Kid stuff? Maybe. But How to Train Your Dragon, from the book by Cressida Cowell, works enough miracles of 3-D animation to charm your socks off. The story follows conventional lines: Viking teen Hiccup (voiced with sly comic skill by Jay Baruchel) is a wimpy misfit to his chief-dad, Stoick the Vast (Gerard Butler), and the babe-ish Astrid (America Ferrera). They want all dragons dead. After befriending the wounded beast Toothless, Hiccup wants to make peace, and Gobber (Craig Ferguson, hilarious), the village blacksmith, thinks he has a point. That's it for plot. But writer-directors Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois (Lilo & Stitch) make funny, touching, sublime entertainment out of it.

“Alison”

On Elvis Costello’s country-tinged ballad, the lyric does not get too sentimental in recalling an ex who had since been with one of the singer's "little friends" and is now married. Some believe the song is about murder, due to lines like “Sometimes I wish that I could stop you from talking,” "Somebody better put out the big light" and, of course, "My aim is true,” which became the title of Costello's debut album. In 2002, Costello told Rolling Stone, “It isn’t [about murder]. It’s about disappointing somebody. It’s a thin line between love and hate, as the Persuaders sang.”