It's elating to watch filmmakers you admire take on the impossible. David Mitchell's 2004 novel Cloud Atlas is an uphill battle incarnate. And nobody makes it to the top. A sprawling literary opus that tells six stories that range across continents from the 19th century to the post-apocalyptic future is a killer to squeeze into one movie, even a movie that runs nearly three hours. So naturally the Wachowski siblings, Andy and Lana (the former Larry, now identifying as female), took the dare. And the Matrix creators brought along their Run Lola Run buddy Tom Tykwer to share the writing and directing. The trio started by casting starry actors, led by Tom Hanks, Halle Berry and Hugh Grant, in a multitude of roles. Just the cost of all the latex and prosthetics must have dented the reported $100 million budget (check out Berry in a Fu Manchu mustache). Like Mitchell's book, the laudable attempt is to show we're all connected. But audiences may only unite in their confusion. At one point, Hanks – playing what I believe is a tattooed Polynesian tribesman of the future – pleads in pidgin English, "Tell me the true true." OK, then. For all the spectacular settings and visionary designs, Cloud Atlas left me feeling disconnected. Sad. But that's the true true.

“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."