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When I first saw the trailer for this film, I was shocked and amazed that someone went there. If it were played as a straight horror film, the movie, dealing with man-eating vaginas, seemed ridiculous. And the laughs that permeated the theater underlined the thoughts of misogyny and cheese that we all felt. However, this campy horror comedy is actually a modern twist on the vagina dentata lore, changing the male-centric fear of female sexuality into a female-centric empowerment tale.

Dawn (Jess Weixler, LITTLE MANHATTAN) is a very conservative high school student who is a leader in a teen abstinence organization called The Promise. She is ridiculed for her prudish ways at school, but stays true to her beliefs. However, she discovers something strange about her genitalia when her sexual feelings are first awakened by fellow Promise member Tobey (Hale Appleman, upcoming HOLY ROLLERS). So when Tobey’s faith wavers, Dawn discovers just how deadly her mutation can be. Along the course of her sexual awakening, she will run across a stream of the worst of the male species including her rocker step-brother Brad (John Hensley, TV’s NIP/TUCK), who has been harboring a secret ever since he was young.

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Peter Bogdanovich’s THE LAST PICTURE SHOW is a quiet reflective film with flares of wonderful irony and humor. Its style is a dead-on throwback to the 1950s drama, but presents a 1970s freedom to its material. As a sad meditation on the crumbling American small tows, the story can be bleak, but it never loses all hope… or does it? Like great art, the film is open to interpretation.

Based on the Larry McMurtry novel, this coming of age tale is set in the tiny Texas town of Anarene. Sonny Crawford (Timothy Bottoms, THE PAPER CHASE) and Duane Jackson (Jeff Bridges, THE FABULOUS BAKER BOYS) are best friends. They play for their town’s lousy high school football team, for which they constantly receive ridiculed for from the townsfolk. Sonny is jealous of Duane because his friend is dating Jacy Farrow (Cybill Shepherd, TV’s MOONIGHTING), the prettiest girl in town, while he’s stuck with the trashy tease Charlene (Sharon Taggart, TEXASVILLE). Jacy’s mom Lois (Ellen Burstyn, REQUIEM FOR A DREAM) warns her that her roughneck boyfriend is a one-way ticket to getting stuck in their flat and boring town. Jacy professes her love for Duane, but isn’t shy to play the field just to stir up some excitement in her life. Eventually, Sonny starts an affair of his own with 40-something Ruth (Cloris Leachman, SPANGLISH), the sad wife of his coach. The heart of the town is Sam the Lion (Ben Johnson, THE WILD BUNCH), a kind man who runs three key businesses— the pool hall, the café, and the picture house.

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I was expecting eye candy going into this film and that’s what I was served, but by the time the final course was uncovered I had gobbled up Andy and Larry Wachowski’s neon-glowing confection. No one who has ever seen the original series would confuse it with good animation. Nonetheless it had a charm that was undeniable. The Wachowskis capture that charm, frosting their entire production with it. They are not interested in “improving” the original material with an overdose of extra hip wink winks — the same ingredient that has destroyed so many other animation-to-live-action adaptations. They’re interested in bringing the good flavors to the forefront and minimizing the cheesy aftertaste.

Speed Racer (Emile Hirsch, INTO THE WILD) is from a family of racers, who thinks about nothing but racing. He looks up to his older brother Rex (Scott Porter, TV’s FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS), a champion driver. But something happens to pull apart Rex and his dad Pops (John Goodman, BARTON FINK), spurring Rex to leave home and later parish in a racing accident. When Speed grows up, he is courted by all the major sponsors, especially Royalton (Roger Allam, V FOR VENDETTA), a shady corporate tycoon. Soon enough, Speed learns painful lessons about the way the racing world is really run and is approached by the mysterious Racer X (Matthew Fox, TV’s LOST) to join him and blow the lid off the evil corporate conspiracy to fix races.

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Despite having a sex doll at the center of its story, LARS AND THE REAL GIRL is a charming tale about a young man who submerges himself in a fantasy world to escape from reality. Lars Lindstrom buys a sex doll and tells everyone that it is his new girlfriend Bianca from Brazil. Nancy Oliver’s Oscar-nominated screenplay handles this premise with a great deal of tact. This isn’t AMERICAN PIE, folks; it’s more like apple pie and church and milk and cookies. And if you found some way to make any of that sexual than you’re not Lars.

Lars (Ryan Gosling, THE NOTEBOOK) has become more and more reclusive, moving into the garage of the family home. His brother Gus (Paul Schneider, ALL THE REAL GIRLS), and especially his sister-in-law Karin (Emily Mortimer, LOVELY & AMAZING) worry about him. Then one night, he introduces them to Bianca like he’d introduce any Brazilian missionary he met on the Internet to them. The next day they take Lars and Bianca to see Dr. Dagmar (Patricia Clarkson, THE STATION AGENT), who tells them that Lars is having delusions and that if they want to keep him they will have to play along with the fantasy. Under the guise of treating Bianca’s low blood pressure, Dr. Dagmar sets a weekly appointment to meet with Lars and his quiet girlfriend. Gus and Karin struggle with accepting Lars’ condition, while trying to explain it to the community at large. With Bianca around, Lars is able to easily avoid his sweet co-worker Margo (Kelli Garner, BULLY).

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Philippe Pollet-Villard’s THE MOZART OF PICKPOCKETS won the Best Live-Action Short Oscar this year, beating out more serious fare. Pollet-Villard stars as a pickpocket named Philippe who along with his partner Richard (Richard Morgieve) work with three other thieves robbing tourists and female shoppers. As the white guys in the gang, they always play the cops in the scam and only receive stolen passports as their cut. One day a deaf boy, who begs for change, follows them home. At first Philippe wants nothing to do with the child, but Richard is an old softy. To make it worth their time, they decide to teach the boy the pickpocket trade, but things don’t turn out as expected and the little boy may have something to teach these hapless crooks.

The story is cute and charming with solid laughs sprinkled throughout. But I kept thinking back to SIX SHOOTER, which won the Live-Action Short Oscar in 2006, with its witty dialogue and twisting storyline. MOZART isn’t bad, but in comparison it lacks the spark that the previous Oscar winner had. Cocky and clueless Philippe and kind Richard are characters we’ve seen many times before. Pollet-Villard’s pacing is nice and ends the film on a nice joke. The last quick shot can be viewed with several meanings, leaving us wondering whether it’s a simple happy parting wink or representative of something more devious. I’ll leave it up for you to decide. In the end, the film has a winning combination of humor and heart, which is allows a great combination for winning an Oscar in the shorts categories.

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Nominated for the Best Live-Action Short Oscar, this sweet comedy seems like a well-told conventional love story until a late revelation sends the soaring in a new direction. Andre (Dirk van Dijck) is an office clerk who during quiet times at work has struck up a relationship with a tango lover online. Not knowing one thing about the tango, he desperately enlists the help of all-work co-worker Frans (Koen van Impe) to teach him to dance. With only two weeks to learn, Frans doesn’t think that is up to the challenge.

Dijck is a nerdish fellow with a good heart. He has misrepresented himself to the woman online, but his intentions are noble. Frans is a man who doesn’t like to mix his social life with his work life, so Andre has to prove that he has the passion it takes to dance the tango. Frans is an intense man, who once convinced to teach Andre, never lets Andre have a moments break from his training. Accompanying Andre to the tango event with the woman, Frans watches with eagerness to see if his student can do it, allowing the stoic man to open up his personality as well. Director Guy Thys plays on conventions so well that when hidden truths are revealed we are thoroughly and joyously surprised. The end makes a reevaluate everything that had come before. This charming short uplifts with a surprising hopefulness.

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This Oscar nominee for Best Live-Action Short Film is an absurdist comedy that careens from one unfunny gag to the next, leaving a hundred-gag pileup in its wake. Set in an Italian middle school, director Andrea Jublin gives us a few peeks into the lives of the stereotypical teens before thrusting his crazed substitute onto the class. This manic juvenile adult leaves the class of students in shock at first, but as he prances around the room like an ADD patient on acid, he forces the students into bizarre behavior to beg for high grades.

Jublin plays Il Supplente so over-the-top that none of humor hits. The pacing is at a fever pitch from the start, making the audience warn out quickly. In many ways, the often mean-spirited “teacher” reminded me of an Adam Sandler character. Let’s not hope for an American feature length remake. When the supposedly humorous twist arrives, it is no surprise to the audience, because it could only be the logical outcome to the substitute’s actions. The film is trying to embrace the joy of youthful silliness and exuberance, but does so in creating an adult character that doesn’t come off as young-at-heart, but as psychotic. Jublin dedicates the film to “all the people who have problems with conduct.” This class clown has never grown up to discover that his childhood antics were annoying back than, and even more so now that he has grown.

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Following two years after Walt Disney’s first Latin American feature, SALUDOS AMIGOS, this film is longer, more daring, less propagandistic, but ultimately less bearable than its predecessor. Upon the failure of this film, a planned Latin American trilogy was scrapped, saving the world from CUBAN CARNIVAL. Unlike AMIGOS, THE THREE CABALLEROS has a more flowing structure, reminiscent of the final sequence of the first film. It’s definitely the trippiest Disney production and makes one wonder what’s in that cigar that Jose Carioca is always smoking.

Like AMIGOS, CABALLEROS starts off like an anthology film, but soon morphs into a more free-flowing musical experience. A framework of Donald Duck receiving presents from his friends in Latin America introduces the first two segments. “The Cold-Blooded Penguin” follows the penguin Pablo, who dreams of relocating to warm climates. Next, “The Flying Gauchito” involves a little Argentinean boy who enters a horse race with the winged donkey he discovers. For the third segment, “Bahia,” Donald meets up with wisecracking parrot Jose, shimmies the samba with live-action dancers and salivates over the beautiful women. In “Las Posadas,” the lively rooster Panchito Pistoles tells of the Mexican Christmas traditions, leading to Donald try his hand at the piñata. This is followed by “Mexico” where Panchito takes Donald and Jose on a flying serape through the gorgeous beaches of Mexico where Donald can’t control chasing a bevy of live-action beauties. But in “You Belong to My Heart,” Donald focuses his affections of the popular Mexican singer Dora Luz. The film concludes with “Donald’s Surreal Reverie,” which sends Donald on a “love is a drug” infused tour, filled with lush colors, flowers and pretty live-action woman.

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This barely-a-feature Walt Disney feature, which clocks in at a mere 43 minutes, is actually a piece of wartime propaganda. Fearing Nazi Germany’s influence in Latin America, the U.S. Department of State paid for Walt Disney and his artists to tour Central and South America on a goodwill tour. The resulting film combines 16 MM live-action film shot during the trip and four separate short productions meant to enlighten the audience about the Latin American culture. While the film was meant to build support in Latin America, the film received lukewarm response in the States.

The first of the four segments, “Lake Titicaca,” casts Donald Duck as an American tourist where he bungles his way through the local village, having particular trouble with a snooty llama. Coming next is “Pedro,” the story of a pint-sized mail plane who must take the treacherous route over the mountains in Chile to deliver the mail after his father gets a cold. The third segment, titled “El Gaucho Goofy,” puts American cowboy Goofy into the attire and customs of the Argentinean gaucho. To close the film, “Aquarela do Brasil” (or “Watercolor of Brazil”) begins with a flowing musical number and ends with the introduction of the Latin parrot Jose Carioca, who shows Donald Duck around South America while trying to teach him the samba.

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This film is featured as bonus material on the “Classic Caballeros Collection” DVD.

This Walt Disney short marks two firsts. It was the first full-fledged solo short for Donald Duck and was the first appearance of Donald’s girlfriend — here Donna Duck, who would later become Daisy. In the short, guitar-playing Donald rides his tired burro into a Mexican town where he tries to woo senorita Donna. Donald proves not the most skilled suitor as he often laughs at Donna as she trips and falls. Trying to win her back, he trades in his donkey for a red car, which he hopes will be a chick magnet. But what kind of car can you get for the price of a burro?

Painting Donna or Daisy in the stereotypical hot-blooded Latina fashion is actually not a bad move. She has the right attitude for dealing with the foul-mouth duck, much better than a simple bland object of affection. This early Disney short is a solid example of character leading to good gags and driving the story. While some complain that Donald isn’t quite suited for role-playing, the song and dance elements here don’t seem unsuitable for the character’s cocky side. Both for its place in Disney history and for its solid dose of humor, DON DONALD is a great solo debut for one of Disney’s great anthropomorphic creations.