Did we need a prequel to John Carpenter's 1982 version of The Thing? Probably not, what with Carpenter replaced by Dutch commercial director Matthijs van Heijningen. But Thing cultists won't care. Carpenter's version hinted at a Norwegian research team that found something alien buried in the ice in Antarctica. Here they are. Mary Elizabeth Winstead plays a Columbia prof who joins up. Joel Edgerton is a chopper pilot who becomes her ally as the Thing invades bodies and pretends to be human until it breaks out in gory splendor. That's it. One gut-busting death after another, terror giving way to tedium. Your call.

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“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.