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.
 

  

 

The Good Liar (8/10)

by Tony Medley

109 minutes

R

Con man Roy Courtnay (Ian McKellan) puts the move on rich widow Betty McLeish (Helen Mirren) through an online dating service. Roy is a smooth old codger and Betty is bewitched in this thriller that methodically draws you in.

Directed by Bill Condon from a script by Jeffrey Hatcher from a novel by Nicholas Searle, I feel sorry for the people who have read the novel (not that it’s not a good one) because they know from the outset what’s going on. I didn’t read it and, as a result, enjoyed this immensely.

Mirren gives her usual award-quality performance, and so does McKellan. Although it’s mostly talk, Condon directs with a fine sense of pace.

There is a huge plot hole near the end, but unless you are really thinking about it later it does not spoil the movie one bit. There is also a politically correct twist at the end that has no raison d’être and seems to have been inserted solely to make a woke point to a captive audience.

Despite that, this is a good one.

 

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