The Claim, directed by Michael Winterbottom, moves Thomas Hardy's 1886 novel "The Mayor of Casterbridge" from England to the Rocky Mountains during the gold rush. More than a few nuggets are lost in the journey. But Winterbottom, who also filmed Hardy's Jude in 1996, draws an electric performance from Peter Mullan as Dillon, a go-getter who makes his fortune at great cost to his soul: He trades his wife and baby for a gold claim. Twenty years later, Dillon is a mining-town kingpin, screwing a saloon singer (Milla Jovovich) and outsmarting a railroad surveyor (Wes Bentley). But the past returns with the arrival of a sickly Polish woman (Nastassja Kinski) and her comely daughter (Sarah Polley). It's all lugubrious as hell, and a bit irritating when Bentley and Polley — two fine young actors — are encouraged to act like contemporary kids in the questionable Titanic tradition. But the power of the tale, and the visuals, exert a hold.

“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."