New video: ‘Beauty and the Beast’ casts its own kind of enchanting spell

New on Blu-ray

“Beauty and the Beast (2017)” (Disney/Buena Vista DVD/Blu-ray, $39.99)

Given that director Bill Condon’s live-action remake of the Disney animated classic “Beauty and the Beast” carries over the songs, story and a lot of the dialogue from the 1991 film, it’s fair to ask whether there’s any reason for it to exist. (Well, besides money; the movie’s already grossed more than a billion dollars.) But judged on its own merits, this “Beauty” is quite enchanting, with winning performances by Emma Watson as a plucky bookworm and Dan Stevens as the furry prince cursed by his selfishness. Plus, Condon brings some of his own visual panache to scenes of anthropomorphic furniture dancing around a castle. This is by no means a masterpiece, but for anyone who’s never seen the ’91 movie, the new one works.

[Special features: Deleted scenes, a “songs only” option, and hours of detailed behind-the-scenes material]

VOD

“Finding Kim” (available June 6)

Aaron Bear’s documentary “Finding Kim” is an enlightening and moving introduction to what some find to be a confusing issue: what it means to be transgender. While following the female-to-male transition of a middle-aged Seattle resident (and dealing with the medical aspects of the change as well as the cultural), Bear cuts in interviews with well-known LGBTQ personalities Dan Savage, Carmen Carrera and Buck Angel, who put what Kim’s going through in a larger context. The result is a film as informative as it is personal.

TV set of the week

“The Young Pope” (HBO DVD, $49.99; Blu-ray, $59.99)

Social media had fun with the baroque imagery and weird premise of HBO’s prestige drama “The Young Pope,” but while the show’s 10-episode first season isn’t seamless, Jude Law is consistently riveting as the title character: a gruff, reactionary New Yorker who’s elected to the papacy and immediately starts pushing back against progressivism. Writer-director Paolo Sorrentino revels in the Italian opulence (much as he did in his Oscar-winning film “The Great Beauty”), and in between the eye-popping spectacle, he and Law bring a lot of nuance to a study of faith, culture, and the limits of what even the most powerful man in the Catholic Church can accomplish.

[Special features: Several behind-the-scenes featurettes]

From the archives

“Bambi: The Signature Collection” (Disney/Buena Vista DVD/Blu-ray combo, $39.99)

During the first five years that Walt Disney produced animated features, the studio experimented with different ways of using the medium, looking for stories and characters that would justify the expense and effort of a full-length film. Back in 1942, critics weren’t sure that Disney’s adaptation of Felix Salten’s book “Bambi” fit the bill, because it was grim, plotless, and relied on images from the natural world that could’ve just as easily been photographed. But time has been kind to the primal pull of “Bambi,” with its cute, rounded woodland animals and its vision of a breathtaking but dangerous wilderness. Today, the lavish re-creations of rainstorms, blizzards, and forest fires — coupled with a simple, often harsh coming-of-age story — mark this movie as one of Disney’s premiere achievements.

[Special features: Extensive featurettes and an innovative commentary track in which actors re-create one of Walt Disney’s old story meetings]

Three more to see

“Aftermath” (Lionsgate DVD, $19.99; Blu-ray, $24.99; also available on VOD); “A Cure for Wellness” (20th Century Fox DVD, $29.98; Blu-ray, $39.99; also available on VOD); “Land of Mine” (Sony, $26.99; also available on VOD)

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