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STUDIO: Lions Gate
MSRP: $27.99
RATED: Not rated
RUNNING TIME: 470 minutes
SPECIAL FEATURES:
• The Season According to Jim
• According to Jim Tour Set with Jim Belushi
• Comedy Begins at Home: Interviews w/ Cast and Crew
• Commentaries on selected episodes
The Pitch
The everyman in the everyman sitcom.
The Humans
Jim Belushi, Courtney Thorne-Smith, Kimberly Williams, Larry Joe Campbell, three precocious child actors.
The Nutshell
Jim is an abrasive and macho, yet lovable and charming father with a hot wife (Thorne-Smith), three kids and a sister-in-law (Williams) and brother-in-law (Campbell) who constantly hang around his house. Hilarity reportedly ensues.
The Lowdown
I’ve always liked Jim Belushi, perhaps more than I should have considering his frequently spotty track record. Here’s a guy who was never going to get out of his brother’s shadow, yet has still managed to solidly work in the industry for nearly thirty years. The Principal, Red Heat, Mr. Destiny. I like those flicks. I like Jim Belushi in those flicks. Jim Belushi hasn’t ever been the funniest guy ever in show biz, but if you look at his IMDB page, he’s done a staggering amount of work in a lot of varied genres. He’s always perfect as the Everyman and he’s made a career of it. According to Jim is probably his biggest career success, as it’s getting set to go into its eighth season. Even if it’s the most vanilla, cookie-cutter, by-the-achingly-obvious-numbers sitcom in recent memory.
The premise is that Jim is a lovably macho but lazy suburban husband with the hot wife and the kids and in-laws, who always looks for the easier way of doing things and ends up getting busted by his wife, who then forgives him because she can’t resist his charm. Ever hear of one of those? Of course, it’s the basic premise of damn near any family sitcom and has been for years. Home Improvement, King of Queens, and on and on and on. According to Jim doesn’t rock the sitcom boat. It sticks with the playbook and executes it faithfully, laugh track and all. Belushi and Thorne-Smith do exactly what their well-molded (literally, they come straight from the mold) characters and the supporting cast, including a slumming Kimberly Williams do as well. According to Jim isn’t a completely just utter and total shit sitcom, in fact Belushi does what he does best here. It’s just you’ve seen it all a (hundred) million times before.
The Package
Surprisingly, the episodes were show in widescreen, when the norm is to go with TV standard for this type of show. Sound is fine in either English or Spanish Dolby 5.1. There are selected episodes, including the pilot, with commentary and Belushi gives a seven-minute interview with his thoughts on Season 1 in the featurette, The Season According to Jim. He also gives you a tour set that lasts eleven minutes (don’t ask me how that’s possible). Comedy Begins at Home is a 12-minute piece about the origin and make up of the show with cast and crew interviews. There’s also three minutes of bloopers.