A classy ghost story is just the ticket in a summer of crass jolts. Look at the pedigree: Brazilian filmmaker Walter Salles (The Motorcycle Diaries, Central Station) directing Oscar winner Jennifer Connelly in an American remake of a Japanese horror hit from Ringu master Hideo Nakata. And if you want to get creeped out by water that drips, leaks, gushes and reflects dark mysteries, Tokyo has nothing on New York's Roosevelt Island. No sooner do Dahlia (Connelly), still fragile from a bitter separation, and her daughter Ceci (the eerily expressive Ariel Gade) cross the East River on a tram from Manhattan than the rain comes down. There are puddles in the elevator of the dilapidated but cheap apartment Dahlia rents from Mr. Murray (John C. Reilly, making fake cheer a study in evil), and what's the wet stain on the ceiling in the bedroom? But wait, no fair telling.

Screenwriter Rafael Yglesias (Fearless) stays alert to the psychological fears that underpin the supernatural doings in the apartment upstairs. Connelly digs deep into the role of a woman with issues of abandonment and rage that slowly reveal their roots. In a movie with more subtext than Rosemary's Baby, nearly everyone, including Tim Roth as Dahlia's lawyer, harbors secrets. Salles unleashes a torrent of suspense for one purpose: to plumb the violence of the mind.

“1999”

“I don’t consider myself a great poet,” Prince told Rolling Stone. “I just know I’m here to say what’s on my mind.” In the case of the apocalyptic party anthem “1999,” he was worried about then-president Ronald Reagan’s foreign policies. The song’s melody is based on a riff borrowed from the Mamas and Papas’ “Monday, Monday,” and Prince originally envisioned the first verse with three-part harmony but later split the vocals between himself and members of the Revolution. Because Warner Bros., with whom Prince was locked in a contractual battle, owned the original’s masters, Prince rerecorded the song and appropriately released that version in 1999.