Even geekdom has an ‘Up’ side

Writer-director-producer Judd Apatow has made a lucrative career of exploring male geekdom, first in his cult TV series “Freaks & Geeks” and “Undeclared” and in the hit feature comedies “The 40-Year-Old Virgin” and this summer’s “Knocked Up,” which arrives Tuesday on DVD just three months after it was released.

Just as he did with “Virgin,” Apatow manages to make “Knocked Up” simultaneously crude, rude and incredibly sweet. Seth Rogen plays the rotund slacker who discovers that an up-and-coming reporter (Katherine Heigl) is pregnant after their drunken one-night stand. Since the release of the blockbuster comedy, Apatow produced the current box-office comedy “Superbad,” which was co-written by and features Rogen.

On the two-disc special edition, the extras are just as funny as the film, including a mockumentary titled “Finding Ben Stone,” which features such actors as James Franco, Orlando Bloom and David Krumholtz.

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It’s elementary

BASIL RATHBONE is the undisputed Sherlock Holmes of feature films, but on television, Jeremy Brett was the epitome of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s brilliant, complex sleuth, starring as the detective from 1984 to 1994 in England on Granada Television and on PBS’ “Mystery!” series.

On Tuesday, MPI is releasing “Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Granada Television Series.” Priced at $229.98, the 12-disc set includes all 41 episodes; audio commentary tracks; an interview with Edward Hardwicke, one of the two actors who play Holmes’ sidekick in sleuthing, Dr. Watson; production notes; and an interview with the author’s youngest son, the late Adrian Conan Doyle.

Before “Holmes,” Brett, who was born in 1933 and died of cardiomyopathy in 1995, was best known as Eliza Doolittle’s suitor in the 1964 film “My Fair Lady.” He also graced the Ahmanson stage in “Dracula” in 1978 and then in 1980’s “The Crucifer of Blood,” in which he played Dr. Watson to Charlton Heston’s Holmes.

Brett suffered from bipolar disorder, which got worse after his second wife, “Mystery!” producer Joan Wilson, died in 1985. During the last decade of his life, he was hospitalized several times for mental illness.

There were plans to shoot every single Holmes adventure, but Brett died before the ambitious project was finished.

-- Susan King