Overthought, overwrought and thuddingly underwhelming, this high-profile misfire makes a congealed gumbo out of Robert Penn Warren's Pulitzer-winning 1946 novel and the Oscar-winning 1949 movie that followed it, sinking a classy cast in the goo. Sean Penn is dynamite as Willie k, the Louisiana politician (modeled on Huey Long) who makes it to the governor's mansion on the votes of his fellow "hicks," but the film's fuse just won't light.

A big surprise, because James Carville, who knows his way around the wonk hothouse, spearheaded the project. But in updating this tale of how and why power corrupts, from the Depression to the 1950s, writer-director Steve Zaillian (A Civil Action) replaces grit with grandiosity, shooting Willie's speeches like Nazi rallies. Miscasting also hurts. Jude Law in the pivotal role of Jack Burden, the newspaperman who works for Willie and loses his soul in the bargain, never looks as persuasively damaged as John Ireland did in the first movie. The fake Southern accent also defeats him, as it does Kate Winslet, Anthony Hopkins and especially James Gandolfini, who all figure in Willie's rise and fall. And New Orleans-born Patricia Clarkson, who delivers solidly as Willie's press wrangler, brings an authenticity to her role that emphasizes what the others sorely lack. But why go on? Talented people can screw up because, unlike hacks, they take big risks. This time the risk doesn't pay off.

“All Along the Watchtower”

Jimi Hendrix got hold of Bob Dylan's early John Wesley Harding tapes and in late 1967 recorded a version of "All Along the Watchtower" with the Experience in London. Dissatisfied with that first development, Hendrix brought those tapes with him to New York in early 1968 when he began work on Electric Ladyland. Eddie Kramer, Hendrix's engineer at the time, told Rolling Stone that Hendrix "was still looked upon by his basically white audience as the mammoth black guitar hero. There was a constant fight within him to expand himself." Hendrix's successful take on Dylan's work has long been recognized by the songwriter. "I liked Jimi Hendrix's record of this and ever since he died I've been doing it that way," Dylan wrote in the liner notes to his Biograph box set. "Strange how when I sing it, I always feel it's a tribute to him in some kind of way."