but cool, Speed Racer photos. USA Today got the exclusive first look at the Wachowskis return to the big screen. The movie, based on the popular, and in my opinion, a bit trippy, cartoon, is a big budget adaptation, which opens next May 2008. And the movie looks to be equally trippy!

The Wachowskis have said they wanted to do a “kids” movie, so the film will likely be rated G, but maybe PG. The film stars Emile Hirsch as Speed, Matthew Fox (from Lost) as Racer X and Christina Ricci as Trixie.

The movie was shot entirely green screen, with some real props, like the Mach 5. See more photos after the jump! Yes, the kid and chimp are in it, too, and everything looks quite authentic, which is bizarre!

I’m back from being out of town last week. Although I managed to post up a couple of reviews, a lot of news didn’t get covered. Here’s a summary of last week’s highlights:

- Ben Cross (Chariots of Fire) will play Sarek, Spock’s father, in the new and currently in production Star Trek movie. (StarTrek.com) Hey! They added another old guy to the cast!

- David Twohy, director of both Pitch Black and The Chronicles of Riddick apparently wants Vin Diesel back to play Riddick again. (ComingSoon.net) I thought the first one was pretty dumb the first time I saw it, but upon repeated viewings it grew on me. I also thought that Chronicles was cool in a “guilty pleasure” sort of way.

There’s a new list out (don’t we all just love lists?) of the 20 most anticipated movies coming out in the next 12 months.

Movietickets.com polled 2,000 active moviegoers to determine what movies they were most looking forward to. What’s an “active moviegoer” you ask? It’s someone who’s seen a lot of movies this summer. Over 50% of those polled have seen at least six films this summer, with almost 20% having seen 11 or more! So I would imagine that means that many of those polled were teenagers or in their early 20’s.

Before I get to the big list, here’s the breakdown by gender:

Top Five Films Guys Are Looking Forward To:

1. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
2. The Dark Knight
3. Iron Man
4. National Treasure: Book of Secrets
5. American Gangster

Top Five Films The Ladies Are Looking Forward To:

1. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
2. National Treasure: Book of Secrets
3. The Dark Knight
4. American Gangster
5. The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian

Come on girls, aren’t you interested in Iron Man, a suave playboy/James Bond-type that wears armor and flies?

Is the pendulum finally swinging the other way? For the longest time action movies pushed the PG-13 envelope, doing razor thin trims until they just barely escaped the R-rating and slid in to theaters as PG-13 for those lucrative teen and preteen dollars.

Now I hear from /Film that Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer has gotten a PG rating! I did not expect that at all… I had assumed it was a given that it would get a PG-13. Very surprising as far as I’m concerned.

Man, I realize it’s difficult to come up with things to say on the spot in an interview, but sometimes celebs really crack me up. There’s a video out of a press conference covering the upcoming movie Speed Racer… there’s the unveiling of the Mach 5 car plus a panel discussion with the stars of the film.

When Ricci’s turn to talk comes up she starts out great, but then…

The Screen Rant Empire continues to expand with yet another exciting podcast!

This week’s action-packed podcast includes news about The Dark Knight and IMAX, Eli (Hostel I & II) Roth’s more sensitive and artistic side, what you may NOT know about the Mach 5 from the upcoming Speed Racer movie, Iron Man related coolness, why movie trilogies are not always trilogies and how that relates to their failure or success.

Also, news on the unveiling of the ultimate Iron Man website for fans.

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In a bit of Click to continue "The Mach 5 Race Car from Speed Racer"

Emile Hirsch (pictured at left) is in final negotiations for the role of Speed Racer in the upcoming film to be produced by the Wachowski brothers. I’m not familiar with Hirsch and although that’s where the news is centered in regards to the project, I’m more curious about what a Wachowksi-helmed Speed Racer movie will be like.

They co-wrote V for Vendetta and the last thing they directed was the Matrix trilogy. Although different, these shared a dark tone that I don’t think will lend itself to Speed Racer. Of course they can always go in a completely different direction from the original animated series, but then what would be the point of calling it Speed Racer?