Damn near lost in the rush of holiday releases, 25th Hour is a riveting, emotionally resonant New York drama about mostly Irish white guys. Strange turf for Spike Lee, who still manages to do the right thing by trusting the wildly ambitious script that David Benioff has adapted from his own novel. Lee is firing on all cylinders, and the actors match his energy. Edward Norton is dynamite as Brooklyn drug dealer Monty Brogan, a felon filling his last hours before going to prison for seven years. He hangs with his friends: Francis (Barry Pepper hits all the right notes), a Wall Street trader, and Jacob (Philip Seymour Hoffman), a teacher who lusts after a teen student (Anna Paquin). Monty consoles his bar-owner dad, James (the great Brian Cox), and tortures himself with the idea that his girl, Naturelle (gorgeous Rosario Dawson), may have turned him in.

Lee sets these relationships against a city battered by the events of September 11th. Francis' apartment looks out on Ground Zero, and the gifted cinematographer Rodriego Prieto (8 Mile, Amores Perros) catches an atmosphere that crackles with tension. In a restroom mirror, Monty launches into a love-hate attack on every race and institution in the five boroughs. Later, in a scene of touching compassion, James imagines a future for Monty outside of prison. The film crams in more ideas than it can comfortably hold. But in a multiplex filled with empty New Year vessels (take that, Kangaroo Jack), this holdover grabs you hard.

“Is It True”

As the British Invasion reached its peak in 1964, Brenda Lee went from Nashville to London to record one of her hardest-rocking hits, her perky vocal backed by a stuttering, squalling guitar. That guitar was played by session musician Jimmy Page, yet to skyrocket to fame with first the Yardbirds and then Led Zeppelin. "She said to me, 'I've come here to make a record with the British sound,'" remembered producer Mickie Most. "She felt she wouldn't get the same sound in Nashville because they're only just catching up on the British beat group sound of about six months ago."