Tales

washington -- Mitt Romney twice emphasized his unique business background when he and eight other Republican presidential candidates faced off in a debate last week in Iowa. "I've spent the last, as I've told you, 25 years in the private sector," former Massachusetts Gov. Romney declared at one point. "I understand why jobs come and why jobs go. I've done business in 20 countries."

The box-office debut of"Battleship" - an attempt to transform the kids' strategy pastime into a summer blockbuster - looked like a very different board game over the weekend: Trouble. Universal Pictures' $209-million alien invasion spectacle fizzled badly in its domestic premiere, grossing just $25.3 million and finishing a distant second to the third weekend of Disney's "The Avengers," according to Sunday estimates. The debut of "Battleship" - whose ticket sales were about 40% lower than some predictions - was even worse than the $30.2-million March opening of"John Carter,"one of the biggest fiascoes in Hollywood history, and the film's audience was surprisingly old. "I'm hugely disappointed in this opening," said Nikki Rocco, Universal's president of domestic distribution, who added that the film's respectable international numbers will soften the domestic blow.

The Power of the Dog A Novel Thomas Savage Back Bay, $14.99 paper This 1967 classic captures a moment in American history: Montana, in the early 20th century, when the locomotive, referred to by cowboys as "the power," was just starting to interrupt steer herding and carve pathways of industry across the West. The cowboys, who can now see imitations of themselves on moving picture screens, are losing their connection to the land. "The new sun rising above the eastern hills showed a world so vast and hostile to individual hope that the young cowhands clung to memories of home, kitchen stoves, mothers' voices.

Eat. Pray. Love. Spritz. Now inhale deeply and feel your life transform. It's only May, but 2012 is already shaping up as the year perfume wafted from the lively online blogs and into mainstream publishing in a big way. These days, new fragrance releases are greeted - and critiqued - with the intellectual sophistication formerly reserved for Paris fashion shows. Perfume is an art form and the "noses" who compose cutting-edge fragrances are rock stars. Writers, always hip to the zeitgeist, are avidly chronicling this renaissance and some books have even inspired their own perfumes.

As the evening call to prayer sounded through the alleyways of old Damascus, the aging storyteller known as Abu Shadi clambered into an elevated chair at the Nawfara cafe, slipped on a pair of rimless reading glasses and turned to the page where he'd left off. An expectant silence settled over the smoke-filled room, interrupted by the clink of coffee cups and tea glasses. For two decades, Abu Shadi has regaled his audience of shopkeepers, university students and tourists with epic tales of war and romance, heroes and rogues from the classics of Arabic literature.

A corporate chairman accused of making illegal campaign contributions fires the board member who calls him out, inspiring a directors' revolt. An executive who promotes women in the corporate ranks is forced to reconsider when his wife starts acting jealous. A brilliant idea man passed over for a promotion because of his physical deformity hatches a spectacular embezzlement scheme … and gets away with it. These figures have the individuality and plausibility of characters drawn from real life, but they're fictional characters in a new business text by Simon Ramo.

Roller derby is a lot more than just skating around and around a track, as any of the bruised but buoyant gals featured in the documentary "Brutal Beauty: Tales of the Rose City Rollers" will tell you. For the uber-competitive, it's a puzzle to solve; for the creative, it's an alter-ego party of hot pants, punny names and tattoos; for the highly social, it's always girls' night out; and for plenty of women whose toughness has no outlet in polite society,...

"Tales of the City" may have introduced author Armistead Maupin and Olympia Dukakis, the most memorable face from the three television miniseries adapted from the books. But American Conservatory Theater, the venerable resident theater on Geary Street led by artistic director Carey Perloff, is what keeps bringing them back together. A few weeks ago, when Dukakis was performing in Morris Panych's play "Vigil" at A.C.T., where she serves on the board of trustees, the theater announced that a musical of Maupin's beloved chronicle would have its world premiere there at the end of next season.

Oh, the joy of feasting once again on a magazine of short stories ("Tales for a Summer Day," July 1). When I was growing up, such magazines as Liberty, Collier's and Saturday Evening Post were eagerly awaited and their short stories devoured upon arrival. Then such magazines disappeared, forever, we thought. Then Los Angeles Times Magazine brings back the days of my girlhood, and with such beautiful stories. None of that esoteric stuff I can hardly comprehend, but human stories about real people.

The squeaky wheel gets the grease. If that wheel's name happens to be Fudge Hatcher, it also gets the lamb chop, free run of the house, way more attention than it deserves and just about anything else its scheming little heart desires. At least that's the way it looks to Peter, Fudge's older brother and the beleaguered hero of "Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing," Bruce Mason's adaptation of the children's book by Judy Blume.

MARLOES SANDS, Wales - Nearly a hundred soldiers on horseback sprinted across the beach here last fall, dodging arrows and catapulted fire balls. Despite many casualties, the charging "Snow White and the Huntsman" army was determined to storm the castle of the evil Queen Ravenna, who not only can suck the beauty out of young women but also transmogrify into a murder of crows. Assessing the battle from an all-terrain vehicle was Rupert Sanders, a commercial director making his first feature film.

The allure of stardom brings model-handsome wannabe Adam (Matthew Ludwinski) to Hollywood - and down some dubious moneymaking side roads into gay pornography and escorting - in writer-director Casper Andreas' cautionary showbiz tale "Going Down in La-La Land," which is based on a novel by Andy Zeffer. But its Andreas' own attraction to the easy spotlight of warmed-over bitchy humor (courtesy Adam's gal pal roomie, played by Allison Lane), familiar plotting and by-the-numbers characterization that sinks this earnest, gay-contoured take on the evergreen making-it-big melodrama.

GREENSBORO, N.C. - His political career is wrecked, his reputation is destroyed. He poisoned his marriage, and his martyred wife died knowing he cheated on her and lied about it to the world. And yet Johnny Reid Edwards has behaved as if he owns the courtroom where the Justice Department has been prosecuting him the last three weeks. He strides into court, his face tanned, his hair perfectly in place, his suit crisp. He grabs his counsel's arm and orders him to object to a prosecutor's question.

Even an A-list star like Johnny Depp was no match for"The Avengers" at the box office this past weekend, as the superhero adventure dominated ticket sales yet again and flew past $1 billion worldwide. After its $207.4-million debut broke the record for the biggest opening - not adjusting for inflation - "The Avengers" raked in an additional $103.2 million in its second weekend of domestic release, according to an estimate from distributor Walt Disney Pictures. The film featuring Marvel comic book characters such as the Hulk, Iron Man and Thor sucked the life out"Dark Shadows," leaving Depp's vampire comedy looking pallid with a lackluster $28.8-million start.

The Hero's Guide to Saving Your Kingdom A Novel Christopher Healy HarperCollins: 432 pp., $16.99, ages 8 and up Whether it's Cinderella or Snow White, Rapunzel or Sleeping Beauty, princes play a key role in the happily ever afters of fairy tales. But what happens once these dashing young lads have swooped in to save their distressed damsels? What if, as Christopher Healy theorizes with his cheeky middle-grade debut, these princes turned out to be insufferable losers?

Julie Berebitsky's history of hanky-panky in U.S. offices over the last 150 years is an extraordinary achievement. To write about so much bottom-pinching, ogling and scandal without a single double entendre or levity of any sort must have taken considerable restraint. Instead, the history professor at the University of the South in Sewannee, Tenn., has chosen to present her treasure trove of saucy examples in such a relentlessly flat way that "Sex and the Office: A History of Gender, Power and Desire" is an effort to get through.

In response to the excellent article on fairy tales, there is one additional plus for using the originals, and that is the wonderful artwork which is found in these books. Exposing children to fine illustration is an important part of their development from a very early age. EDYTHE M. McGOVERN Los Angeles

There's nothing cryptic about tonight's premiere trilogy of "Tales From the Crypt," HBO's anxiously anticipated horror anthology series. Perhaps befitting its garish comic-book origins, the series looks to be about as subtle as a sledgehammer--or a fireplace poker in the cranium, or an arrow in the chest, or any of the other dozen or so methods of dispatch on view in the three episodes tonight at 9:30. Squeamish viewers should know that the comics these tales are taken from aren't the safe-'n'-sane comics of today but the R-rated EC Comics of the '50s, produced before the U.S. Senate took up an investigation of their detrimental effect on juvenile morals.

"Prague Winter: A Personal Story of Remembrance and War, 1937-1948" Madeleine Albright Harper: 480 pp., $29.99 Madeleine Albright is a formidable figure. She was a member of the National Security Council and the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. When she became secretary of State in 1997, she was the first woman to hold the position. Her manner is direct, with a frankness uncommon for her level of statecraft. Nowadays she teaches at Georgetown, has a school of international studies named for her at her alma mater, Wellesley College, and writes the occasional book.

As self-consciously precocious teens go, the high schooler at the center of"Girl in Progress"is an exceptionally contrived example. But contrivance is the engine of this young-adult comedy, which pretends to deconstruct storytelling clichés while never really transcending them. The transparent postmodern manipulation of Hiram Martinez's screenplay revolves around Ansiedad (Cierra Ramirez), responsible daughter to an aimless mother, Grace (Eva Mendes), who had her when she was just a teen herself.