Family Home Theater

This week’s big family title is Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb, the third movie in the popular franchise starring Ben Stiller as a night watchman at a museum whose friends—exhibit statues—come to life at night, but only because of an ancient magic tablet. In this 2014 sequel the magic is dwindling, so Larry and the gang go to the London museum to try to find the answers to save their lives. The late Robin Williams stars as Teddy Roosevelt in Secret of the Tomb, which is available on Blu-ray combo, Digital HD, and DVD and is rated PG for mild action, some rude humor, and brief language.

How do you solve a problem like Maria? Uh, what problem? Fifty years later Robert Wise’s film adaptation of the Broadway musical The Sound of Music is still looking good and going strong. Julie Andrews, who won an Oscar for Mary Poppins the previous year, received another Best Actress nomination for her portrayal of Maria, an ill-suited nun-in-training who’s tabbed to be the governess of a widower’s seven children and shakes up the household. Set in Austria just prior to and including the German occupation, The Sound of Music and the Broadway musical that preceded it are based on the true story of the Trapp Family Singers. The film won Best Picture and four other honors at the Academy Awards and features a strong selection of Rodgers and Hammerstein songs: “How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?” “Sixteen Going on Seventeen,” “The Lonely Goatherd,” “My Favorite Things,” “Climb Ev’ry Mountain,” “Do-Re-Mi,” “Edelweis,” and the title song. The first half is a love story of how Maria warms her way into the families’ hearts, while the second is the story of how the family plots to escape Nazi-occupied Austria before Captain Von Trapp (Christopher Plummer) is forced to fight for the German navy. Rated G, it’s available on Blu-ray combo or DVD.

If there are preschoolers in your family, this week you can pick up Blue’s Clues: Get Clued into School Pack, which includes 12 episodes of the popular interactive TV show plus bonus games and materials. That’s close to five hours of educational entertainment on DVD for under $12 (the price now at Amazon). The Nickelodeon series helped children learn shapes, colors, go-withs, letters, and numbers from 1996-2006 and was the highest rated show for preschoolers at one point.

If there are teens in your family you’re probably at that awkward point where the parents know they know about sex and are exposed to all sorts of language and alcohol and drug users, but how do you talk about it? Sometimes movies are a great catalyst. Though it’s R-rated, an entire generation of older teens watched John Hughes’ “Brat Pack” movie about high school students in detention, and The Breakfast Club is being released this week in a 30^th Anniversary Edition. Hughes took basic high school types—the hoodlum (Judd Nelson), the jock (Emilio Estevez), the brainy geek (Anthony Michael Hall), the pampered princess/good girl (Molly Ringwald), the bad girl who’s emotionally unstable (Ally Sheedy)—and threw them into detention together where, without supervision, they’re forced to pass the time together and get to know each other. It’s rated R for language, drug use, and mature content (e.g., talk of sex, suicide).

Finally, Minnie Driver, Morena Baccarin, and Rebecca Ferguson star in the two-part Lifetime miniseries The Red Tent, a 2014 epic drama based on Anita Diamant’s New York Times best-selling novel. It’s the fictionalized biblical story of the 12 tribes of Israel, but told through the eyes of Dinah, Jacob’s only daughter. It’s available on DVD only.