Paul Newman has been around so long and is so extended as a personality — we see him most frequently on salad dressing labels — that there's a danger of forgetting his genius.

Now comes news that he's out of the acting game at age 82. Ponder this: If there's anyone close to being a new Paul Newman, he's probably in the cast of Ocean's Thirteen. Yikes.

Anyone in need of a refresher should queue up for Fox's double-disc re-release of The Hustler. This was Newman's breakthrough film, a startling piece of lowlife lit built around the fictional pool-shooting punk, Fast Eddy Felson. George C. Scott, Jackie Gleason, and Piper Laurie turned this 1961 drama into an actors' showcase. Every other line found its way into the nation's pool halls and stayed there for decades.

Robert Rossen directed with style, daring, and street smarts, in striking black and white.

This DVD appears to have the same video and audio as the last Fox release, in 2002. No big deal — there is almost no apparent wear and the widescreen images look handsome overall, a little pale here or murky there. The DVD also ports over the extras from '02, including a group commentary in which Newman participates.

New to the set are three featurettes about the movie, actors, and pool shots. Newman is interviewed on camera, sharp but hunched over and hoarsely whispering a lot. The heavy lifting is done by Piper Laurie, who has excellent recall of the New York production. (Newman and Laurie both were in their mid-30s. Rossen called them "kids.")

Newman pays tribute to Gleason, who played Minnesota Fats: "He was on time, he knew what he was doing. Jackie Gleason is about as good as it gets." The TV comic already was an ace pool player. Newman claimed he'd never held a stick, but was coached up in no time by billiards legend Willie Mosconi, who often provided the hands and the trick shots for the actor.

Two decades later, of course, Newman won the Oscar for reprising the role of Fast Eddie in The Color of Money. Score that one a career makegood, in large part for this brash, run-the-rack performance.

Fox deserves credit for upgrading the title at a fair price, but owners of the previous disc probably should wait for re-rack on the A/V. There is a fair amount of repetition in the shotgun marriage of old and new extras.

Fox also brings to market a similar treatment of The Verdict (1982).

Whatever you do for a living, it has to be more pleasant than the job chosen by the people in Ice Road Truckers, a reality series premiering on The History Channel on June 17 (10PM Eastern, 9PM Central). The show's title says it all: to bring heavy equipment and supplies to diamond mines in Canada's Northwest Territories, truck drivers have to guide their massive machines hundreds of miles over roads made of snow and ice. The ice roads are only usable in the winter, obviously, so the truckers work in temperatures that can reach -50 degrees Fahrenheit.

Even in the Canadian north, where the ice can freeze several feet thick on some lakes, the ice roads can only support so much weight. When your cargo is several tons, you have to be extremely careful – not just because of the risk of sinking through the ice, but because of "blowouts" caused when truckers drive too quickly, creating waves of pressure that can burst through the ice and render the road impassable. Even when you're not driving over frozen water, the roads can be treacherous, and it's not uncommon for jackknifed vehicles to block the road and bring the traffic, such as it is, to a complete standstill for hours at a time.

So why would anyone do this? Money, of course – a skilled driver can make around $70,000.00 for a couple of months' work. (Even if that's Canadian money, it's still pretty impressive, especially at today's exchange rates.) But the work is lonely, tiresome and often very dull, and it's not uncommon for would-be drivers to drop out after a few days.

The first two episodes of Ice Road Truckers are quite fascinating, with brief segments on maintenance of the roads, salvage divers, a computer-generated "blowout" and, of course, lots of big rigs. (Anyone who grew up on Smokey and the Bandit movies and their fathers' old Red Sovine records will appreciate this show.) We don't learn too much about the drivers themselves, though, and Ice Road Truckers will only work as a regular series if we grow attached to them individually. Time will tell.

Okay, obviously that ending, or lack thereof, made many crazy. Me too, initially. Now, I dig it. Why? Because that was what every day of the family’s life was like. Was that guy with AJ (just in front of him) gonna pop Tony? How about that trucker guy at the bar? How about those two black guys?

When that dude walked past Tony en route to the bathroom, I thought they would do a formal Godfather homage. Namely, a gun is taped to the back of the toilet. What else? Surely, during the painfully prolonged scene of Meadow parking, I thought she would see or hear two or three pops come from the diner. Then, nothing else. They wouldn't say who got shot or who is dead. Just Meadow walking up to the diner and hearing three gun shots. Of course, David Chase knows this and played us like the cheap broken banjos that we are.

So, who in there was going to kill Tony? Did Tony die after the credits rolled?

Maybe, maybe not. That is every single moment of Tony’s life. Maybe, the whole family will be sprayed in blood. Maybe, they will just have another family dinner and bicker about what poor decisions their teenagers are making. That kind of insane tension is what they live with. Bravo!

I will tell you my perfect ending for the show. It was last week's show. Remember how it ended with Tony laying alone in bed with a shotgun? He was exiled from his family, and even his entire state. Honestly, they could have skipped this week's show altogether. It was great to see Phil got popped, though. Now, what did the FBI agent mean when he said "we may finally win this thing"?

Lastly, I hear people say, “I feel like I just wasted the last ten years of my life.” I understand that sentiment, but not because of that ending. What drove me absolutely mad was waiting three or four years in between every season. Just season six (this very last one) took a one-year break. That is the crap that angered me.