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Mark Rahner's DVD Picks
Settle in for a loooong 9 months with "Knocked Up"
Seattle Times DVD writer
You know going into "Knocked Up" (Universal, unrated, $30.98) that like director-producer Judd Apatow's other movies — "The 40 Year Old Virgin," "Superbad" — it's going to be funny and raunchy and sweet and half an hour longer than it should be.
True to form, the two-disc collector's edition of the movie contains approximately 700 hours of bonus features. So get your shots, drive to Costco and buy a couple of pallets of bulk food and toilet paper, arrange for someone to move you around periodically to avoid bedsores, arm yourself for when China calls in our debt and the economy collapses and plunges society into a death-struggle for resources ... and settle in for some laughs.
Not much to the story: After a one-night stand between doughy slacker Ben (Seth Rogen) and entertainment-news interviewer Alison (Katherine Heigl, who just got her expletive bleeped on Fox when she won an Emmy for "Grey's Anatomy"), his seed finds purchase in her womb. (I've always wanted to say that.)
As they cope with the predicament, Ben's stoner roommates and Alison's family (particularly the hilarious Paul Rudd) turn a complicated situation complicated and stupid.
The numerous, copious extras include some gut-busting deleted scenes. Jonah (Jonah Hill from "Superbad") plops onto the half-asleep and impatient Ben's bed and goes on a diatribe about why babies freak him out that winds from the Chucky movies through the butt-headed aliens from the original "Star Trek" pilot. In "Kuni Goes Wild," the high-strung, condescending doctor (Ken Jeong) goes on a long, apparently improvised and patently insane rant that cracks up the crew.
Among those abundant, profuse extras, make a point of watching "Finding Ben Stone" on your second or third day of viewing. In the deadpan mockumentary, Apatow runs through the other actors he hired and fired for the Ben role, as each one in turn spins into a profane, egomaniacal tantrum with exasperated Heigl: Michael Cera from "Superbad," Orlando Bloom, Justin Long, James Franco — even Gerry Bednob, the old Bangladeshi guy from "40 Year Old Virgin," and finally a palpably uncomfortable Apatow himself.
Also Tuesday: "George Carlin: All My Stuff" (MPI, $189.98), which includes his dozen HBO stand-up specials; "Next" (Paramount, PG-13, $29.99); William Friedkin's "Bug" (Lionsgate, R, $28.98).
Mark Rahner: 206-464-8259 or mrahner@seattletimes.com
Copyright © 2007 The Seattle Times Company

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