Word: showness
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Last week,s big prequel, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, which still holds this year's opening-weekend record with the $85 million, toppled an expected 68% to place second. The Matthew McConaughey rom-com Ghosts of Girlfriends Past won the show position with a more demure drop of 32%; but it wasn't falling from lofty heights, more stepping off a curb. Beyonce's Obsessed and the Zac Efron 17 Again filled out the top five. Less successful at reviving a dormant film form - the 1970s blaxploitation comedy - was the druggy Next Day Air, which took in just $4 million...
...there were plenty of challenges for scripters Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, who wrote MI3 and the new generation of Transformers epics, and have worked with Abrams on his TV shows. Their mission was to graft the characters from the original show onto a modern sensibility. Creator Gene Roddenberry was fond of moral and political lessons declaimed by actors in pastel polyesters; that was, after all, the late 1960s, an epoch so distant that the word irony hadn't yet been invented. Solemn homilies had to be replaced by gritty action, and thinky by feelie. (Read Richard Corliss' reviews...
...that's the fun of spinning an origins story; the writers can improvise the itinerary as long as they reach a plausible destination - one that folds into the beginning of the first show of the first season of the original Star Trek. From the rapt response of Trekkies, critics and this weekend's customers, that journey could be long and prosperous...
Other research has documented how harmful stress can be on the body; anxiety can raise levels of hormones that promote inflammation and other metabolic processes that can wear down the cardiovascular system, making us vulnerable to stroke, hypertension and heart disease. These studies also show that some behavioral changes, such as getting regular exercise and eating a healthy diet, can help to reduce some of the damaging effects of stress on the body - something to keep in mind if you find yourself suddenly out of work...
...talk indeed. Sadr's visit to Turkey a week ago, his first public appearance in nearly two years, has renewed talk in Baghdad about what his plans might be in the months and years ahead. "I think Sadr picked Turkey to show himself in order to prove that he's against sectarianism... and to try and kill the rumor that he is an Iranian toy," says Tahseen al-Shekhli, a spokesman for the Iraqi government, which gained the upper hand over Sadr's Mahdi Army forces in heavy fighting last year. Sadr's followers, for their part, are notably reticent...