No doubt the Hauptsache Papeterie shopkeeper’s heart skipped a beat when striking starlet Susan Sarandon breezed into his Berlin, Germany stationery boutique to buy up a big batch of Kolo photo albums recently.

Mann or Frau, you know everyone in that shop went weak in the knees.

Sarandon was in the Millennium City shooting the film Speed Racer, and said she was making gifts with Kolo photo albums for fellow cast and crew.

Written and produced by the same team that gave us the Matrix trilogy and V for Vendetta, Speed Racer is a new live-action film (just released on DVD) based on the popular cartoon series of the same name by anime pioneer Tatsuo Yoshida. It features Sarandon and John Goodman as Speed’s devoted Mom and Pops. The film is being hailed for its revolutionary new look … the entire frame, foreground and background, is always in cartoon-like focus –- a complex special effects marvel.

Beyond beauty, Sarandon’s appeal has just as much to do with her intelligence and creative moxie (think Janet in Rocky Horror Picture Show), traits she reveals once again as she recalls her conversation with the Speed Racer’s creators about accepting the role. They tried to describe their vision of the film to her, and the complicated visual effects technique they would attempt. Sarandon explains:

“At a certain point I just said, ‘I don’t have the faintest idea of what you’re talking about -- I’m in.’ I just thought, when am I ever going to get a chance to be up to my neck in something I understand so little about?”

For more about the film, cars featured, links to the movie trailer and old cartoon clips go here.

For a cool explanation of the special effects go here.

- Ugo