Making his debut behind the camera, Oscar winner Philip Seymour Hoffman directs like he acts, with a sharp eye for the small details that cut to the soul of a character. It's the perfect approach to this tenderly funny and touching love story about Jack (Hoffman), a New York limo driver who lacks a way with the ladies. His fellow driver Clyde (John Ortiz) presses his wife, Lucy (Daphne Rubin-Vega), to arrange a date with her co-worker at a Brooklyn funeral parlor. That would be Connie (a terrific Amy Ryan), a bruised romantic who doesn't want any more scars. When Connie tells Jack she'd like to go boating and have a man cook for her, he starts taking lessons. That's it. Based on the Bob Glaudini play that Hoffman directed, the movie stays alert to the dreams and disappointments of four average people on an emotional roller coaster. It's a sublimely acted movie, hilarious and heartfelt.

“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."