Play like a pro with expert knowledge from a champion of the game

If you don't know the ins and outs of play, bridge can seem like an intimidating game--but it doesn't have to be! Armed with the techniques and strategies in the pages of this book, you'll be bidding and winning hands like a boss! A good book for beginners, it has lots of advanced techniques useful to experienced players, too. This is as  close to an all-in-one bridge book you can get.

 

 

About the Author

H. Anthony Medley holds the rank of Silver life Master, is an American Contract Bridge League Club Director, and has won regional and sectional titles. An attorney, he received his B.S. from UCLA, where he was sports editor of UCLA's Daily Bruin, and his J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law. He is the author of UCLA Basketball: The Real Story and Sweaty Palms: The Neglected Art of Being Interviewed and The Complete Idiots Guide to Bridge. He was a columnist for the Southern California Bridge News. He is an MPAA-certified film critic and his work has appeared nationally in Good Housekeeping, The Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Magazine, The Hollywood Reporter, and other publications. Click the book to order.
 

  

 

Ad Astra (5/10)

by Tony Medley

Runtime 122 minutes

PG-13

When I was a lad one of my favorite TV shows was “Tom Corbett, Space Cadet,” starring Frankie Thomas. It was created in response to the big success of “Space Patrol,” which started on KTLA, Channel 5 in Los Angeles. Recently I got a chance to watch one of the episodes. I knew that TV was in its infancy in the early ‘50s, but I could not believe how amateurish it was. Let’s face it, I was a preteen, but I’m surprised I could have been taken in by it. But I was not alone. Most of my friends who had TV sets watched it.

I mention this because this Brad Pitt vehicle is as absurd as “Tom Corbett.” The story is that Brad’s father went on an excursion to Neptune decades ago and hasn’t been heard from since.

Suddenly the earth is attacked by huge power surges and they seem to be coming from Neptune. So Brad is appointed to hop on a space ship to Mars where he will transfer to another to continue on to Neptune.

When Brad gets to Mars he is told he can’t continue on the mission to Neptune, so he climbs up the launching platform while the engines are just setting off and sneaks aboard. It isn’t explained why he doesn’t go up in flames when the engines start as he is climbing up the outside of the spaceship and the fire from the rockets is bursting before he boards.

Spoiler alert.

When Brad finally gets to Neptune (3-4 billion miles from earth) and reunites with his pop (Tommy Lee Jones), Dad had been living in his spaceship all that time. Where did he get food and water for 20-30 years in that little spaceship? And how did he create powerful power surges that could destroy Earth? And why? Nothing is explained. This all stretches “science fiction” to the laughing point.

I guess director/writer (with Ethan Gross) James Gray was trying to make some father/son relationship point here, but it’s as obtuse as the basic story.

OK, silly questions. This is a movie. Forget thinking. Or forget this movie.

 

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