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Ricardo Montalban

Reviews

The Naked Gun (1988)
Blue (1968)

Blog Posts

Ebert Club

#147 December 19, 2012

Marie writes: Christmas is almost upon us, and with its impending arrival comes the sound of children running free-range through the snow, while grown-ups do battle indoors in the seasonal quest to find the perfect gift...

Far Flungers

The Tale of Two Cetis

We know that "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" (1982) is the best of all of the "Star Trek" movies. I am not stating anything new here. The rest of the series of films struggled to repeat the mastery of this film, and the reboot has also fallen short, thus far. I did, however, watch Star Trek 2 recently to see if the overlooked "Star Trek: First Contact" was able to take the helm as the Best of the Treks. In the process, however, I realized that Star Trek 2 is a much better movie than I remembered. I invite everyone to watch this movie again to appreciate how great it really is. This is a great movie. It is exciting. It is complex. It is emotional and philosophical. It is one of the great adventure movies.

TV/Streaming

Ants in Your Pants of 2006

"The Ant Bully" is now available through HBO On Demand and HBO Go until December 18.

A boy, a wizard and a war--that's the basic formula for many children's adventure stories. In "The Ant Bully," as the name suggests, this story takes place in the insect world, but the bully is the boy named Lucas (voiced by Zach Tyler Eisen). This modest morality tale doesn't go for big laughs but does deal with situations that young kids will inevitably face.

Based on John Nickle's 1999 book by the same name, this 2006 feature was the first animated film produced by Legendary Pictures. "The Ant Bully" followed two better known 1998 ant-themed films: DreamWorks' "Antz" and Disney's "A Bug's Life." All three movies have messages, but are aimed at different audiences.

"The Ant Bully," rated PG for mild violence, is definitely targeted at young children--preteen kids who might feel powerless, so far outside of the adult world. In the movie, 10-year-old Lucas has no friends and is the target of the neighborhood bully. He turns his frustrations on the anthill in his front yard, causing the ants to scurry about when he floods the anthill.

Movie Answer Man

We know it made plenty, so let's leave it at that

Q. One of my favorite haunted house stories, "Night Stalks the Mansion," was supposed to be made into a movie and released to the public in fall of 2009.  There's a website for the movie and I have sent emails the producer and the production company and have received no replies.  Is this movie going to be released? Steve Wheeler, Wyoming MI

Interviews

Rapid-fire Rodriguez lets passion be his guide

This is a man with a message, with a gleam in his eye. He has seen the future. He has changed his life. He has found the answers. He is telling me this at 211 words a minute. That's faster than Chris Matthews. I taped our conversation and divided the number of words by 45 minutes, which is how I know. He's actually talking faster than that, because some of those words are mine.