Robert Duvall scored a 1997 triumph as writer, director and star of The Apostle, in which he played a defrocked Pentecostal minister. Duvall wears the same three hats in Assassination Tango, but the results are disappointing.

As Brooklyn hit man John J., Duvall travels to Argentina to kill a retired general. It's there that he falls hard for the tango and for the lovely Manuela (Luciana Pedraza, Duvall's offscreen lady), who teaches him the dance. As expected, the tango seduces, and the scenes with John J. and Manuela have the improvisatory feel of the films of John Cassavetes. But Duvall missteps in trying to mesh suspense with a love story that also involves the woman (Kathy Baker) John J. lives with and her young daughter (Katherine Micheaux Miller), on whom he disturbingly dotes. Something about this ambitious film stays out of reach.

“Thirteen”

Alex Chilton chose to write about the innocence of young love instead of pent-up frustration for this ballad, which he titled after the age of the protagonists. However, Chilton admitted he was not happy with how the song turned out. "I think the performance of it on the record is bad. Just the singing really is … it's the wrong sort of approach, but at that time I didn't really know how to make the voice sounds in the studio that I wanted to do; it was a year or two later when I figured that out." When Chilton was at the age of 13, he experienced a life-changing occurrence -- the Beatles' landmark appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show.