Speed Racer has found his Trixie. Warner Brothers has hired Black Snake Moan star Christina Ricci to co-star with Emile Hirsch in the Wachowski Brothers version of the kind of crappy old anime cartoon ‘Speed Racer’. Hirsch plays Speed, Christina Ricci, and Christian Slater will play the monkey. Ok, Christian Slater isn’t really in it. But with the way his career has gone south, he could be.

In the cartoon, Trixie is Speed Racer’s brave and loyal girlfriend. She sticks with him both on and off the track, where they totally make out off camera. Trixie and Speed that is, not the monkey. Well, at least we hope she doesn’t make out with the monkey. It was a pretty cute little monkey.

Ricci got big critical acclaim for her work in Black Snake Moan, but it was a financial failure because Americans like movie about gadget cars not movies about blues men chaining a half-naked Christina Ricci to his radiator. I really don’t know what’s wrong with this country, I guess all that sexual repression is finally taking hold. But, now that she’s had critical success I guess Christina is ready to get a paycheck. Good for her, she deserves it.

Already in the cast along with Ricci and Hirsch are John Goodman and Susan Sarandon as Speed’s parents. Speed Racer is set to be released on March 9, 2008.