Jeffrey Tambor Movies

When human-hating aliens disrupt earthbound cable-television signals, it's up to a monster-hunting superhero to take out the pesky extraterrestrials and ensure that television viewers are not deprived in this animated adaptation of the popular comic-book series. The DreamWorks Animation release is being helmed by Shrek 2 director Conrad Vernon and Shark Tale's Rob Letterman. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Ricky Gervais directs himself in The Invention of Lying, a comedy in which everyone in the world tells the truth except for one misfit in the film industry, who after discovering the act of lying, milks it to become the world's most phenomenal performer. Matthew Robinson will co-direct from his own script, which he and Gervais collaborated on. Jennifer Garner, Rob Lowe, Jonah Hill, and Louis C.K. co-star in the Media Rights Capital production, with John Hodgman, Tina Fey, Christopher Guest, and Jeffrey Tambor rounding out the rest of the cast. ~ Jeremy Wheeler, All Movie Guide

After spoofing disaster films in Airplane!, police shows in The Naked Gun, and Hollywood horrors in Scary Movie 3 and 4, producer David Zucker sets his satirical sights on the superhero genre with this anarchic comedy lampooning everything from Spider-Man to X-Men and Superman Returns. Shortly after being bitten by a genetically altered dragonfly, high-school outcast Rick Riker (Drake Bell) begins to experience a startling transformation. Now Rick's skin is as strong as steel, and he possesses the strength of ten men. Determined to use his newfound powers to fight crime, Rick creates a special costume and assumes the identity of The Dragonfly -- a fearless crime fighter dedicated to keeping the streets safe for law-abiding citizens. But every superhero needs a nemesis, and after Lou Landers (Christopher McDonald) is caught in the middle of an experiment gone horribly awry, he develops the power to leech the life force out of anyone he meets and becomes the villainous Hourglass. Intent on achieving immortality, the Hourglass attempts to gather as much life force as possible as the noble Dragonfly sets out to take down his archenemy and realize his destiny as a true hero. Craig Mazin writes and directs this high-flying spoof featuring Tracy Morgan, Pamela Anderson, Leslie Nielsen, Marion Ross, Jeffrey Tambor, and Regina Hall. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Academy Award winner Anthony Hopkins took a turn behind the camera for the first time since 1996's August with this mind-bending fantasy that he also wrote and stars in. Hopkins plays Felix Bonhoeffer a screenwriter with a habit of getting lost in his own head. Felix begins to doubt reality itself, though, when the real world and the one in his imagination begin to blend together. Also starring Christian Slater and John Turturro, Slipstream premiered at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival. ~ Matthew Tobey, All Movie Guide

L. Frank Baum's enduring fantasy story gets a new and very funny spin in this made-for-TV comedy. Dorothy (Ashanti) is a young woman who works in a diner in Kansas owned by her Aunt Em (Queen Latifah) and dreams of one day making it big as a singer. When a tornado makes its way through the trailer park Dorothy and Em call home, the young woman is spirited off to a magical land known as Oz, where she accidentally kills the most wicked witch in the land. Dorothy, however, isn't so sure she wants to stay, and sets off to find a wizard who might be able to help her. As Dorothy searches for the wizard's castle, she makes some friends along the way -- a scarecrow (Kermit the Frog, voiced by Steve Whitmire), a cowardly lion (Fozzie Bear, voiced by Eric Jacobson), a combination robot and computer made of tin (The Great Gonzo, voiced by Dave Goelz) -- but she also has to fend off The Wicked Witch of the West (Miss Piggy, voiced by Eric Jacobson), whose sister fell victim to Dorothy upon her arrival in the strange new land. Featuring most of the best-known Muppet Show characters, The Muppets' Wizard of Oz also features guest appearances by Jeffrey Tambor, David Alan Grier, and Quentin Tarantino. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

The Bluth family of Orange County, CA, once again forces the media critics to come up with new variations on the word "dysfunction" as the cult-favorite sitcom Arrested Development launches its second season. For those who came in late, straight-arrow Michael Bluth (Jason Bateman) is still trying to keep his family and the family business from disintegrating after his entrepreneur father is thrown in jail on a fraud charge. Well, anyway, he was in jail until he broke out with the help of lookalike convict Oscar (also Jeffrey Tambor) at the end of season one. Now that George Sr. is on the run, the authorities target poor Michael for prosecution in their efforts to bring Bluth Inc. to justice -- and thus Michael's older brother, Gob, an habitually unemployed (and woefully) inept magician, becomes head of the family, managing to convince the company's board of directors that he actually has some business sense! In other developments, Michael's kid brother, Buster (Tony Hale), takes a break from his indolence by romancing Lupe (B.W. Gonzalez), a girl he'd met at a charity drive, and by joining the U.S. Army -- conveniently losing a hand in a freak accident just before he is to be sent to Iraq.

Meanwhile, bumbling detective Gene Parmesan (Martin Mull) gets lost somewhere south of the border while searching for the elusive George Sr.; Oscar, the man who'd traded places with George Sr. to effect his escape, may also end up replacing George Sr. in bed with his the elder Bluth's wife, Lucille (Jessica Walter); and Michael's 14-year-old son, George Michael, takes a surrealistic journey into "Charlie Brown" territory when he's dumped by his girlfriend. Plus, Michael's doctor-cum-actor brother-in-law Tobias (David Cross) edges further out of the closet when he adopts the drag alter ego of "Mr. Featherbottom." Also, this is the season when we meet George Sr.'s hated business rival Stan Sitwell (Ed Begley Jr.), whose daughter Sally (Christine Taylor) was once (and may still be) Michael's childhood sweetheart. Other guest performers include Martin Short as the paraplegic, monumentally annoying Uncle Jack Dorso, an old family friend who offers to help the Bluths regain their stock majority in their own company -- at a price; and blind lawyer/congenital liar Maggie Lizer (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), who shows up pregnant, leading Michael to believe that he's going to be a father again; and Ben Stiller as Gob's magician mentor Tony Wonder, whose most famous illusion was being baked in a loaf of bread -- and who, like everyone else on the show, has an ulterior motive for lending the Bluths a helping hand. The last episode of the season finds George Sr. still on the lam; Tobias linking up with his father-in-law's blackmailing, self-deprecating former secretary Kitty (Patricia Velasquez); and George Michael entering into a relationship with the devoutly Christian Ann Veal (Mae Whitman), despite her total revulsion for his family and everything they stand for. As in season one, Arrested Development earned several Emmy nominations for its second season, winning the prize for Outstanding Writing. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Mike Mignola's acclaimed comic book series about a creature from Hades who joins the battle against evil arrives on the screen in vivid form in this adaptation directed by distinctive horror filmmaker Guillermo del Toro. During World War II, the Third Reich has joined forces with the evil Grigori Rasputin (Karel Roden), who has used his occult powers to summon up a young demon from the depth of Hell to be used as the ultimate Axis weapon. However, the demonic creature is captured by American forces, and put in the care of Professor Broom (John Hurt), the founder of a top-secret organization called the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense. Under Broom's tutelage, the creature develops empathy and a desire to do good while his physical powers and paranormal talents are honed to a fine point. Sixty years later, the demon, now known as Hellboy (Ron Perlman), is part of an elite secret defense team alongside Liz Sherman (Selma Blair), a beautiful young woman who can create fire with her mind, and Abe Sapian (Doug Jones), an aquatic humanoid with the power of telepathy. Despite his many years of fighting for right, Hellboy finds himself facing his greatest challenge when the powerful Rasputin returns, determined to bring the demon back to the forces of darkness so that evil may finally rule the world. Hellboy's supporting cast also includes Jeffrey Tambor, Rupert Evans, and Brian Steele. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

When a rogue CIA agent and a kung fu fighting chimp named Clemens stage a daring escape from a top-secret government testing facility, the stage is set for an adventure that's sure to please the entire family in this primate crowd-pleaser featuring Matthew Modine, Seth Adkins, and Roma Downey. Appalled at the conditions under which chimpanzees are transformed into kung-fu fighting soldiers in a high-tech government lab, sympathetic trainer Jack McCall (Modine) smuggles experimental test subject Clemens out of the lab -- but not before being noticed by the nefarious henchmen who guard the facility. As the government agents close in, Jack and Clemens seek refuge in the house of single mother Megan Dean (Roma Downey) and her young son, Michael (Adkins). When the escape plan goes sour and Clemens is taken back into custody, it's up to Jack and his new friend Michael to bust their hairy pal out of primate prison! ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

The precocious six-year-old Manhattanite of Kay Thompson's beloved Eloise books gets into the holiday spirit while playing cupid in this made-for-TV comedy. Eloise (Sofia Vassilieva) resides at the Plaza Hotel with her parents, and like much of the hotel staff, she's excited about the upcoming marriage of Rachel Peabody (Sarah Topham), the daughter of the hotel's owner, to handsome Brooks Oliver (Rick Roberts). However, Eloise learns that Brooks' motivations for marrying Rachel are not sincere, and so the youngster tries to sway Rachel away from her fiancé and toward Bill (Gavin Creel), a good-hearted waiter in the hotel's restaurant. Eloise at Christmastime also features Julie Andrews, Jeffrey Tambor, and Christine Baranski. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

As Arrested Development leaps into its first season, hard-working Michael Bluth (Jason Bateman) is on the brink of starting a new life in Arizona with son George Michael (Michael Cera) when he is dragged kicking and screaming back to California, there to take charge of his family's business when his light-fingered father, George Sr. (Jeffrey Tambor), is jailed for fraud and the company's assets frozen. Though he had fondly assumed he'd seen the last of his vituperrious mother, Lucille (Jessica Walter), and his lazy, self-indulgent siblings, he was forced to hunker down and teach them how to behave (and spend!) more responsibly. As Michael's airheaded would-be-activist twin sister, Lindsay (Portia de Rossi), her sexually confused ex-doctor hubby, Tobias (David Cross), and their out-of-control daughter, Maeby (Alia Shawkat), move in with Michael, older brother Gob (Will Arnett), a spectacularly unsuccessful and untalented magician, must face the prospect of actually getting a real job, while the "baby" of the family, Michael's feckless kid brother, Buster (Tony Hale), remains sequestered in his mommy's Balboa Bay condo. Michael's well-ordered world doesn't take very long to unravel; by the second episode, his darling son George Michael has set fire to the Bluths' frozen-banana stand in Newport Beach, and has developed a borderline-incestuous crush on cousin Maeby. A few weeks later, Lucille Bluth's neurotic social rival Lucille Austero (Liza Minnelli) has entered into an affair with the much, much, much younger Buster, an act that will eventually move Buster's mom to spitefully adopt a Korean orphan named Annyong (Justin Lee). Meanwhile, Michael finds it next to impossible to break up the doomed romance between brother Gob and his girlfriend, Marta (Patricia Velasquez), and to fire such millstones around the Bluths' necks as hopelessly inept family lawyer Barry Zuckerkorn (Henry Winkler) and blackmailing company secretary Kitty Sanchez (Judy Greer).

Among the supporting actors entering into the lunacy are Rocky co-star Carl Weathers, who makes the first of several self-deprecating appearances as himself in the episode wherein George Michael is forced to hire a public relations service to gain entrance to a private school; Inside the Actors Studio host James Lipton as the warden in the prison where George Sr. is wasting away, so to speak; Seinfeld veteran Julia Louis-Dreyfus as the sight-challenged attorney Maggie Lizer, who plays up to Michael while trying to dig up more damaging dirt on his family's business practices; and series regular David Cross' longtime Mr. Show cohort Bob Odenkirk as a marriage counselor who tries to patch up the differences between Lindsay and Tobias (chief among them the fact that the "never-nude" Tobias will not undress in front of his spouse); and Amy Poehler, real-life wife of regular Will Arnett, as the "where the hell did she come from?" new wife of the gormless Gob. The season finale finds George Sr. staging a heart attack for the purpose of busting out jail, Maeby finally tumbling to George Michael's unspoken love for her, an unintentionally gay-themed book written years ago by Tobias embarrassingly hitting the best-seller charts, and the rivalry between Buster and Annyong coming to a head -- and threatening to bust both of their heads. Although season one of Arrested Development posted lukewarm ratings, the series earned a renewal from the Fox network largely on the strength of its five surprise Emmy Award wins (Outstanding Comedy Series, Outstanding Casting for a Comedy Series, Outstanding Directing, Outstanding Single-Camera Picture Editing, and Outstanding Writing). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Anarchic comedy veteran David Zucker directs hot young thing of 2003 Ashton Kutcher in the fast-paced romantic comedy My Boss's Daughter. Kutcher plays rookie executive Tom Stansfield, who wants to impress his demanding boss, Jack Taylor (Terence Stamp), and win the heart of said boss' conventionally attractive daughter Lisa (Tara Reid). In order to achieve these ends, he agrees to housesit at their palatial mansion for one night. Chaos ensues throughout the evening as rowdy houseguests show up with various means of disruption. Molly Shannon plays Jack's former employee Audrey and Andy Richter appears as Lisa's brother Red, who's on the run from nasty drug dealers. Cameos come from Carmen Electra, Ever Carradine, and the like. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide

A handful of disgruntled bank employees decide to stage a robbery, but with no plans of doing it together, in this comedy. Sheila (Alicia Silverstone) is a teller at a small town bank who reaches her breaking point when her boyfriend, Rick Becker (Joshua Leonard), who also happens to be her boss, breaks up with her after three years of stringing her along, both emotionally and professionally. In order to get revenge against Rick, Sheila decides to rob the bank, but come the night of the heist, she discovers she wasn't the only person with similar plans that evening. Stuart (Paulo Costanzo) wants some adventure in his life, and plans to loot the bank vault to finance a gambling vacation in Las Vegas with his brother Max (David Krumholtz). And put-upon teller Jason (Woody Harrelson) wants to clear out the safety deposit box of foul-tempered local tycoon Charles Merchant (John Cleese), not knowing that Shmally (Rachael Leigh Cook), a clerk at a clothing store with a score to settle against Merchant, already has her own plans for dealing with him. Scorched was shot in 2001, but didn't play in American theaters until 2003, though it did enjoy a run in Europe during the interim. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Two singles in their early fifties who are convinced love has passed them by find each other -- and then try to figure out what to do next -- in this romantic comedy. Grace Minor (Jill Clayburgh) is a social worker whose personal life has hit the skids. Prompted by her friends Natasha (Sandy Duncan) and Elaine (Caroline Aaron), Grace takes the plunge and sets up a meeting with a man she's found through an Internet dating service. The date is a complete disaster, and Grace, deciding she needs a stiff drink, dashes into the first watering hole she finds. Grace finds herself in a gay bar, where she meets Christopher Roland (Jeffrey Tambor), a full-time exterminator and part-time jazz musician who, after an unsatisfying relationship with a younger woman and a surprising erotic dream, thinks he might be turning gay. Christopher and Grace strike up a conversation and quickly discover they have a great deal in common. They begin dating, but both have been through enough bad relationships in the past that they are determined not to get too serious about this one, even after they discover they get along extremely well in bed. Never Again also features Michael McKean as a cheerful transvestite prostitute and Bill Duke as one of Christopher's bandmates. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide