New video: ‘Loving’ is anchored by Ruth Negga’s well-deserved Oscar-nominated performance

New on Blu-ray

“Loving” (Universal DVD, $29.98; Blu-ray, $34.98; also available on VOD)

Ruth Negga garnered a well-deserved Oscar nomination for playing Mildred Loving in writer-director Jeff Nichols’ historical drama, and yet the film has been a tad underrated, perhaps because it’s more realistic than flashy. Negga and co-lead Joel Edgerton (playing Richard Loving) get deep inside the skins of an unassuming married couple who just wanted to be left alone to live their lives but instead ended up at the center of a larger civil rights struggle. Nichols builds to the Supreme Court case about interracial relationships that made the Lovings into household names in the 1960s, though he’s really more interested in their daily lives in Virginia and Washington, D.C., where they raised their kids and worked and socialized alongside white and black people. The subtle point of this lovely film is that the Lovings weren’t demanding some idealized utopia. They were living freely, as Americans are meant to.

[Special features: A commentary track and featurettes]

VOD

“David Brent: Life on the Road” (available Feb. 10 on Netflix)

Ricky Gervais revives David Brent, the character he first played on the original British version of “The Office,” for the Netflix original movie, which sees the socially awkward salesman emptying out his savings and retirement accounts to hire a band and pursue his rock ’n’ roll dreams. Brent has always been something of a wreck as a human being: a man who communicates in half-remembered catchphrases and well-meaning sentiments that are muttered and giggled at people who find him insufferable. Gervais plays up the pathos of his most famous creation, painting him as misunderstood and ultimately harmless. Still, this film really comes to life in the musical sequences, where the hero warbles wince-inducing social-protest songs like “Please Don’t Make Fun of the Disableds.”

TV set of the week

“Vice Principals: The Complete First Season” (HBO DVD, $19.98; Blu-ray, $24.98)

The creative team behind HBO’s brilliant comedy “Eastbound & Down” returned to the channel last year for the scarily prescient “Vice Principals,” a political satire about how Americans tend to mistake their selfish desires for noble ideals. “Eastbound” star Danny McBride (who co-created both shows with writer-director Jody Hill) play Neal Gamby, a North Carolina high school vice principal who teams up with his archenemy Lee Russell (Walton Goggins) to take down their new boss Dr. Belinda Brown (Kimberly Hebert Gregory) to steal her job. As with nearly all of Hill and McBride’s work, the humor in “Vice Principals” is dark and at times painful to watch, yet few contemporary television programs have been as incisive about how the authoritarian impulse manifests in everyday life, even in someplace as mundane as a public school.

[Special features: A blooper reel and commentary tracks on selected episodes]

From the archives

“Leonard Cohen: I’m Your Man” (Lionsgate Blu-ray, $14.99)

The death of Leonard Cohen late last year has revived interest in the life and music of the Canadian singer-songwriter-poet, which probably explains the overdue-but-welcome arrival on Blu-ray of Lian Lunson’s 2005 documentary. Part concert film, part appreciation, the movie covers an Australian tribute concert where musicians likes Nick Cave, Beth Orton and Rufus and Martha Wainwright performed Cohen’s songs onstage and talked about his influence backstage. The performances aren’t always presented in full, which can be frustrating. But Lunson compensates with long quotes from the man himself, who makes allusive comments about how his doom-laden music sprung from his fascinations with comic books and the synagogue, and how he worked to wring something divine from his personal hell.

[Special features: A Lunson commentary track, a featurette, and bonus full-length performances]

Three more to see

“Cameraperson” (Criterion DVD, $29.95; Blu-ray, $39.95); “The Eagle Huntress” (Sony DVD, $26.99; Blu-ray, $30.99); “Justice League: Dark” (Warner Bros. DVD, $14.99; Blu-ray, $19.99)