Love, valor, compassion. We always wish our new year's resolutions were more altruistic, but year after year, our desire to look better "and sexier" tops the list . On January 1st we usually pledge to streamline our wardrobe, work out like a maniac and go on a possibly life threatening diet. So to start 2007 in style we decided to get rid of all of these resolutions in one fell swoop: a 5 minute 10 lbs slimming strategy, guaranteed to spice up our sex lives and please our inner diva, AKA a corset. ...

Say what you will about Zhang Yimou's previous two swords and kung fu flicks, but they sure were pretty. Lots of luscious colors and tableaus straight out of paintings. But they also weren't the most exciting films you’ve ever seen. You either gasped at the prettiness and rolled with it or you said nice shot and hoped for something else to happen. For us, Hero was the one that blew us away, the use of color so dazzling and original it left us awe-struck. House of the Flying Daggers, however, didn't do it for us. ...

Another great weekend for movies here in the Bay Area! For example: SFist Rita went to see 2046 at a sneak preview last night (thanks, Larsen!), which was packed to the gills with Asians, fans of Asian art movies, or both. It's a beautifully-shot film, filled with gorgeously sad women and starring a morose-yet-suave Tony Leung Chiu-Wai. It's kind of a Nick Hornby High Fidelity of 1960s Hong Kong, as Leung reminisces about all......

Where we're from, we have a fine and vibrant Chinatown. Not huge, but you can certainly get anything there that you can get here (well, except in the produce department). Still, we drop by Chinatown every Christmas to pick up the kind of trinkets, doodads and gewgaws that you can get for less than five bucks and hand out to that friend you run into from high school that you totally forgot to get a......