Kandahar, from Iranian writer-director Mohsen Makhmalbaf, cuts right to the heart of today's war headlines. This fact-based film tells the story of Nafas (Niloufar Pazira), a journalist who fled Afghanistan for Canada as a child. Now the English-speaking Nefas must return in secret to her Taliban-controlled home in Kandahar to save her sister, who has lost both legs in a land-mine explosion and has sent a letter threatening to kill herself during the solar eclipse, just three days away. Makhmalbaf uses the odyssey of Nefas to reflect poetically and forcefully on the subjugation of women — covered head to toe in burkas — the crippling of people by mines (prosthetic limbs are dropped by parachute), and the tragic outcry of a nation in hell. You won't forget this film — it's devastating.

“1999”

“I don’t consider myself a great poet,” Prince told Rolling Stone. “I just know I’m here to say what’s on my mind.” In the case of the apocalyptic party anthem “1999,” he was worried about then-president Ronald Reagan’s foreign policies. The song’s melody is based on a riff borrowed from the Mamas and Papas’ “Monday, Monday,” and Prince originally envisioned the first verse with three-part harmony but later split the vocals between himself and members of the Revolution. Because Warner Bros., with whom Prince was locked in a contractual battle, owned the original’s masters, Prince rerecorded the song and appropriately released that version in 1999.