In "The Help," Emma Stone and Bryce Dallas Howard play Skeeter and Hilly, 1960s women of the deep South, each with very different perspectives on the social climate of the era -- while Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer, playing domestic servants Abileen and Minny, endure and strive while trying to build a future out of the challenges of the past. We spoke with Stone, Howard, Spencer and Davis in Las Vegas in March at Cinema Con (alongside Katey Rich of Cinemablend.com) about heat, social justice and the challenges of releasing a classic drama in a summer full of superheroes. Directed by Tate Taylor from Kathryn Stockett's best-selling novel, "The Help" is getting -- and earning -- raves from critics and audiences alike.

Having been on the set, and having been sitting in that air-conditioned tent in the back yard and watching you all melt sitting outside, you feel so much of that watching the movie. You see the footage from that, and you feel the Mississippi setting and the greenery. Does that excite you guys, that all the sweat you put into Mississippi is going to make it onto the screen?

Emma Stone: Literally. There's so much sweat in the movie. We went out the other night -- everyone's sweating.

Bryce Dallas Howard: Crotch sweat.

Viola Davis: Underarm.

How was crotch sweat made in the movie? I don't want to get too graphic.

Howard: (Laughing) Organically.

A lot of (Cinema Con) seems a bit more gladiatorial, a bit more of people rustling their 3D glasses before clips from 'Thor' or 'Green Lantern.'. Does it feel a little bit weird to show up at Cinema Con going 'Please, enjoy our classy literary adaptation with social themes?' Did that feel like a disconnect?

All: No.

Viola Davis: No, it makes us feel special.

Octavia Spencer: And pretty women.

'Battleship' Set Visit, Part 1: Berg, Kitsch and Skarsgård

Let's answer one question right away: Yes, Rihanna can rock naval fatigues and still look sexy enough to make your head explode.

We're sitting on the U.S.S. Missouri, docked in the middle of Pearl Harbor, just when you think it can't get any more beautiful, in walks Brooklyn Decker and then, a bit later on, Rihanna. Let's discuss the pop star first and specifically the outfit she is wearing as she rolls up to the press table.

This is not the Rihanna we are used to seeing: The provocative spreads in Maxim or the sexy stuff she wears while performing on stage. No, she's in navy fatigues, covered head-to-toe, complete with a baseball cap. This is Rihanna's first movie role and what has she chosen? A military badass.

"She doesn't like boys. She doesn't like girls either," Rihanna explains. "She's just about her weapons and her work."

And how does the uniform fit?

"It's really cool, it's easy," she says. "You don't have to think about what you want to put on, or how cute you look."

I saw an advanced screening of “30 Minutes or Less,” the new film by Ruben Fleisher (“Zombieland”) and I have to say I thought it was very funny. Jesse Eisenberg, whose fame skyrocketed last year after his Oscar-nominated performance in “The Social Network,” has an earnest, straight-man quality that works perfectly for this black comedy that also stars Danny McBride, Aziz Ansari, Nick Swardson, and Fred Ward. Oh, there are a few pizza-sized holes in the plot and the extreme violence may be off-putting to some Eisenberg fans, but the film has many twisted moments that are laugh-out-loud funny. And the violence is kind of cartoon-like. People are killed in gruesome ways throughout the film, but it’s often unclear whether they’re really dead or not.

But even before the much-hyped film opens this Friday, it is mired in controversy. In the story, Jesse Eisenberg plays a pizza delivery guy who is kidnapped by two wannabe thugs (McBride and Swardson). They strap a bomb to his chest and force him to rob a bank to get the money they need for the hit they’ve arranged on McBride’s creepy dad (Ward). How much did screenwriters Michael Diliberti and Matthew Sullivan base the film on the real-life case of Brian Wells, a pizza delivery guy in Erie, Pa., who died in 2003 following a bank robbery when a bomb that was strapped onto him went off?

What could you do with $13 billion dollars? Buy a few islands in the South Pacific? Salvage the economy of most third-world nations? Hire the Rolling Stones, the remaining Beatles, and Barbra Streisand to play at your son’s Bar Mitzvah?

According to Box Office Mojo, the newly adjusted totals of the Top Ten Highest-Grossing Films of All Time exceed the 13 billion dollar mark for the first time ever as of this week. Even more astonishingly, three of the films on the list were released this year. The final Harry Potter film has been snaking up the list at record speed and, as of yesterday, reached the number three spot at $1.132 billion since its release less than one month ago. Good God, where will it end? Could J.K. Rowling use her royalties for the series (five other Potter films are in the Top 20) to obliterate the international debt crisis?