Kevin Smith (Clerks, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back) has brought so much scrappy wit to movies that you can almost forgive this treacly tale of Big Apple music publicist Ollie Trinke (Ben Affleck), whose wife (Jennifer Lopez — no cracks, please) dies in childbirth. Now Ollie lives in New Jersey with his widowed dad (George Carlin), who helps him raise his eight-year-old daughter, Gertie (cutie-pie Raquel Castro). Tears are jerked as Ollie finds love with a video clerk (Liv Tyler). But Smith cuts the goo with laughs, especially when Gertie does a song in school from Sweeney Todd, Stephen Sondheim's demonic musical about cannibalism. Affleck is modest and engaging, which keeps the movie out of Gigli territory. But it's close.

“The A Team”

This debut track from the then-20-year-old British singer-songwriter has a dark story behind it. Sheeran says he culls songwriting inspiration from "viewing other people's situations," which, for the heroine in "The A Team," involves drug addiction and prostitution that began as a teen. Sheeran paints the woman's trials with haunting imagery such as "But lately her face seems/Slowly sinking, wasting/Crumbling like pastries." "I did a gig at a homeless shelter, [and the song] is about one of the women there. It's her story," he said.