Frank Oz Movies

In this holiday special for the whole family, Fozzie Bear's mother has invited him and all of his friends out to her house in the country to celebrate Christmas. Kermit the Frog, Big Bird, Bert and Ernie, Rowlf the Dog, Dr. Honeydew, Grover, and all the other Muppets gather to sing songs and share the warmth of the holiday, but soon the big question becomes "when will Miss Piggy make her entrance?" Muppet Family Christmas also features a brief onscreen cameo from Muppets creator Jim Henson. Approximately five minutes were cut for the VHS and DVD releases, mostly due to rights issues over the music. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Dan Aykroyd and John Landis teamed to script this sequel to The Blues Brothers (1980), which they also co-scripted. With Landis once again at the helm as director, Aykroyd re-creates his role of rhythm-and-blues man Elwood Blues, and the film's numerous R&B performances and production numbers include Aretha Franklin singing her classic "Respect". Released from prison after serving 18 years for the havoc depicted in the first film, Elwood learns that while he was serving time, his pal Jake Blues (John Belushi) has died, as did their hi-de-ho music mentor Curtis (Cab Calloway). Times have changed, but the blues beat goes on. Elwood visits Mother Mary Stigmata (Kathleen Freeman), who runs the orphanage where Elwood and Jake were raised, and she puts 10-year-old Buster (J. Evan Bonifant) in Elwood's care. Seeking a loan, Elwood visits Curtis' son, Cabel Chamberlain (Joe Morton), and Buster picks Cabel's pocket. Now, 18 years after the original "mission from God," Elwood attempts to reorganize the Blues Brothers Band, beginning with bartender Mighty Mack McTeer (John Goodman) as a replacement for Jake. With the Russian Mafia in hot pursuit, Elwood, Mack, and Buster head cross-country, locating band members as they travel pell-mell toward a scheduled battle of the bands in Louisiana where the Blues Brothers Band competes with the Lousiana Gator Boys Band (Eric Clapton, B.B. King, Bo Diddley, Dr. John, Travis Tritt, Steve Winwood, Clarence Clemmons, Isaac Hayes). Filmed in Toronto and Chicago, this movie reunited Aykroyd and Goodman, who were seen previously in the 1996 video, The Return of the Blues Brothers, a performance taped January 24, 1995 at the House of Blues in Los Angeles. Elsewhere, the Blues Brothers are kept alive in a half-dozen or so websites, such as the House of Blues, and live stage productions. In England, the stage show A Tribute to the Blues Brothers began in 1991. At the request of Aykroyd and Judy Belushi, the title of that production was changed to The Official Tribute to the Blues Brothers. With various cast members in the roles of Jake and Elwood (Con O'Neill, Warwick Evans, Brad Henshaw, Simon Foster), the show toured Britain throughout the 1990s. The "original Blues Brother" (who coached John Belushi and originated some of the blues raps used by Belushi) is Curtis Salgado (of the Robert Cray Band). One cast member of Blues Brothers 2000, bluesman Junior Wells, the last of the great Chicago harmonica players, died in January 1998, only days before the film was released. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide

Children's Songs & Stories with the Muppets was culled from some of the best moments of the popular syndicated TV weekly The Muppet Show. Most of the sketches spotlight the star Muppets Kermit, Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear et. al. There are few of the series' celebrity guests, an omission evidently made to avoid residual costs. The best moment is an all-infant band bursting forth with a rendition of "Tuxedo Junction". This 56-minute compilation can generally be found in the "Family Viewing" section of your local video store, and rightly so; like all of the best Muppet material, the tape transcends age boundaries and can be enjoyed with equal fervor by both children and adults. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This nutty British comedy observes with jet-black humor the myriad outrageous calamities that befall an eccentric English clan with more than a few skeletons in its closets when its patriarch dies an unexpected death. Soon, every complication imaginable -- including the wrong corpse in the coffin, the accidental consumption of hallucinogenic drugs, and the disclosure of the deceased's closeted homosexuality -- befall the grief-stricken mourners. The funeral commences at the family estate, with the arrival of younger son Daniel (Matthew MacFadyen), who has long felt uncomfortable around his cocky, licentious novelist brother, Robert (Rupert Graves) -- and thus dreads seeing him. Meanwhile, Daniel is also struggling to adhere to promises he's made to his wife (Keeley Hawes). Also arriving at the house are cousin Martha (Daisy Donovan) and her intended, Simon (Alan Tudyk), who embarrasses just about everybody, including himself, by accidentally consuming a strange drug that inflicts him with wild delusions and gives him an uncontrollable penchant for exhibitionism. But the event that truly turns the family members onto their ears is the arrival of a dwarf (Peter Dinklage) who speaks openly of the patriarch's secret passions, which included dressing up in a kinky gladiator outfit and watching young men skinny-dip. Frank Oz (In & Out, Bowfinger) helmed the film, while Dean Craig authored the script. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide

Featuring a heart-warming story, the trademark Jim Henson wit, and beautiful songs, Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas originally aired as an HBO special. The story is a spin on the classic "Gift of the Magi," with the impoverished Emmet and his Ma each making a sacrifice in the hopes that it will help them win the yearly talent show, and enough money to buy the other a Christmas gift. Purists, take note: There have been multiple edits of Emmet Otter released over the years, with minor but noticible changes to dialogue, and the addition/removal of scenes featuring Kermit the Frog. ~ All Movie Guide

Take this guided tour with Gonzo through his mansion, but be careful! He catches a cannonball and wrestles a brick, blindfolded in this entertaining story. ~ All Movie Guide

In this romantic comedy from director Frank Oz, Steve Martin plays Boston architect Newton Davis, an impulsive dreamer who builds a bucolic dream home for his girlfriend (Dana Delany) as a means of proposing to her -- only she turns him down. Three months later, the depressed Davis meets a waitress who calls herself Gwen (Goldie Hawn), though pretending to be Hungarian proves to be only the first of her many deceptions. Davis has a one-night stand with Gwen during which he tells her the sad story of the house, which remains unoccupied just outside the city in his hometown of Dobbs Mills, because he can't bear to sell it. Following what seems to be a familiar path for this con artist, Gwen locates the house, figuring she can take up residence without anyone noticing. During a trip to the local grocery, she ends up telling the proprietor she's Davis' wife while trying to charge her purchases to his account. When she offers the same story to a local furniture dealer (Donald Moffat), unaware he's Davis' father, it triggers a string of fabrications in which the shocked Davis unwittingly becomes a co-conspirator. Seeing an opportunity of his own, Davis allows Gwen to stay in the house and agrees to go along with her story in hopes of winning back his jealous ex. Of course, this also necessitates outlandish lie upon outlandish lie, leaving the whole enterprise forever on the verge of collapse. ~ Derek Armstrong, All Movie Guide

An uneven but entertaining blend of graphic horror and black comedy from John Landis, very much in the mode of the director's successful An American Werewolf in London. French actress Anne Parillaud -- star of Luc Besson's acclaimed thriller La Femme Nikita -- plays Marie, a lithe and lovely vampire with a conscience who will not take "innocent blood" and maintains a low profile by dining exclusively on criminals and lowlifes. She finds a virtual smorgasbord in Pittsburgh's criminal underworld, arriving in the thick of a bloody mob war sparked by ruthless kingpin Sal Macelli (Robert Loggia). After preying on one of Macelli's hoods (Chazz Palminteri), Marie fumbles her attack on the boss himself and he manages to escape, eventually transforming into a vampire himself. Macelli soon comes to appreciate his new superhuman condition and hatches a diabolical scheme to control the syndicates by turning his underlings into vampires -- including his beleaguered lawyer, Emmanuel Bergman (Don Rickles). Marie, faced with a new and powerful undead enemy, is forced to take matters into her own claws. To this end she enlists the reluctant aid (and eventual affection) of undercover cop Joe Gennaro (Anthony LaPaglia), whose cover has just been leaked to the press, making him a target for Macelli and his growing army of blood drinkers. Landis has crafted a dark and brooding film, pumped up with bouts of extreme gore and gangland violence -- but where American Werewolf's occasional comic touches helped to ground the story and give the "straight" horror scenes more punch, most attempts at humor here seem jarring and out of place. The film's highlights come from numerous horror in-jokes, including cameos from Sam Raimi, Clive Barker, Dario Argento and Linnea Quigley; Rickles' explosive death scene ranks among the weirdest in cinema history. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide

George Lucas produced and Jim Henson directed this gothic fantasy which pits living and breathing actors Jennifer Connelly and David Bowie (who, along with Trevor Jones, provides the film's music) against a motley collection of Muppet monsters. The film centers upon teenage Sarah (Connelly), who lives in a fantasy world of myth and magic, evil spells, and wondrous enchantment. She is baby-sitting her little brother when she cavalierly wishes that goblins would take him away. She gets her wish, and a coterie of goblins abduct him. She then encounters Jareth (David Bowie), the ruler of a mystical world one step removed from reality. He tells Sarah that the only way to get her brother back is to find her way through a M.C. Escher-like labyrinth and find the castle at the center. As she makes her way through the maze, she faces a number of horrific challenges (like the Bog of Eternal Stench) before she finds her way to the gravity-defying castle, where her brother is being held by the evil goblins. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

After exploring the worlds of toys and bugs in the two Toy Story films and A Bug's Life, the award-winning computer animation company Pixar delves into the realm of monsters with its fourth feature. Hulking, blue-furred behemoth James P. "Sully" Sullivan (John Goodman) and his one-eyed assistant Mike Wazowski (Billy Crystal) are employed by Monsters, Inc., a scream processing factory. It seems that the denizens of their realm thrive on the screams of kids spooked by monsters lurking under their beds and in their closets. It's the job of Sully, Mike, and their co-workers, including sarcastic Randall Boggs (Steve Buscemi), crab-like CEO Henry J. Waternoose (James Coburn), and lovely snake-headed receptionist Celia (Jennifer Tilly) to keep the frights flowing. When Sully and Mike are followed back into the monster world by a very unafraid little human girl named Boo (Mary Gibbs), they are exiled to her universe, where they discover that such a modern-day mythological specimen as the Abominable Snowman is a fellow refugee. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide

Robert Louis Stevenson's classic tale of a young orphan who becomes involved with pirate Long John Silver is given the Muppet treatment in this vibrant children's musical. As in The Muppet Christmas Carol, the film stays loyal to the original storyline but casts the well-known puppets in many of the supporting roles. Young Jim Hawkins remains human, as does Long John Silver, played by an amusingly exaggerated Tim Curry. However, Captain Smollet is played by the evergreen Kermit the Frog; Miss Piggy, Gonzo, and Rizzo the Rat serve as roving narrators; and numerous other Muppets assume smaller roles. The familiar adventure plot is enlivened by the Muppets' good-natured, winking sense of humor, and a number of anarchic musical numbers are reminiscent of the original Muppet Show. Long-time followers of the Muppets may find the film less fresh than Jim Henson's original creations, but the combination of old-fashioned storytelling, intriguing design, and clever humor will undoubtedly amuse younger audiences. ~ Judd Blaise, All Movie Guide

A wonderful collection of Muppet specials like "Country Music With The Muppets," "Muppet Weird Stuff" and "Muppet Treasures." ~ All Movie Guide

In the final episode of the Star Wars saga, Han Solo (Harrison Ford) emerges intact from the carbonite casing in which he'd been sealed in The Empire Strikes Back. The bad news is that Solo, together with Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) and Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher), is prisoner to the grotesque Jabba the Hutt. But with the help of the charismatic Lando Calrissian (Billy Dee Williams), our heroes and our heroine manage to escape. The next task is to rid the galaxy of Darth Vader (body by David Prowse, voice by James Earl Jones) and the Emperor (Ian McDiarmid), now in command of a new, under-construction Death Star. On the forest moon Endor, the good guys enlist the help of a feisty bunch of bear-like creatures called the Ewoks in their battle against the Empire. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide