Watch It: Ong Bak 2

If you ever watch martial arts movies and find yourself thinking: Self, this moving is missing two crucial elements:

1. Vampires,
2. Magic tricks. Not magic. Not mythical paranormal shit. But actual look-at-my-handkerchief-on-no-it's-a-BUNNY magic tricks,

then Ong Bak 2 is the movie for you. Not the original Onk Bak which featured superior fighting scenes but alas, suffered from a dearth of vampires and magic tricks. But Onk Bak 2 which is technically a prequel. Try to keep up.


Onk Bak 2 features muay thai sensation Tony Jaa at his brutal best. He's been boning up on acting lessons and embracing grittier and bloodier action sequences. Be warned. If horror movie gore make you squeamish, then you won't fare any better here.

When Tony Jaa gets cut, he doesn't even need to self cauterize the wound with a fire-steamed blade a la Rambo. He just rubs some dirt on it and gets on with his ass kicking.

Not that the movie doesn't have it flaws. If you're going to set an imperial palace scene with a huge fire pit, then you better make sure your hero knocks someone into said pit. There's such a thing as viewer expectation.

Otherwise, Tony Jaa delivers what his fans expect. A training montage. A comedic group fight scene. Specatular leaps and jumps. Themes of betrayal and revenge.

So go forth and enjoy!

Read It : Flash Burnout by LK Madigan

Reasons close friends will find it weird that I am recommending this book:

1. The protagonist is a boy. (Boy protags are not my fav.)
2. There is no magician/vampire/fairy/mythical creature from the black lagoon or other regions.
3. The dude on the cover kind of looks like my brother. And thinking about your bro while reading a book is weird.

Would I have picked this book up without a recommendation? Probably not. But the author's agent literally (like...literally) shoved the book into my hands when I was in a bookstore. Putting it back would have been super classless. Plus the agent has ridiculous good taste. So I read it. And I loved it. A LOT.

Reasons I am recommending this book:

1. The protagonist is awesome. A super sweet guy. Funny and genuine. Great family dynamic. Confused. Conflicted. Tries to do the right thing. Sometimes fails. I can play this game all day.
2. There is a rich, sensory, genuine world that feels real and kinda like what you experienced in high school. Not crazy overwrought clique town but not free of angst and issues, either.
3. The dude on the cover kinds of looks like my brother. That's pretty cool.

I started this book during a road trip and kept reading it in the car even though I thought I was going to throw up from motion sickness. A few of the pages are still tear stained (yes! TEAR STAINED!!!!) and I'm excited to get my copy autographed when LK comes to San Francisco in November. Assuming there's no fan restraining order by then...

Do It: Chillax

The past seven days have been filled with every major life cycle point.

One Birth. Two Marriages. One Separation. Three Birthdays. One Death.

A blur of celebrations and remembrances - each bringing together family or friends I don't often see and who I already miss now that they've returned to "normal" life.

None of these things actually happened to me. Whenever I get in these situations, I tend to focus on mundane tasks - does everyone have directions? are glasses full? does the trash need to be taken out?

Ok, ok, it's a coping mechanism. I'm not into thinking about my feelings.

But now that the week has gone by and I'm processing the events, I'm experiencing a rush of thoughts I wish I'd shared in the moment.

So here I am, chillaxing, wishing I'd done it earlier. If we've broken bread this week and you get a cheesy email from me, don't be shocked.

Read It: Anything by Kristin Cashore

After falling in love with Suzanne Collin's The Hunger Games, I didn't think any book could make me feel that way again - utterly devastated by it prose and unable to sleep for having to turn back to page 1 and start all over. Then I met Kristin Cashore's Graceling.

So when Not Your Mother's Book Club announced a Kristin Cashore booksigning for her latest release, Fire, I about lost my mind. Meeting Kristsin was every bit as surreal and cool as I expected. And I'm convinced we're soulmates. I have proof.

First off - she wore a cupcake t-shirt. I mean...hello? I've been digging cupcakes since 1985.


Second - she read the scene before my favorite scene from Fire. I know, I know, it's not my favorite scene but it got all the right juices flowing for me to want to read my favorite scene which sent me straight back to the book. It's like she gets me.

Third - she, like me, also has a crazy note keeping system for each of her books resplendent with post-its. Okay, so she *also* handwrites her books and rewrites each scene by hand until she "gets it right" - but that's just one of her quirky charms.




















Fourth and Final - we look adorable together. I mean really. Adorable.

Watch It: Zombieland

My usual line by line spoilertastic movie review.

Previews are starting.

OMG!!!
OMG OMG OMG!!!

Is this real? Is this Steven Seagal as a real life police officer?
YESSSSSSSSSSSS!

(The theater is going friggin' wild, by the way, it's not just me)



Oooooh - Ninja Assasin with Korean Pop Sensation Rain. It's like Hollywood sat around and said - let's make the world's most perfect movie for Martha's birthday and then bam - they created Ninja Assassin.



Ooh, ooh, ooh - a trailer for the remake of V!



Oh, now a trailer for New Moon! And Wolfman. And Legion.
For those keeping track that's Vampire! Werewolf! Angel!

We're just missing fairies, here.

Seriously, I could walk out of the theater now and consider it $10 well spent.

The movie has finally started. Will this zombie satire movie be better than Shawn of the Dead?

(Okay - so it's hours later and I didn't actually take notes during the movie but let me assure you it was awesome.)

Watch It: The Vampire Diaries (for realz)

Yes, this is my third post on the show. I'm starting to sound like a broken record.

Just watch the show. Srsly. Because:

1. It gets girlfriends right. You can be the popular, cheerleader type and still be complex and interesting. You can have issues with your bff but that doesn't mean you love her any less. You can have entire conversations without talking about a boy but instead about yourselves - alleluia!!

2. It doesn't shy away from game changing events. We get a vamp kill right up front. Characters prove unredeemable in big, murderous, how-the-hell-are-we-gonna-make-this-fly ways. It's like the writers want to paint themselves into a corner that'll be hell to get out of.

3. It's self aware. Maybe self aware used to be overdone but I say it's back. Just like scribe Kevin Williamson made the victims in his horror flick Scream aware of their own formulaic doom, he lets these characters wink not only at vampire stereotypes but teen stereotypes in general (naming the football episode Friday Night Bites? Oh come on, everyone loves a pun.)

4. Annoying simultaneous diary voiceovers are way down and they killed that douchebag teacher. Woohoo!

5.