Family Home Theater

The top release this week will have limited family appeal because of its frank depiction of violence. Selma, a 2014 historical drama starring David Oyelowo as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., tells the story of the 1965 march from Selma to Montgomery over voting rights. In Alabama, blacks were being prevented from registering to vote by any means possible, including threats and bombings. This mass march, which ended at the steps of the Alabama State Capitol—where Gov. Wallace had ordered his troopers to shoot anyone who so much as touched the Capitol steps—led to President Johnson signing the Voting Rights Act of 1965. As happens with most films based on real events, there are omissions and inaccuracies, but this PG-13 film still manages to deliver a powerful history lesson for families with mid-teens. Look for it on Blu-ray or DVD this week.

Fans of musicals can latch onto the Frank Sinatra 5-Film Collection on Blu-ray this week. It features two sailor-leave musicals from the ‘40s, the 1955 film version of Damon Runyon’s Guys and Dolls, the wonderful prohibition-era Rat Pack musical Robin and the 7 Hoods, and the heist/caper flick Ocean’s 11—all rated PG. I gave it a collective B in my review, and if your family likes old movies this is a good collection to get.

Fantasy fans, meanwhile, might like to check out the Blu-ray release of Richard Donner’s (Superman II) 1985 film Ladyhawke, starring the unlikely cast of Matthew Broderick, Michelle Pfeiffer, Rutger Hauer, and Alfred Molina. It’s about two lovers who are cursed to be, respectively, a wolf by night and a hawk by day. To break the spell they have to join forces with a thief (Broderick) to overthrow the corrupt bishop (Molina). It can seem a little slow and difficult to follow at times, which is more of a reason for the PG-13 rating than the violence and brief surprising nudity (a woman’s breast, wounded by an arrow).

If you want to take a chance on a film that will win over some viewers and reduce others to shrugs, there’s Spare Parts, a brand-new movie starring George Lopez and Jamie Lee Curtis about four illegal immigrants in high school who form a robotics club and enter an underwater robot competition that draws some of the country’s most heralded schools, among them perennial robotics champ MIT. Call it a different kind of underdog story, out on DVD only.

After that, it’s all about television. Fans of the old-time serial The Fugitive: Complete Series, starring David Janssen, can get this black-and-white (three seasons) and color (one season) drama in a complete series DVD release this week. Rated #36 on TV Guide’s 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time, it featured Janssen as a doctor who returned home one night to find his wife dead and glimpse a one-armed man escaping. The rest of the series focused on his escape from a train en route to death row and his subsequent flight across the U.S., working here and there and always doing his part to patch up people’s lives—as one would expect a doctor like Richard Kimble to do. Tracking him is Police Lieutenant Philip Gerard (Barry Morse), but Kimble manages to stay one jump ahead of him and one step behind the one-armed man he’s trying to find to clear his name. It’s a milestone TV series that will be popular with families who are into older crime dramas.

Families with older children are the audience for Cheers: Complete Series, a beloved ‘80s sitcom about the regulars in a Boston bar run by an ex-Red Sox pitcher (Ted Danson), a ladies man who has epic pursuits of a college-educated waitress (Shelley Long) and the manager (Kirstie Alley) designated by the corporation that took over his bar Cheers to run things. An all-star ensemble cast includes perennial Pixar voice talent John Ratzenberger as mailman and know-it-all Cliff Clavin, Second City alum George Wendt as barfly Norm Peterson, Kelsey Grammer as egghead psychologist Dr. Frasier Crane, Rhea Perlman as an obnoxious waitress, and Woody Harrelson as a naive bartender. It’s out on DVD this week.

Finally, for TV thrills there’s the movie version of the Stephen King short story Duel, starring Dennis Weaver (TV’s McCloud) as a businessman on a drive that encounters a driver of a semi-truck whose actions go much beyond road rage. He must have been watching the news. It’s out on Blu-ray for the first time.