This week’s new DVD releases don’t quite rival last week’s offerings in the lesbian interest department, but then January is usually a weak month for DVDs in general. My top pick, less for its not so considerable gay content than for its historical importance, is She’s Gotta Have It, Spike Lee’s first feature-length film.

Controversial upon its 1986 release for its matter-of-fact treatment of female protagonist Nola’s healthy sex life—she spends the movie juggling three (male) lovers—She’s Gotta Have It launched Lee’s career into the stratosphere and made his fictional alter-ego, Mars Blackmon, a pop culture icon. Through the supporting character of Opal Gilstrap (yes, strap), a somewhat predatory friend of Nola’s played by Raye Dowell, it also provided an early insight into Lee’s views on lesbianism, views that were made abundantly clear 18 years later in She Hate Me.

More Tuesday releases of note:

“I wonder if Randy remembered to turn off the stove.”

Fox triple-dips with the Cary Grant/Deborah Kerr weeper An Affair to Remember, this time commemorated in a 50th Anniversary Edition, while MGM goes for the double-dip with Norman Jewison’s Sidney Poitier/Rod Steiger classic In the Heat of the Night, which gets the 40th Anniversary Collector’s Edition treatment.

Fingersmith star Sally Hawkins stars in a Masterpiece Theatre production of Jane Austen’s Persuasion.

Wanda Sykes makes the occasional guest appearance on the first season of the Julia Louis-Dreyfus sitcom The New Adventures of Old Christine.

Alex Haley’s “Queen“, the 1993 miniseries that starred Halle Berry and has an excellent supporting cast too large to mention here, joins Roots on DVD.