Simplicity — four-square, not sappy — is rare in film. James C. Strouse had it in his script for Lonesome Jim. As writer and first-time director, he gives Grace Is Gonethe quiet power to sneak up and floor you. A reserved father (John Cusack in a devastating change of pace) drives his young daughters, the wondrous Shelan O'Keefe and Gracie Bednarczyk, to a Florida theme park, unable to find words to tell them that their soldier mom has been killed in Iraq. That's it. No politics, no pleading. No artifice.

“I'm Yours”

Jason Mraz re-emerged after his disappointing second album with this lead single, a Jack Johnson-esque ditty about giving yourself fully to someone else. The success of the reggae-tinged song (it earned two Grammy nods and a spot on the Billboard singles chart for well over a year) was something the folk-pop singer never predicted when he wrote it in 15 minutes at home. "I played a happy-hippie chord progression that would probably work without 50 different Bob Marley songs," he told Rolling Stone. "I thought, 'It's too novelty. This is a nursery rhyme,'" concluding that "you can never guess what's gonna be a hit."