Secret's Out: J.J. Abrams' Super 8 Is Every Bit as Great as You Hoped It Would Be
Coach JewelrySomething some thing is terrifying the good folks of Lillian, Ohio, but what is it? A gas-station attendant, his face blanched with fear, sees it and screams; all we see is his body being jerked out of the frame. A telephone lineman on his crane hears it as a clattering clank of metal, like a clumsy heist at Home Depot; soon he's gone. But the creepiest hint that a nasty creature lurks in Lillian comes when 12-year-old Joe (Joel Courtney) posts a notice about his lost dog on a public bulletin board and the camera pulls back to reveal a hundred posters of missing pets. Who, or what, took the dogs out? J.J. Abrams, writer and director of the scary, artful new thriller Super 8, is a hoarder of secrets, a master in the fine art of withholding information. Fans of Lost, the TV series he co-created, had to stick around six years for its mysteries to be revealed. "J.J. makes the audience wait for it," says Steven Spielberg, a producer and abettor of Super 8. With a conjurer's practiced blandness, Abrams simply says, "I believe in anything that will engage the audience and make the story more effective." But the man is no sadist.replica coach handbags He, more than anyone, loves not knowing what comes next. As a boy, he bought a mystery box at a Manhattan magic store; now 44, he still has the box and still hasn't opened it. (See Super 8 in TIME's Summer Entertainment Preview 2011.) What's Inside the Boxcar? The mystery box in Super 8 is a boxcar on a freight train speeding through Lillian one night in 1979 as some kids are furtively shooting a Super-8 movie. Pudgy Charles (Riley Griffiths) is the director, with the quick mind, bossiness and vast reserves of movie lore that mark a budding auteur. Cary (Ryan Lee) puts his pyrotechnic and possibly pyromaniacal skills to use as special-effects wizard. hermes birkin handbagsJoe does makeup and constructs the models that Charles' action film will crash. But like any nebbishy guys, these kids are making movies to attract the ladies specifically their leading lady, Alice (Elle Fanning), a 14-year-old blonde with an imperious star quality. As Joe powders her face for the shoot, he gazes at her with naked adoration, perspiration forming on his brow like evening dew. In the middle of their big take, the train crashes into a car on the tracks, spraying tons of debris their way and sending a platoon of military men fanning out across the scene. Only Joe has noticed that the car was driven onto the tracks, seemingly in a suicide mission. In the car is the boys' science teacher (Glynn Turman), injured and near death.cheap nike shoes store "They will kill you," he mutters. "Do not speak of this or else you and your parents will die." Do not speak of what? Of the thing that none of the kids saw the some thing that has escaped. In the other movies Abrams directed, the third Mission: Impossible and the retooled Star Trek, he ornamented familiar mythologies. Super 8, his first feature as writer-director, required that he build his own box and open it. "Withholding things in a story is no good if you aren't building to something substantial," he says. "It becomes foreplay without the main event, and no one wants that." Abrams adepts will recall a similar story, of young people banding together to face a ravenous monster, from Cloverfield, the 2008 alien-invasion film he produced. But Super 8 has a gentler vibe: it leavens the apocalyptic threat with the budding bonding of Joe and Alice. Joe's beloved mother has recently died in a steel-mill accident.Coach Luggage Bags His father (Kyle Chandler, from Friday Night Lights), Lillian's deputy sheriff, has his hands full trying to save the town. The lonely 12-year-old, clinging to his mother's necklace as a talisman, is aching for the sympathetic company of an older woman even two years older.
Coach SunglassesAt first glance, it might seem that Yemen -- like Somalia -- is a place we should best forget about. It has few proven natural resources, its hinterland is largely barren and inaccessible, and it has a long history of being virtually impossible to govern. But first impressions can be misleading, and if Yemen were to sink into a state of anarchy the implications for the Gulf region and beyond would be profound. Location, location, location When I first visited Yemen in 1987, President Ali Abdullah Saleh (yes, he had already been in power for nearly a decade) was cleverly playing one foreign suitor against another. The Chinese were building roads, the United States had a variety of aid schemes (and Hunt Oil of Texas was exploring for hydrocarbons), and the Russians were selling weapons.Coach Sunglasses Yemen was an important place to be in the global chess game. Yemen's oil potential has turned out (so far) to be less exciting than was once thought, but its strategic location still matters. To the north and west it has a long porous border with Saudi Arabia, which is very concerned that instability in Yemen -- and the growing al Qaeda presence there -- could spill over. Saudi Arabia has begun a multibillion-dollar project to make its 1,100-mile border with Yemen more secure, including fences and barbed wire in areas most vulnerable. Since 9/11 the Saudis have invested heavily in stamping out the threat at home from al Qaeda, and the last thing they want is contagion seeping in from next door.hermes birkin The same applies to Oman, Yemen's other neighbor in the south. Saudi Arabia has also been concerned by what it sees as Iranian meddling in Yemen in support of the rebellion by the Houthis (a Shiite minority in the north). Already apprehensive about unrest among their own Shiite minority, the Saudis last year used air power to help the Saleh government subdue the Houthi rebellion. Iran has denied that it has helped the Houthis, but criticized the Saudi intervention. Sea ports The city of Aden in southern Yemen has long been an important port at the crossroads of some of the world's busiest sea lanes. It was built up as a coal station for British merchant ships traveling to India, and its large natural harbor should make it a regional hub. But a lack of investment and political instability has hampered its development. Nike outletThe Gulf of Aden, off Yemen's coast, sees huge tonnage in merchant shipping: every day some 3 million barrels of oil pass through these waters. To the north is the Suez Canal and refineries at the Saudi port of Yanbu; to the south are the Indian Ocean and shipping lanes to energy-hungry Asian markets. These are the sea lanes already prowled by Somali pirates, and the Yemeni coast guard has been part of an international operation to protect shipping. More instability in Yemen, and the possibility that pirates could begin to use its long and sparsely populated coastline, could make shipping in the region even more vulnerable. Yemen also overlooks a maritime "choke-point" -- a narrow passage like the Strait of Hormuz at the tip of the Persian Gulf. At its narrowest, the Bab el Mandeb strait is just 12 miles wide -- Yemen on one side and Djibouti on the other. Coach New Arrivals Little wonder Djibouti has become an important outpost for the U.S. and French military.
Coach JewelryThe slopes of the Rockies beckoned for spring skiing. The airfare seemed reasonable enough on short notice: New York City to Denver for $386 round-trip. But United wasn't finished trying to pry money out of me. At the self-service check-in kiosk, I was offered a chance to upgrade to Economy Plus for $40. Did I have bags to check? The first was $25, the second $45. Did I want to shortcut the security line and board early with the swells, or hope there'd be room in the overhead bins when I got to them? Call it a dehassling fee: $29. The extras, all told, could have added as much as 50% to the ticket price. (See 20 reasons to hate airlines.) Welcome to the unbundled skies. Unbundling is the practice of separating as many cost components as possible in the case of air travel, baggage, boarding, meals, miles, wi-fi and selling them apart from the basic fare. coach handbags outletAirlines are reeling from high fuel costs, so they are taking unbundling to new altitudes. Travel consultant Jay Sorensen, president of IdeaWorks, has identified 35 add- ons, from standard charges such as baggage and food fees to more exotic options like flight-delay insurance or how about a fee to keep the middle seat next to you empty? A la carte pricing gives the airlines shelter from fierce fare wars. Thanks to Expedia, Kayak and other websites, you can discover the cost of flying from Dallas to Boston on most airlines. So nonrefundable coach fares have been driven down to the point that the airlines figure out what they have to charge to get a plane 75% filled past the break-even point. hermes birkinThat allows the airlines to shift capacity risk to you meaning that if you don't show, it's your loss, not theirs, says consultant Olivier Fainsilber of Oliver Wyman. There's not much profit in it, though. The airlines do earn money selling "optionality," mostly to business travelers who pay a premium for refundable fares or the option of changing or canceling flights. (See how much a "free" rewards flight really costs.) Unbundled services, on the other hand, can be far more profitable than selling seats: the prices aren't posted on websites, for one thing. The profit margins on ancillary revenues are as high as 80%. That's why the carriers are going to take unbundling as far as they can. The industry's revenue from add-ons grew to $21.46 billion last year, up 96% in two years. nike dunk shoesUnited's ancillary revenues are up 150% since 2007. American's were nearly $2.2 billion in 2009, says Sorensen, about 9% of total revenue. The majors see plenty of room for growth given what some of the minors are doing: Allegiant Air grabs 29% of its revenue from extras. Airlines once flew two- or three-cabin aircraft that had clear distinctions in price and service. Now there's business class and what has essentially become a variable class of service for every seat in coach. Many travelers appreciate options like more legroom. But the lack of consistency among airlines as to what they will charge extra for will be a source of frustration as unbundling plays out. (There's no baggage fee on Southwest; there is an early-boarding fee.) The U.S. Department of Transportation is proposing a new rule that would make fees more transparent. Coach Accessories And when it comes to airlines, "people are generally in a bad mood anyway," says Sorensen, who is one of them. In the unbundled world, airfare is merely the price of admission to get on a jet. If you crave comfort, convenience, less stress, decent food what was once called good service expect to pay up. That's not exactly friendly, but if you want a friend, goes the saying, buy a dog. Buy the dog, says the unbundled airline industry, and it'll cost an extra $125 to bring it on board.
Coach SunglassesWhen Philip Tarr heard the first reports of a massive outbreak of E. coli in Europe recently, they had a sickeningly familiar ring. Tarr, a microbiologist at Washington University, is an expert on the strains of E. coli that have periodically wreaked havoc in the United States. In 2006, for example, E. coli on contaminated spinach infected 199 people in the United States, causing kidney failure in a number of cases. The European outbreak seemed to fit the pattern: people were infected with E. coli apparently after eating contaminated vegetables. But then Tarr got a rude shock.coach outlet German hospitals sent samples of the E. coli to the Beijing Genome Center to have their DNA sequenced. On June 2, the Chinese researchers reported that the strain was not the same E. coli that contaminated the spinach, known as O157:H7. In fact, it was an entirely different strain, called O104:H4, that had never been associated with epidemics before. Tarr searched the medical literature for reports of the European strain. He could find only a handful of people who had carried it, and none of them got sick. But somehow this obscure microbe had turned vicious, triggering one of the biggestif not the biggestE. coli epidemics in history, with at least 1,730 infections and 18 deaths (at time of writing). We didnt know this bug was out there, says Tarr. This outbreak is taking us all by surprise. The fact that someone like Tarr has been taken by surprise should be of concern to everyone. The new epidemic raises grave questions about how prepared the United States and other countries are for a similar outbreak. hermes birkinWhat makes these outbreaks particularly confusing is that E. coli is, for the most part, a harmless creature. We are each home to billions of harmless E. coli that dwell in our gut. They live peacefully in every other mammal, too. E. coli is so harmless, in fact, that microbiologists began to rear E. coli in laboratory flasks a century ago, and it became the best-studied species on earth. But in the mid-1900s, scientists began uncovering strains of E.Nike outlet coli that could cause life-threatening diarrhea. Unlike ordinary E. coli, they carried genes for a poison known as Shiga toxin, named for Japanese bacteriologist Kiyoshi Shiga. Over time, microbiologists identified a number of strains of disease-causing bacteria, classifying them by the proteins on their surface. In 1982, E. coli O157:H7 burst on the scene with particularly grisly flair. It struck 25 people in Medford, Ore., and then three months later the same strain caused an outbreak in Traverse City, Mich. Scientists were able to trace the bacteria back to undercooked hamburgers. Since then, scientists have found a half dozen other strains that cause similar illnesses, but E. coli O157:H7 has been responsible for the lions share of E. coli food poisoning. It struck again in 1993 in contaminated hamburgers in Washington state, for example, sickening 732 people and killing four of them. But it has not used just hamburger to infect its victims.Coach Scarves Along with the spinach outbreak of 2006, E. coli O157:H7 has turned up in lettuce, bean sprouts, and even cookie dough.
