While, as written, it’s a fairly straightforward if
undeniably heartwarming rags-to-riches story, Will Smith is what you might easily
call the biggest “four-quadrant” star in Hollywood today, and so it’s no
surprise that The Pursuit of Happyness
netted the erstwhile rapper and sitcom star an Academy Award nomination for
Best Actor, the second of his career. And, truth be told, the impressive physical
transformation of Ali
notwithstanding, it definitely ranks up there with Smith’s best work in years. (And, yes, the purposefully misspelled title is explained along the way, too.)

Based on the true story of Chris Gardner, the movie is set
in 1981 San Francisco, and tells
the story of a hospital equipment salesman who’s struggling to make ends meet. When
his girlfriend Linda (Thandie Newton) walks out, Chris is left to raise their five-year-old
son Christopher (Jaden Christopher Syre Smith, the actor’s real-life boy) on
his own. Chris’ determination finally pays off then he lands a prestigious internship
in a brutally competitive stockbroker-training program at Dean Witter, where
only one of the 20 interns will eventually be offered a job. But it’s an unpaid,
months-long position, and without any sort of financial cushion, Chris and his
son are evicted from their apartment and are forced to sleep in homeless
shelters and even behind the locked doors of a bus station bathroom. With
self-confidence and the love and trust of his son, though, Chris rises above all
of these obstacles to eventually become a Wall Street legend.

Some of the early detail is crunched, I never believed or got a firm grasp on the character of Linda, and the interstitial bits of tugged heartstrings (parents watching
their kids sleep) are typical, yes, but what Smith and helmer Gabriele Muccino —
who directed Remember Me, My Love and
the absolutely fantastic original Italian film, L’Ultimo Bacio, upon which Zach Braff’s The Last Kiss was based — tap into and locate with unerring clarity
and an utter lack of condescension is the desperation of the American working
class, for whom each paycheck means a respite of only a few days or weeks, and,
indeed, the quiet nobility of their pursuit.

Available in both widescreen and full-screen formats, the
DVD release comes with a nice slate of bonus materials, including an audio commentary track
with director Muccino and an array of featurettes. The lengthiest and one of
the most substantive of these, a 17-minute making-of entitled An Italian Take on the American Dream, includes
interviews with crew, cast (including, nicely, bit players like Brian Howe and
Dan Castellanetta) and a gaggle of producers on the project, and breaks down in
fantastic fashion Muccino’s eye for detail. There’s all his wild gesticulation,
to be sure (the filmmaker is Italian, after all), but Muccino and Smith also talk
about being truthful to the physicality
of someone moving so frequently in pure desperation — hence all the movie’s wide-angle
running shots.

Father and Son: On
Screen and Off runs seven-and-a-half minutes, and provides a sweet look at
Will Smith and his real life son and co-star; it was apparently Muccino’s idea
to first audition young Jaden, and Smith talks candidly about there being some studio
anxiety about whether he could concentrate on his own performance with his son
around, and counsels Jaden, in trickle-down fashion, that there’s no need “to
put any sauce on it.”

Also narrated in syrupy tones, just like the main behind-the-scenes
making, is a 13-minute look at the real Chris Gardner, which kicks off with
on-set footage of Smith singling out his subject for praise during a birthday
celebration with the Glide Memorial Choir. Gardner
is a great interview, and talks about the difficulties in revisiting what he
cops to as “the most difficult and depressing years of my life.” He also notes all
the surrounding on-set detail with awe, leading to a brief but appreciated word
from set decorator Lauri Gaffin.

The light, upbeat featurette Inside Rubik’s Cube, meanwhile, clocks in at seven minutes, but is
a fascinating little shorthand documentary on the titular gadget featured in
the film. Fun trivia: between 1980 and ’82, there were 100 million sold worldwide, making it one of the staples of the entire
Hungarian economy, and its inventor a national hero; there are also 43
quintillion (yes, a real word) possible color combinations to the cube. A music
video for the song “I Can” rounds things out, which is puzzling only insofar as
it was Seal’s song, “A Father’s Way,” that garnered a Golden Globe nomination
for Best Original song. B (Movie) B+ (Disc)

High School Musical comes the Disney Channel’s highest-rated ever original
movie, Jump In!, starring that aforementioned
film’s Corbin Bleu and Akeelah and the
Bee’s wonderful
Keke Palmer.

As the exclamatory title might suggest, Jump In! is definitely pitched at kids and tweens, and within this
context the project succeeds fabulously. The movie premiered on the Disney Channel earlier
this January, to the highest ever ratings in total viewers (8.2 million), and finished
as TV’s most-watched program of that entire day (both broadcast and basic cable)
in target demos for kids both 6-11 and 9-14 years of age.

Penned by Doreen Spicer (The
Proud Family), and the team of Regina Hicks and Karin Gist (Girlfriends), Jump In! is a coming-of-age story about Brooklyn
teenager Izzy Daniels (Bleu) whose father dreams of him becoming a champion
boxer. When his neighbor Mary (Palmer) asks him to substitute for a jumper on
her double-dutch team in time for the city championship, Izzy hops right in. As
he acclimates with surprising quickness, Izzy discovers an unanticipated passion
for the world of competitive jump-roping.

Despite its premise, the movie doesn’t so much mess around
with gender roles to the degree that, say, Billy
Elliott did, as merely present a comfortable, sunny environment where boy-girl
playground divisions are knocked down and overcome. Older audiences will stare
right through or past the rather flimsy conceit on which this movie hangs, but
perhaps feel a pang of nostalgia for the jump-rope action. Speaking of which, director
Paul Hoen (South of Nowhere) does a nice
job of capturing that material, as well as keeping the tone light and agreeable,
and putting his young charges through the paces in brisk fashion. Bleu conveys
a certain likeability, and Palmer again proves herself a young actress of natural,
unaffected appeal. Rounding out the cast are David Reivers (Poseidon)
and Hannah Montana’s Shanica Knowles.

The movie’s so-called “freestyle edition” DVD is housed in a
regular Amray case with cardboard O-ring slipcover, and presented in 1.33:1
full frame, with a Dolby digital 5.1 soundtrack. Exclusive bonus materials
consist of a “Learning the Moves” featurette with Bleu, in which he hosts an
instructional double-dutch jump rope routine that showcases steps both simple and advanced for
at-home fans. Palmer, meanwhile, is featured in a pop-hop music video from the
movie’s soundtrack entitled, appropriately enough, “Jumpin’.” Rounding out the supplemental
features is a cursory seven-minute making-of featurette entitled “Inside the
Ropes,” and a second music video, from rising pop sensation T-Squad, for their song
“Vertical.” To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. C+ (Movie) C (Disc)