I thought for sure that any Hollywood remake of Tomas Alfredson's artful Swedish vampire film, Let the Right One In, would be a crass desecration. Well, color me blushing. Director Matt Reeves (Cloverfield) proves expert at tracing Alfredson's footsteps, creating a mood of chilling terror even while moving the setting from Stockholm to 1980s New Mexico with Reagan raising fears about the Evil Empire. Better yet, Reeves plugs in a live wire to play Abby, the girl vampire who's been 12 for, well, a very long time. That would be Chloë Grace Moretz, an acting dynamo (see Kick-Ass) whose mesmerizing performance goes deep. Abby fascinates her new neighbor, Owen (Kodi Smit-McPhee of The Road), a boy victimized at school by bullies. He wants to be fearless like Abby, whose only parental figure is a guardian, played by the great Richard Jenkins. For the sake of newbies to this story, I'll say no more, except there will be blood and surprising tenderness. Moretz and Smit-McPhee will stay with you, especially in a delicate scene where he asks her to be his girl. "I'm not a girl — I'm nothing," she says. Prepare to be wowed. It's a spellbinder.

“All Along the Watchtower”

Jimi Hendrix got hold of Bob Dylan's early John Wesley Harding tapes and in late 1967 recorded a version of "All Along the Watchtower" with the Experience in London. Dissatisfied with that first development, Hendrix brought those tapes with him to New York in early 1968 when he began work on Electric Ladyland. Eddie Kramer, Hendrix's engineer at the time, told Rolling Stone that Hendrix "was still looked upon by his basically white audience as the mammoth black guitar hero. There was a constant fight within him to expand himself." Hendrix's successful take on Dylan's work has long been recognized by the songwriter. "I liked Jimi Hendrix's record of this and ever since he died I've been doing it that way," Dylan wrote in the liner notes to his Biograph box set. "Strange how when I sing it, I always feel it's a tribute to him in some kind of way."