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The first and second editions of Complete Idiot's Guide to Bridge by H. Anthony Medley comprised the fastest selling beginning bridge book, going through more than 10 printings. This updated Third Edition includes 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. Available in all bookstores and on Kindle. | |
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Surprise Me! (7/10) by Tony Medley Runtime 103 minutes. PG 13 Genie (Fiona Gubelmann) has concocted a new profession, a “surprise party planner,” a business she runs with her business partner Steven, (LaShawn Banks). Stephen satisfies two of today’s PC requirements for most movies in one, he’s black and gay, which saves producer/writer/director Nancy Goodman casting money by putting both requirements in one actor. The movie is based on Goodman’s book of the same name. Genie is manipulative and insecure. She meets what seems to be a great guy, Jeff (Sean Faris), who woos her. Despite her obvious attraction, she plays hard-to-get. Jeff is too good to be true, good looking and sweet and successful. But Genie’s insecurities come flowing out and she and Jeff dance around each other. She hangs out with her best friend, Danny (Jonathan Bennett). In one scene she and Danny and his new girlfriend, Kay (Elizabeth Argus) are riding bikes. They stop, and Kay and Genie talk a little and then Genie, in her mind’s eye, elbows Kay in the face. It’s just a moment’s idea and then the scene continues without the violence. But that’s the way I felt about Genie herself throughout the movie; that someone needed to give her a jolt to, among other things, wipe that wacky smile off her face. Genie’s attitude towards Jeff is the heretofore traditional “making the man not take no for an answer.” In today’s world, all the feminists lecture that men must recognize that “no” means “no.” But this movie is about what men have learned about women; “no,” more often than not, does not mean “no.” It certainly does not in this movie vis-à-vis Genie and Jeff. Goodman says that the film represents her crusade to help women find their voice by turning their focus from food, to their feelings, strength, joys, relationships, goals, and untapped talents. But she presents a protagonist as a manipulative, dependent, uncertain woman who only comes to life in the film’s last moment. Contrary to Gertrude Stein, there is some there here, but it’s inscrutable.
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