Orson Welles' showbiz career began with his broadcast of "The War of the Worlds," one of the greatest tricks ever played on a mass audience. Because his entire career was entrenched in the fakery and illusion native to movies, it's fitting that Orson Welles' last completed work was F for Fake, a free-form documentary/film essay on the tenuous relationship between what's "real" and what's "fake" and the worthlessness of so-called "experts." It's an elaborate, exuberant piece of work. Welles, clad in a flowing black coat and broad-brimmed hat and elegantly puffing a cigar, scampers across various European locales, performing magic tricks and spinning the tale of Elmyr de Hory, the most notorious art-forger of the 20th century. F for Fake initially started as a straight BBC documentary that Welles was asked to narrate. The tale gets complicated, and even more interesting, when it's revealed that Clifford Irving, Hory's biographer and a primary source for the documentary, fabricated the supposedly "authorized" biography he wrote for reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes. When Welles isn't staging elaborate magic tricks with coins and rabbits, he's performing chicanery with the film itself, splicing together footage of Hory, Irving, Hughes and even his Mercury Theater cohorts to form what is almost an improvisational narrative that loops back on itself. Of course, it's not improv-Welles also narrates half the film from an editing room, and while it looks like the interviews and pieces of film ephemera are juxtaposed in a free-association sort of way, they're very deliberate. Welles loves the art of trickery (he calls himself a "charlatan," "magician" and "trickster" so many times you could make an F for Fake drinking game) to the point that you can't really trust anything he says, but if you're willing to give yourself over to his whimsical romp, it's a fun ride.

The Criterion Collection's two-disc treatment of F for Fake gives viewers the film as well as a string of documentaries that are like the Cliff's Notes for Welles' final work. The first disc features an introduction to the film by Peter Bogdanovich, commentary by director of photography Gary Graver and co-star Oja Kodar, and the film's 10-minute experimental (and virtually unmarketable) trailer. The second disc is where all the action is, though, with Orson Welles: One-Man Band, a documentary that looks back at Welles' career and the string of unfinished projects he left after his death. Two other documentaries are devoted to Irving and Hory, but the disc's most surreal moment is the audio track from a 1972 press conference during which Howard Hughes exposed Irving's hoax. Hughes conducted the entire press conference over a phone held up to a microphone. When played, it's as though Hughes is speaking from beyond the grave through your DVD player.

Also this month:

?Çó Team America: World Police (May 17)-Trey Parker and Matt Stone's celebrity-bashing political puppet opus gets the deluxe treatment. The disc features eight production featurettes, outtakes and deleted scenes. There are no commentary tracks, but expect all that super explicit puppet-sex you heard so much about, plus deleted scenes that would make a proctologist blush.

?Çó The Adventures of Pete and Pete: Season 1 (May 17)-Nickelodeon dishes out a heavy dose of 1990s nostalgia with this two-disc set that chronicles the adventures of Pete, Pete, and Artie, The Strongest Man in the World, across Wellsville, USA. Creators Will McRobb and Chris Viscardi provide commentary on a few episodes. Fans can also look forward to a featurette about the metal plate in the Petes' mom's head.

?Çó NewsRadio: The Complete First and Second Seasons (May 24)-"NewsRadio" was the "Arrested Development" of its day, a sharp, unconventional comedy that was utterly crapped upon by its home network. Columbia Tri-Star's three-disc set is woefully lacking extras, but the fact that the criminally under-appreciated show (boasting what is probably Phil Hartman's best role) is on DVD at all makes up for any lost amenities.

?Çó The Essential Steve McQueen Collection (May 31)-Warner Home Video releases another formidable box set, this time spotlighting the coolest tough guy ever to swagger across the big screen. The set boasts six films: Bullitt, The Getaway, Papillion, Tom Horn, Never So Few, and The Cincinnati Kid. Bullitt gets most of the attention, with a two-disc edition featuring a pair of documentaries: "The Cutting Edge: The Magic of Movie Editing" and "Steve McQueen: The Essence of Cool."