Stealth Entertainment

By Scott Lumley

October 2, 2008

Who dares reveal my secret identity?

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Hollywood is a machine. Every week, every month and every year countless films are released into theatres and not every one is as successful as the studio heads would hope. Sometimes the publicity machine was askew, sometimes the movie targeted an odd demographic, sometimes the release was steamrolled by a much larger movie and occasionally the movie is flat out bad.

But Hollywood's loss is our gain. There is a veritable treasure trove of film out there that you may not have seen. I will be your guide to this veritable wilderness of unwatched film. It will be my job to steer you towards the action, adventure, drama and comedy that may have eluded you, and at the same time, steer you away from some truly unwatchable dreck.

Hopefully we'll stumble across some entertainment that may have slid under your radar. Wish us luck.

Speed Racer (2008)



Oh, dear god.

Where can you start with a movie like this? After watching Speed Racer, I had to repress an urge to smash my head against the wall for a half hour in vain hope that minor brain trauma could erase the memory of what I had just watched. This isn't just a bad film; this is practically a crime against humanity.

Speed Racer stars Emile Hirsch as Speed Racer, Christina Ricci as Trixie, John Goodman and Susan Sarandon as Mom and Pop Racer, Scott Porter as Racer X and Roger Allam as Arnold Royalton. If anyone reading this has hacking skills, I'm certain several of these actors will pay handsomely to get themselves unlinked from this disaster in any way possible. This was a $120 million production and as of this date, it had only made back about $97 million worldwide. In my estimation, that's about $87 million more than it deserved.




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There's so much going wrong with this movie, it's hard to pin down. But we can star with the coloring in the film.

Yes, I have a problem with the COLOR in this film. No, I'm not being excessive; my eyes actually hurt looking at the screen as I watched. A lot of scenes in this film are done in ridiculously bright neon that literally hurt the eye to look at. I'm not certain what look exactly the Wachowski brothers were going for here, but it's not a good one. Any time you have a film that produces migraines in the viewer, something is seriously askew.

Then there's the acting in the movie. It's atrocious and completely overdone. I can't blame any of the actors themselves, as they're all doing the same thing. Every scene is completely hammed up and the bad guys chew on the scenery like a pack of rabid beavers. When this much bad acting permeates a movie, I can only assume that this was a stylistic choice by the producer or the director. It's brutal and almost insulting watching some of these performances. When Arnold Royalton appears on the scene, all he's missing is a black top hat and a long thin mustache to twirl.


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