It's a sad fact that "buzz" - the ethereal spectre of public opinion, either good or bad - can very often make or break even the most well-funded Hollywood blockbuster. This should be particularly troubling to the Wachowski Brothers, since the buzz surrounding their big-screen Speed Racer adaptation is, for lack of a better term, "not good." (See our Speed Racer review for more on this.)

We're hearing a barrage of early complaints about the film's incomprehensible story, repetitive action, and obnoxious running time (2 hours plus for a kid's movie? Obviously, neither Wachowski has children). Yes, the Wachowkis know FX and are obviously fans of Japanese anime, but did anyone else see the beyond-lame Matrix sequels? Couldn't the Speed Racer producers have seen this coming? Yes, Matrix 2 and 3 were profitable (entirely due to the goodwill engendered by the first one), but all that means is that the Wachowskis probably learned nothing from their failures - in their minds, since the sequels were in the black, that equals success.  (Of course, watch Speed Racer now break the box office bank this weekend and prove us all wrong.)

Regardless, since Hollywood chose to bring a kids cartoon to the big screen from the team behind the not-so-family-friendly Bound and Matrix: Revolutions, it got the MovieRetriever staff thinking about other potentially bad directorial choices for popular children's properties. Here are our picks for the top ten worst possible pairings of directors and kids movies, matches that are so heinously wrong, we'll admit, we kind of want to see them now.

1. David Cronenberg's Teletubbies - This has so much potential for wrongness that we almost want to head to the Great White North and pitch it to Cronenberg ourselves. Dipsy and Laa-Laa open a questionable gynecological practice, Tinky-Winky reaches inside his own stomach to pull out a blood-and-custard soaked television, and Po gets into an ultra-violent naked bathhouse brawl. Say "eh oh", indeed.

2. Tim Burton's High School Musical 3 - This year, the seniors at East High are putting on a production of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, and you know what that means - Zac Efron meat pies, everybody!

3. Takashi Miike's Pokemon - Team Rocket is finally fed up with losing to Ash and his friends, so Pikachu gets tossed into a burlap sack and some bad, bad things happen (mostly with piano wire). We're not even going to get into the sad final moments of Squirtle.

4. Terrence Malick's The Backyardigans - The Backyardigans stare wistfully at a field of blowing wheat right over the backyard fence. Four hours later, after a 140-minute Mayan flute solo, a deer sheds a single tear and Tasha tells Pablo that she's pregnant. Fin.

5. M. Night Shyamalan's Avatar: The Last Airbender - We know this one is actually happening, but here's the twist you didn't see coming - M. Night is playing all of the roles himself. Aang? Yup. Katara? Yup. Sokka? Yup. He's even playing the furniture and set pieces. (Mrs. Shyamalan, can you please get your husband involved in community theatre and keep him out of our hair? Thank you.)

6. Abel Ferrara's Blue's Clues - Steve is at the end of his rope. Strung out on opium, he can't decipher Blue's series of cruel riddles that are pointing him towards his next fix. The only person who can help him - Harvey Keitel as The Bad Lieutenant.

7. Adrian Lyne's Dora the Explorer - Let's just say that Dora's "exploring" is probably going to earn the film a NC-17 rating and leave it at that, OK?

8. Brian De Palma's The Hannah Montana Movie! - If you thought those Vanity Fair pictures were questionable, wait until you see De Palma's Vertigo-esque take on Miley Cyrus' seamy double life. Expect a surprising amount of nudity and rip-offs... we mean, "homages to," the films of Alfred Hitchcock.

9. Woody Allen's Zoey 101 - Allen's neurotic comedy is actually a startlingly good fit for Nickelodeon's tale of friendships and rivalries at a formerly male-only boarding school, however, critics are outraged when Allen announces his engagement to Splenda, Jamie Lynn Spears' newborn daughter.

10. Rob Zombie's Rainbow Brite - Who knew that Brite and the Color Kids had so much clown make-up and animal mutilation in their past? Sad, really.