Sleeping In
This week's column is a little shorter than what you might've grown accustomed to, since I have been in work-time fun mode for the past two weeks, going out of town on a business trip and then returning to pull 12-14 hour shifts getting my newly opening store ready for the public. Now that the store is open, I'm pretty much there all day every day training my employees -- on opening day, my most tenured employee had three days of behind-the-counter experience! So, I am just going to highlight a few awesome movies and then go to sleep -- I have to be up at 4am to get ready to work so I can sell Halo 3 to the punters who didn't make any of the midnight launches! Yay!

Knocked Up
Okay, this is my real Pick of the Week. You already know and love the creative team behind this movie from such television fare as Freaks and Geeks and Undeclared and modern classics like Anchorman and The Forty-year Old Virgin. I haven't seen the film (yeah, I've been a little busy) but I have no hesitation is recommending it based on what I've heard about it and the mostly stellar track record of the people responsible. If you're not into this one, this week you can check out Ashley Judd in the freaky-looking Bug, Nicolas Cage in the shitty-looking Next, or a bunch of no-names in the week's crop of direct-to-video movies.

My Name is Earl
My Name is Earl reaches its second season, now in a box. I watched this a bit here and there before The Office on TV last year, and it seems like a funny enough way to kill a bunch of hours. Other TV you can buy or rent this week include Grounded For Life: Season Five (that show had five seasons? Uh, wow) King of Queens: Season Nine (wait, wait, wait!! Nine! And Arrested Development could only last for three? Proof that the networks hate us. Or that the people with Nielsen boxes have horrible taste.) Also, the math-nerd's take on the CSI formula, Numb3rs, makes it DVD debut. Not worth mentioning are all the public domain and future bargain bin fodder also coming out, but check out TV Shows on DVD and The Digital Bits for more comprehensive coverage.

Underworld
The true test of these new high-def formats is whether even bad movies are worth seeing again to see them in HD. In the case of Underworld, assuming the transfer is reference-quality, I'd say yes. This film's warmed-over mix of White Wolf RPGs, Anne Rice, and the Matrix was a disappointment at the time, but has enough eye candy to warrant checking it out again. If that's not your style, though, this week also brings us, all on HD DVD: Evening, Freedom: 2, The Getaway (1994 version), Gods and Generals, Gothika, Knocked Up, Next, Patch Adams, The Wild Bunch, and Wyatt Earp.

Meanwhile, Blu-ray is blessed with mostly the same line-up: Black Book, Gods and Generals, Gothika, Memoirs of a Geisha, cult classic anime Tekkonkinkreet, Underworld, The Wild Bunch, and Wyatt Earp.