Alex Gibney's riveting documentary "Catching Hell," part of ESPN's "30 for 30" film series, centers on the ruthless scapegoating that high-strung, frenzied fans of ill-fated sports teams often resort to. It's about the ugly side of underdogs, about understandable but misplaced rage at avoidable—yet consistent—failure.

No sports movie will likely achieve the psychological depth that "Catching Hell" does any time soon, or the pathos. The variety of subjects Gibney interviews is staggering—from sportscasters to authors like Scott Turow to former Boston Red Sox and Chicago Cubs players. And they all share a common, hilarious humility, the instinct for anticipating the death knell that's been sounded at all too many near-victory playoff and World Series games.

During Game 6 of 2003's National League Championship Series, Steve Bartman, a meek, turtleneck-wearing Cubs fan, tried to catch a foul ball hit by the Florida Marlins' Luis Castillo, accidentally blocking Cubs' outfielder Moisés Alou from retrieving it. There was one out in the top of the 8th inning and the Cubs were up 3-0; Alou's catch would have left the Cubs—who had not won the World Series since 1908—four outs away from entering the Series.

As noted by Gibney (pictured), several other blunders—a botched double play, a wild pitch—led to the Marlins scoring eight runs that same inning, defeating the Cubs. Yet ultimately, Bartman became the fall guy for keeping this long-doomed team from winning.

“Marathon Boy” follows the unbelievable story of Budhia Singh, a boy born into the crushing poverty of an Indian slum, sold by his destitute mother, and rescued by a judo coach who runs an orphanage. The coach, Biranchi Das, soon discovers that then-three year-old Budhia has a prodigious talent for running. Jumping on what he sees as a huge opportunity both for himself and the children who depend on him, Das promotes Budhia to the Indian media as a boy wonder, an expression of the unquenchable Indian spirit. By the time he is four, Budhia has run twenty half-marathons and 48 full marathons.

Buoyed by Budhia’s inexhaustible willpower Das stages one hell of a publicity stunt: a 42-mile run, which could set a new world record.

Director Gemma Atwal does a masterful job, in this HBO production, of allowing the story to play out in front of her without prejudicing it.

No actor has mastered the art of muttering obscenities under his breath more expertly than Dennis Farina. In “Get Shorty,” “Snatch” and other films about low-life criminals, Farina, with his eagle-eyed glare, Charles Bronson-like mustache and clenched-teeth diction, has stolen every scene he’s in merely by spouting off an array of expletives. “The fucking airport,” he barks at a cab driver in “Get Shorty,” disgusted at being put upon to give simple directions. His every eyebrow twitch, stiff-necked shrug and sarcastic overemphasis on every word—as if he’s already explained what he’s saying three times—deliver the message: “I don’t give an inch for you—you give an inch for me.”

Happily, Farina’s signature macho style is put to good use for much of “The Last Rites of Joe May.” But the film, directed and written by Joe Maggio, stretches Farina’s range to an unexpected level: for the first time, he’s showing genuine hurt and weakness, with astonishingly powerful results. Joe May certainly bears the same hostility and bitterness as Farina’s other characters, but he’s a man with a conscience, a soul, and his brooding takes on a tragic dimension.

When “Once,” the small story of an earnest Irish busker singing earnest songs who falls for an earnest Czech immigrant, was released in 2006, it enchanted even the most hard-hearted movie critics. It wasn’t just diehard indie folk fans that wanted to eat “Once’s” two characters alive. Everyone of every temperament, style and taste loved “Once’s” stripped-down approach to the musical, the lack of grandiose dance numbers and groan-inducing punnery in its songs; even the notorious cranks at the Village Voice called it “one of the greatest musicals of the modern age.” It was a slice-of-life musical, a movie about two down-on-their-luck people writing songs on the spot, harmonizing them and then falling in love through developing them, but—in typical jaded indie cinema verite fashion—they remain too meek and earnest to act on their love.

As for me, on first inspection of Glen Hansard plucking away in some public square in Dublin, I wanted to strangle him; I live in New York, and you can’t walk twenty feet in Williamsburg without bumping into one of Hansard’s bearded, gentle, sensitive, self-important ilk. Once the positively adorable Marketa Inglova—a sort of pudgier, Slavic-accented Debra Winger—sets her sights on Hansard, and the two real-life musicians/lovers start to write duets, I softened a little. But I was still put-off by the film’s cutesy gimmicks—the characters are called “Guy” and “Girl,” the Guy explains his recent break-up by improvising a song on a public bus—not to mention the characters’ endless self-pitying. And the bummer of an ending seemed clichéd and forced in the same way that a traditional rom-com’s upbeat ending is—there was no reason except self-imposed malaise for Guy and Girl to stay apart.

Gaukur Úlfarsson’s documentary “Gnarr” follows the efforts of Jón Gnarr, […]

“Treatment” is the funniest, most energetic film yet to come […]

“Cinema Komunisto” is an exquisitely detailed, heartfelt look at the […]

At the beginning of James Westby’s “Rid of Me,” a […]

“Fire in Babylon” mixes interviews with former cricketers and musicians, archival footage and photographs, and reggae music and examines how the struggle to be accepted into the Cricketing society is likened to the Civil Rights Movement of the Sixties. During a time of great civil unrest the small team from the Caribbean Islands watched as South Africa was torn apart by Apartheid while they struggled to make a name for themselves in this white-dominated sport.

“Dog Pound,” twenty nine year-old French director Kim Chapiron’s account […]