With all the buzz around David Fincher's upcoming American take on Stieg Larsson's Swedish phenom, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, you might forget the Swedes themselves have filmed all three parts of the late Larsson's bestselling trilogy, including Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played With Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest. They're damn fine films. Get over your fear of subtitles and you're in for a treat. All the films star the incandescent Noomi Rapace as Lisbeth Salander, the pierced, tattooed hacker in leather who helps journalist Mikael Blomkvist (a stellar Michael Nyqvist) uncover a conspiracy that eats at the Swedish soul. Hornet's Nest is talky but indisputably terrific, and it ends in a dazzling display of courtroom fireworks. Rapace is hot stuff in any language. Oscar, take heed.

“Help Me”

Joni Mitchell wrote and recorded this song for her album Court and Spark, but she had to switch from her regular band to make the song sound exactly the way she wanted. "I had attempted to play my music with rock & roll players," she told Rolling Stone. "They’d laugh, 'Awww, isn't that cute? She's trying to teach us how to play.'" Mitchell switched to a jazz band, Tom Scott’s L.A. Express, and scored the biggest hit of her career in the process.