Many films these days claim to be ripped from the headlines. The Whistleblower really is. Rachel Weisz excels as Kathryn Bolkovac, a Nebraska cop and single mom who thought a 1999 United Nations peacekeeping job in Bosnia might solve her financial problems. Kathryn arrives in Sarajevo to aid the local police in stopping sex trafficking and then finds that the cops, the diplomats and even U.N. employees are a major part of the problem. She finds allies in Madeleine Rees (Vanessa Redgrave), head of the U.N. Human Rights Commission, and Jan Van Der Velde (David Strathairn), an internal-affairs investigator. But corruption is everywhere. Unfortunately, first-time director Larysa Kondracki overplays her hand. The film swings from melodrama to sermonizing, both blunting the human drama that needs to come to the fore. It's Weisz who holds the ground in a performance of ferocity and feeling.

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“Is It True”

As the British Invasion reached its peak in 1964, Brenda Lee went from Nashville to London to record one of her hardest-rocking hits, her perky vocal backed by a stuttering, squalling guitar. That guitar was played by session musician Jimmy Page, yet to skyrocket to fame with first the Yardbirds and then Led Zeppelin. "She said to me, 'I've come here to make a record with the British sound,'" remembered producer Mickie Most. "She felt she wouldn't get the same sound in Nashville because they're only just catching up on the British beat group sound of about six months ago."