Ray Pride

Genial Canadian documentary-maker Ron Mann ("Comic book Confidential," "Grass") has another weird one up his pop-culture sleeve in "Tales of the Rat Fink," a tasty seventy-five-minute bio-zoom through the life of the late Ed "Big Daddy" Roth, maker of monster cars and creator of the anti-Mouse, the wicked rodent Rat Fink. Mostly animated (by Michael Roberts), Mann and frequent collaborator, writer "Solomon Vesta" (aka Len Blum, "Stripes," "Private Parts") draws from Roth's own words, voiced by John Goodman, to motor this inventive and amusing entertainment. The other voices include Ann-Margret, Steve Austin, Billy F. Gibbons, John Goodman, Matt Groening, Jay Leno, Dick Smothers, Tom Smothers, Bill Weinstein, Robert Williams and Brian Wilson. 75m. 35mm.

"Tales of the Rat Fink" opens Friday at Siskel for a week. (2006-10-03)

Also by Ray Pride

Who Would Jesus Kill?
Let me respond from the bottom of my heart: "Jesus Camp" is terrifying, sadistic and deeply oppressive, suffocating in its portrayal of hostility to youth and knowledge, and I hope nothing else on screen, in the press, or in real life makes me feel as hopeless and helpless about the future of America
(2006-09-26)

Tip of the Week
Michel Gondry's first writing-directing mashup, "The Science of Sleep," is a gentle, leisurely, Paris-set shaggy-sheep romantic comedy about dreams and prehensile romantic longings, with tiny Latin heartthrob Gael Garcia-Bernal playing young Stephan, an illustrator fixated on visions of apocalypse, fantasizing, awake and asleep, of tall, lithe, plain-beautiful Charlotte Gainsbourg
(2006-09-26)

The Last Picture
Some movies are inseparable from where you see them
(2006-09-19)

Tip of the Week
School of the Art Institute graduate Hong Sang-soo directs some of the most compelling movies I know
(2006-09-19)

Delish
(2006-09-19)

Threeness Abounds
(2006-09-12)

Tip of the Week
(2006-09-12)

Truth, Justice and the American Way
(2006-09-05)

Tip of the Week
(2006-09-05)

Mirror Mirror
(2006-08-29)

The Grand Illusion
(2006-08-29)

Tip of the Week
(2006-08-29)

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