A Wise Bee Soothes the Sting of His Friends’ Wish Fulfillment

Audio

“The Queen, the Bear & the Bumblebee.” The Children’s Group. CD: $17; cassette: $9. Ages 4 and up. (800) 668-0242, https://www.childrensgroup.com/.

The gentle-spirited rhyming book by Dini Petty, about three friends and three magical wishes granted them by “The Prince of Night,” is set to original classical music composed by Mark D. Goldman and Andrew Hornzy. Petty narrates, and each character is brought to musical life by professional singers. Mezzo-soprano Erin Thrall is the queen who wishes herself a pair of wings; bass Luc Saucier is the bear who wishes himself to be a dandified human man; and countertenor Daniel Taylor is sensible Mr. Bee, who uses his wish when his friends discover they’d rather be themselves.

A children’s choir and symphonic accompaniment with “The Bumblebee Orchestra” complete the recording.

Video

“Kestrel’s Eye.” First Run Features. 86 minutes. $30. For the family. (800) 488-6652, https://www.firstrunfeatures.com/.

This video release of Swedish filmmaker Mikael Kristersson’s award-winning nature documentary is reality TV with class. Its primary subjects are not human animals, but feathered ones, although humans figure into it in an unexpected way.

Set in a small Swedish town, the film follows the lives of a pair of kestrels--falcons--as they hunt and nest and reproduce and raise their family of five high in an old church tower. As the seasons turn, they plump their tawny feathers against cold winds, hover astonishingly in midair before diving on hapless prey, emit squeaky-wheel chirps, hatch their eggs and watch over an environment that includes the noisy comings and goings of people.

Although the humans are oblivious to the full lives being lived far over their heads, the kestrels are alert to every movement and sound below them.

Kristersson’s camera, providing only the kestrels’ point of view, cannily makes viewers identify with the birds’ lives rather than the human activity that seems so distant. The only sounds are the bird calls, the sea, the wind, human voices, clopping horses, a marching band, passing cars and bicycles on wet pavement.

“The Voyage of the Unicorn.” Artisan Home Entertainment. $15. 132 minutes. For the family.

Two daughters, mourning the loss of their artist mother, are catapulted with their college professor father (Jeff Bridges) into a heroic battle to fulfill a world-saving prophecy. The battleground: “the landscape of imagination.”

Based on James C. Christensen’s children’s book “The Voyage of the Basset,” this Hallmark Entertainment adventure, loaded with special effects and creature makeup, includes such characters as fairy King Oberon and Queen Titania, a flying sphinx, a Minotaur, an unusually gorgeous gorgon, a unicorn, an enchanted dragon skull and a bunch of evil, slobbery trolls.

Directed by Philip Spink and written by Dan Levine, the shallow dialogue isn’t the stuff of which dreams are made, but the visual fantasy fun is nonstop.

“Mighty Machines: At the Demolition Site.” Anchor Bay Entertainment. $10. 30 minutes. Ages 3 to 8. https:// www.anchorbayentertainment.com/.

The “how things work” and trucks-’n’-tractors kidvid genre seems to be making a comeback. Here, at a real demolition site, buildings are torn apart, and water towers and a sky-high smokestack are reduced to rubble with strategic placements of dynamite. There’s catchy music for a warm, fuzzy feel and voice-overs make the huge machines--Dino, the bulldozer with a claw-like pincer; ladylike, powerful Crane; sleepy Dozer, who has clean-up duty; and Big Mack, the tough guy who hauls the debris away--seem like friendly, prehistoric-looking robotic beasts feeding on chunks of concrete and metal.

Other titles in the new series: “At the Airport” and “At the Train Yard.”