Despite the best intentions, this is a simplistic, skin-deep attempt by director Gavin Hood (Tsotsi) to rage against the U.S. policy of torturing suspected terrorists in foreign prisons. The film is crawling with Oscar winners: Reese Witherspoon as the pregnant Chicago woman whose Egyptian-born husband (Omar Metwally) is put on the rack for a bombing in Africa; Meryl Streep as the CIA operative who orders the rendition; Alan Arkin as the senator who goes deaf on pleas to interfere from his assistant (Peter Sarsgaard) and a callow CIA newbie (Jake Gyllenhaal). What a cast, indeed. And what a bust as persuasive drama.

“Everyday People”

"Everyday People" managed to trailblaze in two different ways -- it was one of the first pop hits to deal with the subject of racial harmony, and it utilized Larry Graham's "slap" technique on the bass guitar, which would soon be copied by countless other bassists. Graham once said about his pulsating style, "I'd never done that before … that's where the freedom of creativity came in for the band, that we'd be allowed to do that." In 1978, the song's line "Different strokes for different folks" would be borrowed for the title of the hit television show Diff'rent Strokes.