Don't let anyone spoil the secrets in this delicate dazzler. See it and then t talking. You will. The pregnant Verona (Maya Rudolph), a medical illustrator of mixed race, loves Burt (John Krasinski), a white guy who sells insurance, but she doesn't want to marry him — bad family histories. "Do you think the baby will be dark like you?" Burt's mom (Catherine O'Hara) asks blithely. Burt and Verona take to the road, visiting friends in search of a place not to be lost in America. Director Sam Mendes deftly follows the twists in the tartly funny and achingly tender script by novelists Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida. Rudolph, a comic force on SNL, can speak volumes with the tilt of an eyebrow. She and Krasinski, of The Office, are absolutely extraordinary. Ditto the film, which sneaks up and floors you.

“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."