Jim Henson's Fantasy Film Coll. (Dvd) *New* and 11 similar items

Brand new factory sealed set is going Out Of Print (OOP) and is no longer being manufactured. Jim Henson who created the characters for 'Sesame Street' and of course the 'Muppett' show would go on to create the premier animatronic company that would create characters for all kinds of fantastic movies from differant studios and directors. Collected here are some of the best from the Jim Henson Company themselves. DARK CRYSTAL: The story takes place on a faraway planet that circles three suns. A thousand years ago, so the legend goes, the planet was prosperous and peaceful. But then there was a struggle over the Dark Crystal, a shard of it was lost and the ruling race on the planet split into two kinds of creatures: Skeksis, who are reprehensible, and the Mystics, who are merely reptillian. (The giant Garthim are sort of a combination of crabs and armored beetles, and do the Skeksis's dirty work.) As the movie opens, the three suns are about to get back together again, and a little Gelfling gets a mission: Find the missing shard and repair the damage of the last millennium. And it is quite a quest, an otherworldly rain forest is populated with weird plants that have lives of their own. A cliffside is the home of a race of beings who look like sponge-rubber sink scrubbers. The high point in animatronics is probably reached during a banquet scene--a slurpfest at which the slovenly Skeksis smear food all over their faces before bringing in the live desert. Any kid younger than ten is probably going to lose some sleep after seeing the horrendous creatures in this movie. Sure, the Gelflings are cute, but the Garthim are unforgettable. LABYRINTH: Sarah (Jennifer Connelly), a young preteen, is left for the evening in charge of her baby brother, Toby, who won't stop crying. Driven to her wit's end, Sarah wishes aloud that the Goblin King would come and take him away. Sure enough, the Goblin King (David Bowie) appears and spirits the baby away. Sarah immediately regrets her words and makes a dangerous pact: If she can manoeuvre through the Goblin King's maze and get to his castle before midnight, she can have her brother back. Along the way Sarah encounters numerous bizarre characters, including the diminutive Hoggle and the twisted Junk Lady. Of course, the Goblin King also appears at regular intervals to follow Sarah's progress and provide the occasional toe-tapping song. Accompanied by a playful Trevor Jones electronic score, Bowie's songs keep things bubbling along. Connelly, just coming off her memorable turn in Dario Argento's 'Phenomena', makes a beautiful heroine, and her scenes with Bowie remain emotionally charged and tastefully sensual. Incidentally, this was perhaps the first film to feature one of those "Hey, the movie's over now so let's hop around and party!" endings. MIRRORMASK: The story involves Helena (Stephanie Leonidas), who is fed up with working for the Campbell Family Circus. She resents her parents for denying her an ordinairy girlhood. "I hope you die", she tells her mom who promptly collapses and is hospitalized with an unspecified but alarming illness. Helena's fantasy life is lived through drawings of an imaginairy city. Through a magical process, she enters this world, a fantastical universe where fish swim through the air and countless strange creatures, some of them with shoes for heads and others weirder than that. And the people from the real world appear transformed by bizarre masks and costumes. It is a world of light and dark; the Queen of Light is in a trancelike state, and apparently it's up to Helena to venture into the Dark Lands and return with the means to restore goodness and awaken the queen. Helena's more hazardous adventures occur after she crosses over to the dark side and is mistaken for her mirror image, a dark and sinister girl who apparently embodies all the sinister aspects of her subconcious. The Queen of Shadows mistakes good Helena for bad Helena, placing good Helena in some danger but also giving her access to information that may save the day.