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The first edition of Complete Idiot's Guide to Bridge by H. Anthony Medley was the fastest selling beginning bridge book, going through more than 10 printings. This updated Second Edition includes some modern advanced bidding systems and conventions, like Two over One, a system used by many modern tournament players, Roman Key Card Blackwood, New Minor Forcing, Reverse Drury, Forcing No Trump, and others. Also included is a detailed Guide to Bids and Responses, along with the most detailed, 12-page Glossary ever published, as well as examples to make learning the game even easier. Click book to order. | |
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by Tony Medley Runtime: 110 minutes OK for children This film by director Anne Fontaine (who co-wrote
the script with Camille Fontaine) is a fascinating portrait of the
designer as a young woman. With Coco played unerringly by Audrey Tautou,
this is a big departure from Fontaine’s last film, “The Girl From
Monaco,” which was a terrific story done in by poor casting of the title
role, which ruined it for me. Here, however, Tautou is brilliant as the
young Gabrielle “ This tells the story of her life up to her
emergence on the national stage. The facts of her life are that she was
born in 1883 into a modest and provincial home. She was orphaned young,
apparently nobody knows her exact age at the time, and grew up in a
convent school, where she learned how to sew. The film picks it up from
there and we first meet her as an entertainer at the local
cafés-concerts. When she
would sing on stage, the audience applauded and called her “ She met Étienne Baison (Benoît Powlvoorde, in a
bravura performance), a rich racehorse owner with whom she insinuated a
liaison. He introduced her to the equestrian world, which maintained an
influence throughout her career. This film captures the feistiness that allowed her
to become much more than the creator of the “little black dress” and
Chanel No. 5. Truth was one thing that apparently meant little to Coco.
Tautou captures her charm in creating whatever background she wanted for
herself. What’s fun about this movie is watching What it does not do is deal with her multitude of
lovers that came later (like the much younger Nazi with whom she lived
during WWII, after shutting down her business; she was, after all, a
survivor), other than Baison and Boy Capel (Alessandro Nivola), with
whom the film intimates she was deeply in love. No, this film shows how
she developed into becoming the legend. As such, it does concentrate on
the myriad of lies and deceptions upon which she built her image and,
indeed, her career. As well as being a genius at what she did, this film
presents her as a consummate liar. Still, one can’t watch this and fail to root for
her.
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