DVDs: Sweet family tearjerker leads off new releases

A new family-friendly movie that inexplicably went directly to DVD leads off this collection of recent films released for the first time to home video.

"Hachi: A Dog's Tale" (Sony, 2010, G, $24.95). Instead of a boy-and-his-dog story, this is a man-and-his-dog story — or, more correctly, a dog-and-his-man story. And it makes for a sweet family tearjerker.

Richard Gere (who also co-produced) stars as a music professor/composer living in a small town who takes the train into the city each day. (The town is never named but the film was shot in Rhode Island.)

One evening he finds a Japanese breed of puppy wandering around the train station and takes him home. His wife (Joan Allen) initially objects, but soon she and their daughter are won over.

The film, however, is primarily about the remarkable bond that grows between the professor and the dog, as Hachi walks him to the train station each day and then returns each evening to walk him home. Eventually a tragedy separates them, but the bond remains, demonstrated in a surprising manner.

This is a gentle, sweet and unabashedly sentimental film that is in no hurry to get where it's going. But director Lasse Halstrom ("Chocolat," "An Unfinished Life," "The Cider House Rules") invests a lot of emotion in the story and characters, and the audience will feel the connection almost as deeply as the small-town residents who come to love the pooch. (Jason Alexander is on hand as one of the townfolk.)

Extras: widescreen, featurette, trailers

"The Princess and the Frog" (Disney/Blu-ray, 2009, G, $44.99). Does anyone besides Disney make G-rated cartoons anymore? This is a cel-animated throwback to Disney classics and there are moments (and characters) that harken back to some of them in a quite specific way.

The fairy tale of the title is inverted for this yarn about a young woman in New Orleans who kisses a frog that claims to be a prince: She turns into a frog, too! With help from a showbiz-struck alligator and a lovesick firefly, she attempts to unlock the secret that will return her to human life.

Not up there with the Disney's best of the best, and it feels a little forced at times, but mostly this is a sweet and funny and welcome addition to Disney's animation oeuvre. And in Blu-ray, it's a visual feast.

Extras: widescreen, Blu-ray and DVD discs, deleted scenes, audio commentary, featurettes. Music video, interactive games, art galleries, trailers (also in single-disc Blu-ray and DVD versions, $39.99 and $29.99, respectively)