'Back To Black'

Malcolm Gladwell contends in his book Outliers that there are a number of variables that go into an individual succeeding and another not.

Unfortunately for the rest of us, a lot of success can be chalked up to luck. Kind of being at the right place at the right time and, thus, taking advantage from that point.

Amy Winehouse's Back to Black has sold 10 million copies as she released probably one of the most well-regarded albums of the past decade and definitely of that year. And I think it was a set of insane circumstances that put her on that level.

For one, the album is tremendously unique (for the current day) mixing the blend of 1960s R&B and soul with modern pop and R&B. It's fresh and raw. It was something the public was not ready for being ready for. It was extremely accessible for being kind of an oddball album (British girl goes Motown). People listened to it and couldn't wait to say to someone else, "Have you heard this Amy Winehouse chick?" Also, it appealed to the hipsters and music snobs in addition to all the marginal music fans. It was a true crossover hit.

As soon as the album started to stick and the Brits were going bananas, all the personal baggage surrounding Winehouse's life comes out. The drugs, alcohol and partying. The dependent boyfriend who was just as bad a drug whore as she was. To a certain point, it made the album dangerous and completely legit. Like 50 Cent getting shot or T.I. going to prison. Also, it put her in the headlines. Over and over and over. You couldn't buy the press Winehouse was getting for smoking crack.

It also should be noted that Winehouse had style. The hair, the tattoos, the eyeliner, the emaciated crackwhore look. Yet, there's a major hint of sex and degradation that exists that we all want, as evidenced by our pornography.

Back to Black doesn't sell without Winehouse. If Duffy or some other tart records that album, it fails. The album needed her far more than she needed the album.

'Tapestry'

When you're able to capture the mood of the album through the album cover, you know you've got something good.

The wild-haired, barefooted King sitting next to the window on that wooden bench with her cat encapuslates everything you'll take away from the actual songs on the record.

It's stripped down and intimate. Just King and her songs and a piano. Some backing vocals and instruments. But, on the whole, it's King almost in your living room pouring her soul out to you with these heartbreakingly sincere songs.

And that damn cat. Posing there on that blue pillow as if it were his/her album and not King's.

Tapestry is one of my favorite albums of all time. I've owned it for a decade and I remember buying it used almost solely on the album cover. It floors me that King was album to write "Will You Love Me Tomorrow" at the tender age of 18. I think it should be made illegal for an 18-year-old to feel the way the narrator of that song feels. It's just too unnatural. I blame Gerry Goffin or James Taylor. Not sure who.

'Daisies'

A very well-rounded protest film that doesn't seem like a protest film but it must be a protest film because it couldn't possibly be anything else.

A Czech film made and released amid Communist Russia control of the country in the 1960s. At certain points, you can't really tell if their lampooning Communism or capitalism. The West or the East. Probably both. Seeking some middle ground, I guess.

The film is part of the Czech New Wave that took place during this time period. As I will probably keep watching a bunch of these films, I think it'll be interesting to not only discover their thoughts on the Communist regime, but also how they dealt with the time after Nazi occupation and World War II.

Think about it: Large hunks of these countries' populations were killed, livelihoods destroyed and these people were placed under a regime on one "end" of the spectrum to the other "end" within several years of each other. That had to take a mental toll and I suspect that will show itself through these films.

'Youth and Young Manhood'

The Kings of Leon had the unusual circumstance that they were an American band that was entirely more popular in England.

Their first album -- Youth and Young Manhood -- is actually quite good. At the time, it was kind of a Southern gothic take on the garage/indie rock scene busting out at the time.

Even the band had this mystique: A family (brothers, a cousin) brought up in the southern Pentecostal world playing rock music together. This is how cults start.

Anyway, this album peaked at 113 in the United States and three in the United Kingdom. As they released more and more records, the bigger they got in England and, seemingly, the less popular they got in the United States. By their third album, they were not challenging anyone with their music. It was bordering on radio pop until their last album really burst on the scene and made them mega-rock stars in the United States.

I kind of can't stand them now. It's one thing for their sound to change and for me not to like the new direction. However, these guys are the epitome of a group of sell outs. They are quoted quite frankly that they wanted to be big in the United States and were forced to change their sound to achieve this. I don't begrudge the opportunity to make a buck. And I hope I'm not begrudged the opportunity to not like you.

'North By Northwest'

For my money, North by Northwest is the perfect Alfred Hitchcock film. His best and as close to perfection as the man got and he spent his career getting really close.

It's a brilliant, funny script set around Cary Grant being mistaken as some sort of American agent tracking down ol' James Mason, who's attempting to smuggle certain confidential information out of the country.

What's interesting is that Grant (Thornhill), naturally, denies being the agent, George Kaplan. Once he is almost murdered, he decides to investigate to either prove that he was right (that he was kidnapped and nearly murdered) or to clear his name as Kaplan so these other guys won't try to nearly kill him again.

At a certain point, he becomes Kaplan. He doesn't make this decision. It happens. As soon as he talks to the hotel maid as a means of finding out more information about Kaplan, he becomes Kaplan. Accordingly, he doesn't really blame James Mason and his goons for trying to kill him. e not only adopts Kaplan's name, but his problems. He becomes Kaplan.

Of course, Kaplan doesn't exist. He's a MacGuffin. Or so says Hitchcock:

It might be a Scottish name, taken from a story about two men in a train. One man says 'What's that package up there in the baggage rack?" and the other answers 'Oh that's a McGuffin.' The first one asks 'What's a McGuffin?' 'Well', the other man says, 'It's an apparatus for trapping lions in the Scottish Highlands.' The first man says 'But there are no lions in the Scottish Highlands,' and the other one answers 'Well, then that's no McGuffin!' So you see, a McGuffin is nothing at all.

A MacGuffin is nothing. It's a plot device used to divert the audience's from the actual plot. Kaplan -- and, accordingly, Grant's character -- do not matter. They're used to distract everyone of the real plot: James Mason trying to get out of the country with the microfilm.

What shocks me the most is the beauty and clarity of the film. There are some shots, individually, that awe me for their color and clarity as if they were done with a high-definition camera. I don't think you see it this good with any other Hitchcock.

'Little Miss Sunshine'

I remember this film initially being promoted and hyped as "Steve Carell in a serious role." He'd had "The Daily Show" fame on top of Anchorman and The 40-Year-Old Virgin. Therefore, playing the gay, suicidal Marcel Proust scholar was considered a seachange in Carell's career.

However, you come away from watching Little Miss Sunshine completely impressed with the people you weren't aware of like Paul Dano, Abigail Breslin and Alan Arkin.

Dano's on Joseph Gordon-Levitt level with me: I watch anything he's in. He's absolutely awesome in this film and he's fantastic in There Will Be Blood.

Breslin is an actress that had that one fleeting moment. She's gone on to do other films and they all suck and chances are she'll never be in anything worthwhile for the rest of her life. And that's OK. You don't need to set the world on fire twice in a lifetime. Most never do and Breslin happened to do it as a 10 year old.

Why was she so good? It wasn't her acting chops or her performance, per se. It was the look. The tacky clothes, the glasses and that awkward body that hadn't quite gotten rid of that baby fat and hadn't evolved into the slender, longer frame that she's surely adopt with age. They captured her on film at the perfect time. The scene where Dano's Dwayne lifts Breslin's Oliver up a steep embankment and her poochy belly sticking out is accidentally awesome. It sorta makes the film. That you can't teach and you can't script or storyboard.

'The War Game'

I like the people call this a "pseudo-documentary." Know what else is a "pseudo-documentary"? Jurassic Park. Birds. Titanic. Les Vampires. Night of the Living Dead. Halloween.

Categorizing something as a documentary is a cut-and-dry proposition. A "pseudo-documentary" is called a film. It's a drama, war movie, comedy or romance. The Office isn't a "pseudo-documentary." It's a sitcom.

Despite the inaccurate classification, it is still a very interesting and thought provoking film. It is done in a documentary-style, supposing some kind of nuclear attack between the United States and Russia somehow hit England. The film captures the aftermath. Kind of a pseudo-political rant against nuclear war.

I think people that are against nuclear war are funny. No one is for nuclear war. People know what's going to happen should it happen. We know the fallout. Maybe the generalization amongst most is that they don't realize the after effects of a nuclear bomb dropping. They do. But what exactly are we supposed to do about it. Protest all you want. If Russia wanted to drop one on Miami or New York, there wasn't too much anybody could really do about it.

There's craploads we don't have any control over and even more that we don't fret over on any given day. A "pseudo-documentary" doesn't really change any of that. But it can try.