Will Smith plots his strategy for world domination from the head of the kingly wooden dining table in his sweeping Calabasas, Calif., home. "We call it Global Willing," says Smith of his travel itinerary to warm up the globe for his next film, I Am Legend, in which he plays the only survivor of a man-made plague that has wiped out humanity. "We're going to Hong Kong, Tokyo, Korea ..." It's the morning after Thanksgiving, and Smith, 39, is sleepy-eyed ...

This week, Linda Garibay's monthly welfare check will drop by $43. The unemployed mother of two will struggle to afford clothes, soap and shampoo. She'll be squeezing by on an income of $490 per month, all of which comes from welfare, and spending it all on shared rent for her sister's apartment and diapers and clothes for her kids. She's trying to find a job, but says she's had no success since a clothing store fired her ...

The critics reacted like heartbroken suitors, but Pixar's Cars 2 got its motor running at about the same pace of the 2006 original. The G-rated sequel earned $68 million, according to early estimates, to win the weekend at the North American box office, while the R-rated Bad Teacher stormed into second place with $31 million. After 11 consecutive animated features that scored as both popular hits and reviewers' sweethearts, Pixar was bound at some point to produce ...

In "Farangs," a short story by Thai-American writer Rattawut Lapcharoensap, a guesthouse owner grumbles about foreign tourists and their narrow tastes. "P---y and elephants," she says. "That's all these people want." Actually, we foreigners want much more. We want a drug-dealing monkey and an ass-kicking monk. We want a facial tattoo, men with breasts, and Mike Tyson tunelessly singing "One Night in Bangkok." And we get them all in The Hangover Part II, a sequel to the highest-grossing ...

It was 40 years ago this month that a criminal conspiracy was hatched in the Oval Office — a fact that bears noting as we witness the self-immolation of Anthony Weiner over matters of far less import and ask ourselves just what determines which sins are punished, which forgiven and which forgotten in the public arena. The occasion in 1971 was the publication of the first installment of the Pentagon Papers, a 2.5-million-word secret history of the Vietnam ...

1972 It begins: Pong is invented 1978 Space Invaders blips its way into arcades everywhere 1977 The Atari 2600 game system sells millions of units and brings arcade action home 1980 Pac-Man released 1982 First hit song based on a video game, Pac-Man Fever: "I got a pocket full of quarters ..." 1981 First all-video game magazine: Electronic Games 1982 Video games first appear on the cover of TIME 1982 Tron, the first movie about video games, tanks at the ...

The raw figures say that X-Men: First Class, Marvel's latest extension of its mutant-superhero franchise, won the weekend with $56 million at the North American box office, according to early studio estimates. The film-long flashback — in which young Charles Xavier opens his school for the gift-abled and first locks wills with his turbulent future rival Magneto — launches what Marvel hopes will be a series as profitable as the first three X-Men films, from ...

With Phuket overrun, and Koh Samui headed that way, Koh Kood could become Thailand's next holiday bolt-hole. This pristine isle is reached only by ferry, keeping tourist traffic low. Here are five Koh Kood essentials. 1. Soneva Kiri Six Senses resorts are known for their quirky facilities, and the newest is no exception. Scan the heavens at a real observatory, or dine on a wooden platform high in the jungle canopy, with surreal meal service by waiters on ...

If the U.S. economy had leaped from its worst five-month stretch in recent history to a record-breaking surge, Barack Obama could proudly announce, "The Great Recession is over." The country's finances have seen no such dramatic upturn, but in the movie business they're singing "Happy Days Are Here Again." The Hollywood hills are alive with the sound of money, and on this holiday weekend the cash registers were caroling with the top Memorial Day frame ever. Moviegoers ...

Updated: Dec. 9, 2009, 6:45 p.m. E.T. The late-November afternoon sun bore down on the park in downtown Kampala, and all along the benches, Ugandan office workers took their siestas. There could have been no less likely setting for criminal conspiracies to topple an East African state. Still, the doctor's voice dropped a notch when an office worker in a brown suit settled in close by. The medic shifted a battered fedora over his eyes. "I am the ...