Tuesday, May 10, 2005
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

VIDEO PREVIEW: Films take viewers into past, present and around the world

Whiz kid Carter Duryea (Topher Grace), left, finds himself "In Good Company" when he displaces veteran ad executive Dan Foreman (Dennis Quaid).

Around the globe and under the sea, a wide world awaits those who venture onto ...

• The big screen scene: A veteran executive (Dennis Quaid) finds his job, and the affections of his daughter (Scarlett Johansson), hijacked by a whiz kid (Topher Grace) in the witty "In Good Company" (Universal).

Bill Murray, meanwhile, reunites with "Rushmore" writer-director Wes Anderson for "The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou" (Touchstone), about a washed-up oceanographer tracking a (possibly nonexistent) shark. Cate Blanchett, Willem Dafoe, Jeff Goldblum, Owen Wilson and Anjelica Huston co-star in this offbeat comedic odyssey.

And Oscar-winner Al Pacino takes on one of William Shakespeare's most challenging characters, the Jewish moneylender Shylock, in an adaptation of "The Merchant of Venice" (Sony) featuring fellow Oscar-winner Jeremy Irons and "Shakespeare in Love's" Joseph Fiennes.

Alec Baldwin and Matthew Broderick team up for laughs in "The Last Shot" (Touchstone), about a wannabe director and a frustrated FBI agent out to nab mobster Tony Shalhoub in a let's-make-a-movie sting. And a haunted cop (Ethan Hawke) joins forces with a jailed crime lord (Laurence Fishburne) to battle a crooked officer (Gabriel Byrne) leading the "Assault on Precinct 13" (Universal).

• Critic's choice: Hot-button movies of the past prove their staying power in Warner Home Video's seven-title "Controversial Classics Collection." Paul Muni plays an innocent victim of justice gone awry in "I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang" (1932), while Spencer Tracy stars in two knockout dramas of small-town brutality, "Fury" (1936) and "Bad Day at Black Rock" (1955).

Teacher Glenn Ford faces the "Blackboard Jungle" (1955) in the movie that introduced a young Sidney Poitier (and rock 'n' roll) to audiences. Andy Griffith plays a homespun hobo corrupted by TV stardom in "A Face in the Crowd" (1957), while Henry Fonda and Charles Laughton play political games in"Advise and Consent" (1962). And Julie Andrews blasts her "Mary Poppins" image with James Garner in the cynical World War II comedy "The Americanization of Emily" (1964).

Another classic debuting on DVD: the enchanting musical fairy tale "Donkey Skin" (Koch Lorber), which reunites star Catherine Deneuve with her "Umbrellas of Cherbourg" colleagues, director Jacques Demy and composer Michel Legrand.

• Hot docs: The Criterion Collection expands its lineup with two dream documentaries: "Burden of Dreams" (1982), about filmmaker Werner Herzog's obsessive quest to shoot "Fitzcarraldo" in the Amazon jungle; and "Hoop Dreams" (1994), which follows two inner-city Chicago youths hoping for basketball stardom.

• Kidvid corner: Saddle up for family fun with "Racing Stripes" (Warner), about an abandoned baby zebra that grows up to compete on the racetrack. On another kind of racetrack, a troubled father and son (Randy Quaid, Will Rothhaar) reunite in "Kart Racer" (MGM).

The Disney Channel's "Kim Possible Movie: So the Drama" finds the heroic title character distracted by prom-date trauma, while three cartoon cut-ups arrive on DVD in "Ed, Edd 'n' Eddy -- Volume 1" (Warner), joined by '60s faves "Dastardly & Muttley in Their Flying Machines" and "The Perils of Penelope Pitstop" (also from Warner).

• TV transfers: Double Oscar-winners Jack Lemmon and Kevin Spacey star in a 1987 adaptation of Eugene O'Neill's "Long Day's Journey Into Night" (Image), while fellow Oscar-winner James Coburn plays a dashing Dashiell Hammett detective in the 1978 miniseries "The Dain Curse" (also from Image). And brothers caught up in Rwandan genocide -- one an army officer, the other an extremist broadcaster -- inspire the drama "Sometimes in April" (HBO).

On the series front, "Joan of Arcadia: The First Season" (Paramount) and "Entourage: The Complete First Season" (HBO) join a lineup that also features "Have Gun Will Travel: The Complete Second Season" (Paramount), "In Living Color: Season Three" (Fox), "The Job: The Complete Series" (Shout! Factory), "Northern Exposure: Season Three" (Universal) and "Quantum Leap: Season Three" (Universal).