Robert Towne is seventy-one and a legend, notably for his classic 1974 screenplay for the Los Angeles-based Chinatown. As writer and director, Towne returns to that turf in his arid adaptation of John Fante's autobiographical 1939 novel about Arturo Bandini (a miscast Colin Farrell), an Italian writer struggling to make it in Depression-era L.A. Arturo is attracted to Camilla (Salma Hayek), a Mexican waitress he alienates with racial epithets and sexual rejection. The virginal Arturo does bed Vera (a vivid Idina Menzel), a married Jew whose lower body is badly scarred. Though these three have all experienced prejudice, they fail to heal one another's wounds. The film, which is literary to a fault, includes an earthquake, but if the earth moves at all, thank Hayek, who gives the tale a smoldering life that finally lifts it from the page.

“Oh Sherrie”

Steve Perry's girlfriend Sherrie Swafford was actually in the studio when Perry began writing this song--his lone Top Ten hit as a solo act--with two co-writers. The trio began at midnight one night with just "Oh, Sherrie!" and "hold on, hold on." Three hours later, they had a complete song. Swafford, however, had to wait until the next day to hear it. "Sherrie actually got tired and went to bed," Perry said. She also appeared in the video, but their relationship did not hold on for long.