If looks were all it took to thrill, this opulent, near-operatic historical pageant would rank with Zhang Yimou's last two epics, Hero and House of Flying Daggers. But Golden Flower is cursed with being too much of a good thing, with Gong Li's cleavage. Cast as a tenth-century Chinese empress, this mesmerizer of an actress bites into her role like a juicy apple. The great Chow Yun Fat is her match as the emperor who deals with the problems in their marriage — such as her affair with her stepson, the crown prince (Liu Ye) — by trying to poison her. And that's just for ters. No wonder the empress is driven mad. You'll go nuts too if you try to unravel the plot strands or interpret the film through the personal relationship between Gong Li and her director that ended in 1995. The pleasures are mostly visual, from the texture of a gold fabric to the bloody battles that didn't need to be so amped with computer effects.The final effect is stunning, but also sadly impersonal.

“The Pretender”

This song wasn't part of the planned track listing for 2007's Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace, and was put together in a day. "It happened after we recorded a lot of stuff," said Dave Grohl. Yet it ended up as the album opener and the lead single. Grohl called it "a stomping Foo Fighters uptempo song with a little bit of Chuck Berry in it." The singer hinted at the lyrics' political overtones: "Everyone's been f---ed over before and I think a lot of people feel f---ed over right now and they're not getting what they were promised."