Ladies and gentlemen: George O'Dowd and Adrian Thaws! It isn't the use of pseudonyms, Boy George and Tricky, that links these two pop stars, but the fascinating self-invention that propelled them center stage. In Kidel's Boy Next Door? (U.K., 1993, 51 mins), the bedeviled Boy is caught at a lull in his career. Once the toast of tinsel and tabloid, he is now more a prettified penitent atoning for the sins of celebrity, most notably his spree with smack. B.G. is queerly candid about his origins, a working-class family with a roughneck dad, and his revelation at age 11 that he was a "poofter." His flaming rise to fame as the lead singer of Culture Club was a bit of bio(graphical)-engineering giving form to an ambiguous gender spectacle more cuddly than concupiscent. Kidel's portrait of Tricky, Naked and Famous (U.K., 1998, 51 mins), finds this devotee of darkness journeying back to his hometown of Bristol, the return of the plaintively prodigal son. "We're mongrels," Tricky says of his extended family, a curious blend of races and ruinations. Between 'acking asthma, suicidal tendencies, and a flirtation with skirts, this genius of gothic soul sampling has risen far beyond his gangly roots to make wicked hip-hop: "It's a gift and no one controls it."-Steve Seid