Having just won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, this provocative Danish parable from director Susanne Bier (After the Wedding) tries its luck at the U.S. multiplex, where drivel rules. Fight the power. Despite detours into sentiment and preaching, In a Better World is an emotional powerhouse. Anton (Mikael Persbrandt) is a divorced doctor of torn responsibilities. He frequently leaves his son, Elias (Markus Rygaard), at home in Denmark to work in Kenya among victimized women.

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That leaves troubled, timid Elias to form a bond with Christian (William Jøhnk Nielsen), the hot-tempered son of a father (Ulrich Thomsen) turned withdrawn by his wife's death. When Elias is harassed at school, Christian steps in with tragic results. Bier contrasts bullying at home with what Anton faces on a global scale. It's a big subject, fraught with traps, but Bier means to shake you and does.

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“Is It True”

As the British Invasion reached its peak in 1964, Brenda Lee went from Nashville to London to record one of her hardest-rocking hits, her perky vocal backed by a stuttering, squalling guitar. That guitar was played by session musician Jimmy Page, yet to skyrocket to fame with first the Yardbirds and then Led Zeppelin. "She said to me, 'I've come here to make a record with the British sound,'" remembered producer Mickie Most. "She felt she wouldn't get the same sound in Nashville because they're only just catching up on the British beat group sound of about six months ago."