Hoop Dreams Come True

Through the Fire (Disney) He’s averaging just nine points in his second season for the Portland Trail Blazers, but considering where he came from and what he’s overcome, Sebastian Telfair is doing just fine, thank you. Jonathan Hock’s fascinating documentary takes us back to the young New York basketball legend’s…

Nuts to You

Hollywood’s a sucker for cross-dressing. When the American Film Institute chose the 100 greatest comedies of all time, a pair of drag films–Some Like It Hot and Tootsie–earned the top two slots. From Operation Petticoat to White Chicks, slapping falsies on a dude is the fast road to Chuckletown. Women…

This Dogg’s Got Bite

The Tenants (Sony) Fifteen seconds into the video for “Nuthin but a G Thang,” it was obvious that Snoop Dogg had charisma to spare. More than a decade later, with his performance as ’70s-era radical author Willie Spearmint, it’s official: The man can act. Snoop’s shambling, searing performance is just…

The Great Cash-In

Walk the Line (Fox) No matter what a junkie does with his spare time — say, redefine country music, or forge one of history’s most enduring personas — movies about junkies are a drag to watch. So it’s too bad this Johnny Cash biopic is a by-the-numbers fall-and-redemption tale. A…

Deep Thoughts by Redford

All the President’s Men (Warner Bros.) It’s no mystery why Warner Bros. chose to rerelease All the President’s Men now; at last we know how much — which is to say how little — Mark “Deep Throat” Felt really looked like Hal Holbrook. A new doc on former FBI second-in-command…

Grind It Out With Pam

Comedy Central Roast of Pamela Anderson: Uncensored! (Paramount) This sucker’s vulgar — duh — but not shocking in the least bit; Sarah Silverman swears, and Courtney Love drinks and smokes . . . who knew? That said, this roast ranks among the meanest ever televised; why Bea Arthur shows up…

Clay’s the Thing

Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (DreamWorks) Not since Finding Nemo has there been a movie so easy to recommend for all ages and tastes. But despite having crafted a near-perfect film, directors Nick Park and Steve Box second-guess themselves constantly on their audio commentary, as well as…

Now Dirtier Than Ever

The Aristocrats (Lions Gate) The single joke around which Paul Provenza’s documentary revolves has a standard beginning and ending, like pieces of bread that make a sandwich stuffed with excrement, incest, and whatever other foulness the teller can come up with. Provenza and Penn Jillette recorded more than 100 comedians…

A Bounteous Bunch

Sam Peckinpah’s Legendary Westerns Collection (Warner Bros.) At a mere $42 through most Web sites, this four-film boxed set ranks among the best ever compiled; not only does it contain the restored version of one of the greatest movies of all time (The Wild Bunch) but also three other brilliant…

Cult Hit for Nobody

Nowhere Man (Image Entertainment) There’s good reason why you’ve never heard of this UPN show from the mid-’90s, which lasted 25 episodes before getting shuttled off to, well, nowhere. It’s a convoluted mind-fuck that owes its existence as much to The Prisoner as The Fugitive, and if you missed one…

The Impossible Bomb

Serenity (Universal) Joss Whedon’s film version of his TV series Firefly came and went like a lightning bug in October; the predicted phenom stuck around the multiplex just long enough to lose millions. But like Firefly, which sold enough boxed sets to warrant a movie, Serenity’s bound to do well…

Love the Sin

Sin City: Recut, Extended, Unrated (Buena Vista) Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller’s near frame-for-frame adaptation of Miller’s bone-crunching comics finally gets a rewarding DVD treatment, following a shamefully sparse edition earlier this year. The theatrical cut boasts two commentary tracks (with Quentin Tarantino and Bruce Willis, among others), but there…

Sweat Along with Russell

Cinderella Man (Universal) Back in the Great Depression, boxing matches only cost a nickel and the ring was uphill both ways. That’s the central message of this well-made if sappy bio of 1930s boxer Jim Braddock. Ron Howard’s direction and a stellar cast save the film from its one-dimensional characters…

Homewreckers on DVD

Mr. & Mrs. Smith (Fox) The pairing of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, both in real life and on celluloid, is so obvious as to be almost cartoonish. So even though both are better actors than they need to be, they perfectly belong in this goofy, explosiony world. Married assassins,…

Your Government at Work

Punishment Park (New Yorker Video) This 1971 movie from director Peter Watkins could have been made yesterday, which is no doubt why it finally sees video release long after accruing cult status. Born out of the filmmaker’s outrage over the Kent State killings, the war in Vietnam and other abominations…

Blessed Are the Buttmunches

Beavis and Butt-head: The Mike Judge Collection, Volume One (Paramount) This three-disc, 40-episode volume chronicling Beavis and Butt-head’s early years will come as a relief to anyone who was stuck in a teenage wasteland when the MTV series first hit the air; turns out, we weren’t just stoned — this…

The Force Runs Its Course

Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (Lucasfilm Ltd.) The final installment of the Star Wars saga actually plays better at home: You can watch it, then pop in the original trilogy and chart the evolution of Anakin, and have it all actually make sense. Though it’s still a…

Cameron Crowing

Titanic: Special Collector’s Edition (Paramount Home Video) Loved and loathed in equal measure, Titanic nonetheless is among the few modern-day movies deserving of lavish treatment; this boxed set, three discs with three hours of new stuff, feels almost as big a production as the feature itself. Writer-director James Cameron, never…

New releases available this week

The Blues Brothers 25th Anniversary Edition (Universal Studios Home Video) Dan Aykroyd and John Goodman’s modern-day revival of the Blues Brothers is less a stroke of comedy genius than a dose of karaoke night at Hooters. Fight off those thoughts and pop in this 1980 classic. John Belushi and Aykroyd,…

Aesop Rock

Aesop Rock is the Jackson Pollock of hip-hop, spewing abstract syllables and phrases like color on a canvas. His style is overwhelming, with swirls of obscure references and interior rhymes that wash over you far faster than you can process them. So The Living Human Curiosity Sideshow, the comprehensive lyric…

I’ll Drink to That

The keg is tapped, the air is gray, and cigarette butts float like rotten cherries in half the drinks on the counter. Everyone’s paired off, either contemplating the bathroom or arguing over when The Golden Girls jumped the shark. You need to get people focused. You need to get this…

Wilco

Though die-hard fans will surely love it, A Ghost Is Born lacks much of the trilling beauty of the band’s 2002 triumph, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. This is probably to the satisfaction of front man Jeff Tweedy, whose guitar is starting to echo the ragged glory of Neil Young on his…