Movie Details
| Title: | Tales of the Rat Fink | |
| Director: | Ron Mann | |
| Year: | 2006 | |
| Genre: | Documentary | |
| Times Seen: | 1 | |
| Last Seen: | 03.17.06 |
Other Movies Seen By This Director (0)
| Date Viewed | Venue | Note |
| 03.17.06 | Paramount | This Screening is part of event: South by Southwest 2006 After that I went downtown and found parking on 9th and Colorado; not bad considering it's the height of SXSW music and the film's still going on and it's St. Patrick's Day so like a few hundred people have already been drinking since noon. This movie is a doc about Ed "Big Daddy" Roth, kar kustomizer, model maker, and car-toonist. Even though this must be like the 85th doc I've seen at south by, this one was refreshingly different in its approach. First off there was lots of good animation, using the Rat Fink character to introduce each chapter. Secondly, the story is narrated by John Goodman as Roth himself, as if he's watching the movie and looking back on his life from up on his cloud in heaven. Third, the movie introduces a series of notable custom cars as if they were interview subjects, using celebrity Roth-loving voices to speak the cars' thoughts. The only ones I recognized as I was watching were Jay Leno and Matt Groening but in the end credits i saw the Smothers brothers, Brian Wilson, Paul Le Mat, Ann-Margret, and others listed as well. So those three things together make for a much different approach. Since it was also very short, the movie comes across as fresh and interesting and entertaining like a quick little joyride or some other equally-strained car metaphor. This is actually something I think my dad may get a kick out of... he's always calling out the year and manufacturer of any old cars that he sees in movies and this one actually gives them screen credits so I thought this is his kind of doc... except he doesn't watch any docs that aren't on the history channel. I liked it though. |
