Would you buy Will Smith as John Hancock, an amnesiac, grab-­ass, booze-swilling superhero who flies under the influence and disdains the punk-ass citizens of Los Angeles for thinking he's a superasshole? Trust me, you will. There also exists in L.A. a publicist, Ray Embrey (Jason Bateman), committed to making the world a better place. Now, that's pushing it. Director Peter Berg has a feel for guys who screw up (see Very Bad Things), and he mines the herky-jerky script for every toxic glint of macho posturing. It's all hugely entertaining until the final reel, when the film tries for a tragic dimension it can't handle. Leave that to The Dark Knight. The actors save the day. Bateman doesn't make a false move, and a stellar Charlize Theron springs her own bolts from the blue as Ray's wife. As for Smith, he's on fire. There's nothing like a star shining on his highest beams. You follow him anywhere.

“Everything in Its Right Place”

Thom Yorke hit rock bottom the moment he walked offstage after a 1997 concert in Birmingham, England, which initially left him unable to speak and later led him to write the eerie, discombobulated “Everything.” “Lots of people say that song is gibberish,” he told Rolling Stone. “It’s not. It’s totally about that” – the mute paralysis that had swept over Yorke after the Birmingham show, which stayed with him through the simultaneous recording of Kid A and Amnesiac. Quoting the song’s repeated line, “Yesterday I woke up sucking a lemon,” Yorke twisted his face into a ferocious grimace, explaining, “That’s the face I had for three years.”