Jeremy Renner, who’s in the Phillippines shooting The Bourne Legacy, recently took a vacation to Phuket, Thailand, which sounds not particularly relaxing since it ended with his guide getting chopped in the throat with a homemade axe. According to the Phuket Gazette, Renner was in the Rachada Pub with five other people, when his guide dropped a glass on the floor and “became embroiled in an argument,” either because of the glass or independently.

Bar staffs in Thailand apparently don’t F around, because at that point, six guys who worked there pounced on the guide with fists and “a variety of clubs and cutting instruments, including a home-made axe fashioned from a motorcycle brake rotor.”

Oh, we playin’ prison rules? I guess we playin’ prison rules. Their method seems somewhat less refined than the autoerotic asphyxiation ninjas who got David Carradine, but effective nonetheless. The six men are in Thai custody, while the guide is “in hospital with serious wounds to the stomach and partially severed neck tendons.” Though hopefully he learned an important lesson about not bringing an actor to a home-made axe fight.

Renner’s publicist said:

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A lot of people took issue with The Hangover II’s portrayal of Thailand, saying it was racist and xenophobic and blah blah blah (is anything ever NOT racist, according to the internet?). Personally, I liked it better than the first, which glorified Vegas even though it’s just a seedier Scottsdale in an Ed Hardy shirt. I feel like you’re supposed to feel fear and loathing towards a place you wake up hungover. Anyway, the Wall Street Journal finally decided to ask Thailand about it (“EXCUSE ME, MAY I SPEAK TO BOB THAILAND?”). Hilarity and tranny sex ensued.

BANGKOK—Thailand’s tourism chief hasn’t seen the Warner Bros. box-office smash “The Hangover: Part II,” which is based in Bangkok. Maybe that’s just as well.
“What’s it like?” asked Supol Sripan, general-director of the country’s tourism department, on a recent Thursday afternoon.
Well, it shows his nation’s capital as chock-full of drug-dealing mobsters, drunken bar fights and hazily remembered sex in the back rooms of brothels. In the movie there are also car chases through teeming streets, and a chain-smoking monkey.
“Hmm,” Mr. Supol sighed. “Well, I suppose it’s true. We have all those things.” [WallStreetJournal]

Aw, I think I love you, glib thoughtful tourism chief.  I suppose it makes sense that a country that tolerates women who shoot blowguns with their vaginas would have a sense of humor about themselves.

In this behind-the-scenes clip from The Expendables, Sly goes to Brazil to watch MMA fights in the hopes of casting some extras. You’ll never believe this, but it turns out the usual crop of fruity Disney Channel queerbait with Zac Efron hair don’t make the most believable action-movie soldiers. [via Fightlinker] (additional note for MMA fans: Anderson Silva seems to speak pretty good English for a guy who always uses an interpreter)

Inception expected to surpass $100 million domestically by late tomorrow.  (*BRAAAAAAAAAHHMMM*). |Deadline|

The manager from Major League died. One of the most prolific “that guy”s around, James Gammon, died of adrenal and liver cancer in Costa Mesa at the age of 70.  That really sucks, because this guy seemed cool. He talked like he gargled with dirty syringes and rock salt, way before Christian Bale started thinking that was cool.  Though it has to be said, for a guy who made a career out of playing characters on death’s door, this is hardly surprising. |NYTimes|

Hangover 2 will be set in Thailand. Though it was initially rumored and then denied, ComingSoon is claiming they’ve confirmed that The Hangover 2 will indeed be set in Thailand, the land of coconut milk and projectile vaginas.  I’m not huge on the idea of comedy sequels, but if Zach Galifianakis carries a ladyboy wearing sunglasses around in a baby Bjorn, consider me sold. |ComingSoon|

Tracy Morgan’s Blavatar.  Tracy Morgan has taken to calling his “Black and Blue” special Blavatar, choosing it over A Blaffair to Rememblack. It’s funny because he’s African-American, you see.  And he makes pregnant women’s water break using karate.  |EW|

SITE NEWS: My on-lactation coverage of Comic Con begins tonight.  Expect photo essays, crowd weariness, and technical difficulties.  Burnsy and Chodin will be taking over the heavy news lifting for the next couple days, so expect C-Tates posts and lovingly-detailed gay jokes.  The latest episode of the Frotcast will be up tomorrow.  We even tried to mix it this time. (*BRAAAAAHM*)

All this time, I thought the stories of magic, of faceless henchmen and symbolic elephants in Tony Jaa movies were the just wacky tenets of Thai action films.  But the more I read about the actual Tony Jaa, the more I wonder if the plots of his movies aren’t actually just torn from the headlines, like the Thai Law & Order.

Tony Jaa has exited the film industry. We don’t know for how long and can only speculate on the reasons why but yesterday – Friday, May 28 – Jaa rode an elephant to a Buddhist temple in Surin, Thailand, where he shaved his head, took vows, and was officially ordained as a Buddhist monk. [Twitch]

That’s right, he rode an elephant.  If you’ll remember, Tony Jaa campaigned to be allowed to direct Ong Bak 2.  After delays and rumors that he’d sacrifice chickens before shooting, he cracked under the pressure and disappeared for two full months to meditate in the jungle, where some said he was “practicing black magic in Cambodia.”  He was later lured back out, and demanded to be let out of his contract with the studio.  At which point he disappeared in a car full of studio goons, and eventually turned up seeking refuge in a police station.  Whatever happened, he dropped his demands and agreed to split Ong Bak 2 into Ong Bak 2 and 3, with someone else directing.  And now that both of those are done, he’s apparently sworn off movie violence again.

It’s pretty obvious what needs to happen here.  A beautiful woman must trek many miles into the jungle to an isolated monastery.  There, she’ll seek out a monk.  The monk will deny that he’s Tony Jaa.  “I know of no one by that name,” he’ll say.  But the woman will persist.  “Please,” the woman will say, “you are my only hope.  An evil man has kidnapped my father and stolen the sacred trinkets of my village.  They tell me you’re the best….”

This is the French trailer for Tony Jaa’s Ong Bak 2, which, after a six-minute trim and some changes to the score, will open in Europe later this month (still no word on a U.S. release).

Ong Bak 2 had a famously difficult road to completion. Tony Jaa directed, against the advice of former director Prachya Pinkaew. But in the middle of the shoot he had a massive breakdown, fled into the forest and stayed there for two months (supposedly practicing black magic) before making a tearful return to civilization on live TV. Then he presented the film’s financier with a list of demands that had to be met if he was to finish the film; after showing up at a police station claiming that he was being followed by thugs (i.e. his financier’s goons) he just went back and finished the movie with the help of his mentor Panna Rittikrai. [/Film]

But the important thing is that he knees people in the face, almost gets bit by an alligator, and does a backflip off an elephant’s tusk.  And you know the animals were real because this is Thailand.  Over there they shoot with live animals and then cover them in fish sauce and serve them to the crew for lunch.  Then Diablo Cody shows up and yells, “HEY, DOES IT SMELL LIKE MY PUSSY IN HERE?”

In retrospect, I realize this post spiraled out of control pretty fast, and for that I apologize.