A TV weatherman and his girl rig the lottery in an unlucky mix of mirth and malice John Travolta nails every laugh he can as Russ Richards, a TV weather dork in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, circa 1988. As a local celeb, Russ commands his own booth at Denny's, boinks the station's lotto girl, Crystal (Lisa Kudrow), and raises enough cash to open his own snowmobile business. But when a balmy winter produces no snow, Russ faces financial ruin. Adam Resnick's bilious script, inspired by an actual lottery fraud, concerns a plan concocted by Russ and Crystal to rig the lotto drawing.

Lucky Numbers gets darker than you might expect for a movie directed by Nora Ephron, best known for souffles like Sleepless in Seattle, You've Got Mail and Michael, also starring Travolta. This flick is front-loaded with unsavory types, including a strip-club owner (a dryly funny Tim Roth), a hopped-up thug (Michael Rapaport), a greedy station manager (Ed O'Neill), a clueless cop (Bill Pullman) and Crystal's fat, asthmatic, perv cousin (Michael Moore). Premium actors all — it's a special kick to see "Friend" Kudrow as a twisted, murderous slut — but Ephron, try as she might, can't give her codified champagne spin to a Resnick script that all too quickly runs out of fizz.

“Satisfied”

Only the genius of Tom Waits could combine the subject of mortality, a reoccurring theme in his work, with wordplay that name checks both Mick and Keith, whom he calls "Mr. Jagger" and "Mr. Richards," and the title of their magnum opus, "Satisfaction." And to show just how cool Waits really is, he even got Mr. Richards to play along, one of nine guest appearances the guitarist has made on three Waits albums. "This growling roadhouse stomp is a late-breaking response to the Stones' greatest hit," Rolling Stone said of the track.