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.
 

  

 

Last Christmas (3/10)

by Tony Medley

103 minutes

PG-13

This is a long and slow developing fantasy although it picks up a little at the end. It could be called a B chick flick if there is such a thing, although it really doesn't fit the genre. Directed by Paul Feig, mostly it’s writer Emma Thompson preaching, and it’s tedious, to say the least. Kate (Emilia Clarke) is unhappy and apparently unlucky. Then she meets Tom (Henry Golding) and he seems to give her a reason for living. She can’t figure him out.

There is a B story about Kate's boss and her infatuation with a shy mystery man that is absurd that really detracts from a film that doesn't have much to offer anyway.

Golding is the one good thing in this film as he gives an inscrutable performance. Clarke has a nice singing voice and is attractive, but annoying. Thompson, who appears as Kate’s immigrant mother, seems totally out of place with a phony accent. The best part of the movie is at the very end when Kate performs the titular song. Director Paul Feig seems unaware of the dictum that a musical (well, this isn't really a musical) should end with an upbeat number because this film should have ended with that performance. Unfortunately, the movie moves on from there with what seems to be an epilogue that was unnecessary.

 

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