New on DVD

For Colored Girls

Lionsgate, $29.95; Blu-ray, $39.99

The 1975 Ntozake Shange play “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When The Rainbow Is Enuf” loses more than just good chunk of its title in writer-director Tyler Perry’s big-screen adaptation. A cast of top African American actresses (including Janet Jackson, Thandie Newton and Phylicia Rashad) take turns telling stories of personal pain, but where the stage version consisted of a series of poems recited by the leads, Perry’s film works to integrate those set-pieces into a sprawling narrative. Some of the power of the original remains, but for the most part the movie is more notable for its ambition than its ultimate achievements. The DVD and Blu-ray is equally ambitious, comparing the source material to the film via interactive featurettes.

It’s Kind of a Funny Story

Focus, $29.98; Blu-ray, $39.98

In a major departure from their previous dramas “Half Nelson” and “Sugar,” writer-directors Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck have adapted Ned Vizzini’s comic novel “It’s Kind of a Funny Story,” about a suicidal teenager named Craig who checks into a psychiatric hospital and meets all kinds of eccentric characters. Keir Gilchrist plays Craig, with Zach Galifianakis as his guide to the ins and outs of institutionalization and Emma Roberts as the troubled girl Craig falls for. The cast is game, and the film has some sweet moments, but in stepping away from their usual gritty realism, Boden and Fleck have made a weak comedy that unintentionally romanticizes mental illness. The DVD and Blu-ray don’t help much, adding just a couple of featurettes.

Life As We Know It

Warner, $28.98; Blu-ray, $35.99

The strained romantic comedy “Life As We Know It” stars Katherine Heigl (of course) as a career woman (of course) who has a bad first date with a jock-y jerk played by Josh Duhamel but then falls for him after they’re appointed as joint legal guardians for the baby of recently deceased mutual friends. In other words: Take one standard Heigl movie premise and add diaper-changing jokes. The result? Not a significant improvement. The DVD and Blu-ray includes additional scenes and chipper featurettes, for those inclined to want more.

Tamara Drewe

Sony, $28.95; Blu-ray, $38.96

Director Stephen Frears and screenwriter Moira Buffini do a respectable job adapting Posy Simmonds’ graphic novel “Tamara Drewe,” about a breezy journalist (played by Gemma Arterton) who returns to her family’s country estate and proceeds to cause trouble for the group of writers at a nearby retreat. “Tamara Drewe” is full of bed-hopping and erudite banter, and though the plot’s a little scattered (in the spirit of Thomas Hardy’s “Far From the Madding Crowd,” which the story nods to), the characters are a delight, including the adulterous celebrity novelist and the local teenage girls who sit on the sidelines and mock the adults. The DVD and Blu-ray add a pair of featurettes and an Arterton commentary track.

And...

“Middle Men” (Paramount, $29.98; Blu-ray, $34.99); “My Soul to Take” (Rogue, $29.98; Blu-ray, $39.98); “Paranormal Activity 2” (Paramount, $29.98; Blu-ray, $39.99); “Wild Target” (20th Century Fox, $22.98; Blu-ray, $29.99); “You Again” (Touchstone, $29.99; Blu-ray, $39.99)