Alice Eve and Chris Pine in 'Star Trek Into Darkness' (Photo: Paramount Pictures)

While Alice Eve is a newcomer to the cast of "Star Trek into Darkness" along with Benedict Cumberbatch, her character has deep roots. "She's dug, dug in there," said Eve about the role of Dr. Carol Marcus, originally played by Bibi Besch in the 1982 film "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan."

"Dr. Marcus is a weapons specialist with a PhD," Eve continued. "She's incredibly intelligent and highly qualified. In the canon, she has Kirk's baby. In ‘Wrath of Khan,' she is the mother of his grown son," Eve told Yahoo! Movies while promoting Neil LaBute's "Some Velvet Morning" opposite Stanley Tucci at the 2013 Tribeca Film Festival.

Photo: Walt Disney Pictures

The folks over at Huffington Post today raised a titillating question: "Action Movie Butt Shots: Why Must Fighting Females Assume the Same Pose?" Or, more simply, why are chicks in action movie posters always posed backsides-forward?

The simple answer: the butt-thrust pose sells tickets. The tactic gets average-Joes in seats. Action movies favor female back-views because they're marketing tools aimed largely at young males, not females.

The Meta answer: raising the question is a good way to prompt a juicy gallery of poster art. Here is ours:

Max Irons and Saoirse Ronan in 'The Host' (Photo: Alan Markfield/Open Road Films)

Team Edward vs. Team Jacob is so last year. With "Twilight" faded into the twilight, fans of the Stephanie Meyer sparkly vampires need a new fix. And Meyer herself is stepping up with what she hopes will fill that need in the form of the new sci-fi soap "The Host."

Photo: Derek Watson

In honor of World Water Day, we talked to Derek Watson, the director of "This Is Normal," an informative short film about waterborne diseases that fell up to 2 million children a year. Watson clued Yahoo! Movies in on an appalling fact: One in five children in the developing world dies from contaminated water, and it's completely preventable.

What inspired Watson to make this particular film? "As a storyteller, as a human being, we want to make a difference and to eradicate the world water crisis and literally change history," he replied. "We have the opportunity to do it in our lifetime. We just need to act."

While global activism can be daunting, and a single domestic action can feel like a drop in the bucket, that's not the case here. One of the film's three subjects is Oklahoma-based businessman and Water 4 Foundation founder Dick Greenly. The owner of Pumps of Oklahoma has developed a low-tech water drilling system that allows locals in Haiti, Sierra Leone, Zambia, Uganda, and

Samantha Barks in 'Les Miserables' (Photo: Universal Pictures)

During the 2013 awards season, Anne Hathaway's Oscar-bound sweep as Fantine in "Les Misérables" sadly overshadowed one of the movie musical's biggest break-through performances -- that of Samantha Barks as Eponine. With the release of the movie on Blu-ray and DVD this Friday, audiences will have another chance to check out the pipes on the Isle of Man native who made her film debut alongside Hathaway, Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, and Eddie Redmayne.

Barks definitely comes from the glass-slipper, Cinderella-story school of show business: She was named Best Foreign Singer at the Maltese International Song Competition in 2007. The next year, at 17, she came in third on the BBC talent show "I'd Do Anything." Next up were "Aladdin" at the Theatre Royal Windsor and Sally Bowles in "Cabaret" at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre, and then she entered "Les Mis" territory playing Eponine, a tragic love-struck urchin, in London's West End.

Famed producer Cameron Mackintosh caught Barks at the West End and cast her opposite Nick Jonas in "Les Misérables in Concert: The 25th Anniversary" in 2010. From there, she was just a song away from her film debut in Tom Hooper's Oscar-winning musical. We caught up with the dark-haired, dimpled star, 22, who was as surprised as anybody that she made the cut alongside the Hollywood A-list: "I never for a second thought I would be considered. It was a new experience for me after the West End. On film, you have to really play to a camera instead of trying to fill a 2,000-seat auditorium. To bring it into such an intimate place is very exciting."

Chris O'Dowd in 'The Sapphires' (Photo: The Weinstein Company)

Chris O'Dowd delivers another off-kilter comedic performance in the infectious dramedy "The Sapphires," a fact-based musical that has all the makings of a sleeper hit. The Irish-born newlywed ("Bridesmaids," TV's "Girls") plays a down-and-out Australian music promoter who stumbles across three country-western-singing Aboriginal women at a backwater talent contest. He recognizes their ability, rebrands them as a soul-music girl band, and sends them on the road for an all-expenses-paid tour to entertain the troops in Vietnam (cue bombs bursting in air).

Sure, there's a bit of formula, and an extra measure of feel-good, but this underdog story set in the aftermath of Australia's Stolen Generation hits home with heart and humor.