Also lost amid the clash of year-end titans is this hypnotic human drama from first-time director Debra Granik. If there were an ounce of taste left in Hollywood, the magnificent Vera Farmiga would be a front-runner for the Best Actress Oscar along with Transamerica's Felicity Huffman and Walk the Line's Reese Witherspoon. Yes, she's that good. Farmiga plays Irene, a blue-collar woman trying to juggle her roles as wife to Steve (Clint Jordan), mom to two boys and supermarket checkout cashier with her full-time avocation as a cokehead. Granik, who wrote the mercilessly blunt script with Richard Lieske, doesn't spare the graphic details. Shot by Michael McDonough, who brings a poet's eye to high-def video, the film is a low-budget winner. And Farmiga, named actress of the year by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, delivers a tour de force.

“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.