Youth comedies are a dime a dozen. But this baby, directed by first-timer Jon Poll from a deft script by Gustin Nash, is packed with smarts and sass. Anton Yelchin delivers a star making turn as Charlie, a rich lad expelled from multiple private academies and forced to rub his tailored shoulders with the commoners in public school. Much to the horror of his mother (a wonderfully droll Hope Davis) and his alcoholic principal (a hilarious and haunting Robert Downey Jr.), Charlie earns popularity with fellow students by acting as a therapist and selling them drugs (oh, that Ritalin) he hustles from his own shrink. You won't miss the film's comic punch, but it's the hurt underneath that makes this loser's odyssey a winner.

“Help Me”

Joni Mitchell wrote and recorded this song for her album Court and Spark, but she had to switch from her regular band to make the song sound exactly the way she wanted. "I had attempted to play my music with rock & roll players," she told Rolling Stone. "They’d laugh, 'Awww, isn't that cute? She's trying to teach us how to play.'" Mitchell switched to a jazz band, Tom Scott’s L.A. Express, and scored the biggest hit of her career in the process.