Anyway, do go see the movie, but in the meeantime you can now get the book, Molly’s Game: The True Story of the 26-Year-Old Woman Behind the Most Exclusive, High-Stakes Underground Poker Game in the World, cheap in Kindle form.

I would also like to tell you about The Forensic Geology Box Set: Books 1-3 (The Forensic Geology Series) in Kindle form for really cheap, $0.99. This is if you are interested in the intersection between science and whodunnit novels. I have mixed feelings about the series. I kept thinking, “I’d have written that part way differently,” and I’d rather be allowed to go with the flow when reading a novel (I certainly allow myself that, whenever possible). But it may have just been me at the time I read the first book, and I probably will eventually read the other two that come in this one massive Kindle volume. (There is a fourth novel, not on sale at the moment, Skeleton Sea.)

Bloom’s lawyer in the movie is a great character, and I have no idea how much like the actual lawyer he is. But Jim Walden, the actual original lawyer, was involved with the Olympic doping scandal, and served in the US Justice Department under Bill Clinton and George w. Bush.

Meanwhile, one of the prosecutors in the case that developed against Molly Bloom was the now very famous VOT, Preet Bharara. So that’s interesting too.

Molly Bloom is played by Jessica Chastain, who early in her career was signed to a talent holding deal by John Wells. Sorkin and/or West Wing fans will find that interesting. She also played a role in Law and Order. As has every single actor. Hell, I think I was in an episode once, and I’m not even an actor.

Anyway, Aaron Sorkin, creator of West Wing, Sports Night, and The Newsroom has written some very impressive movie screenplays, including for Steve Jobs, The Social Network, and A Few Good Men. But Molly’s Game is Sorkin’s first and so far only direction job for a movie. (He also wrote that screenplay.)

I really enjoyed the movie. Sorkin is a sports fan, and I am not, but I find sports interesting. So, I enjoy seeing what Sorkin does with sports. Obviously he had a whole TV series on it. In Molly’s game, the opening setup and first several scenes are set in the world of Olympic skiing. His context building and nuance is very entertaining.

From what I’ve read (mainly in Wikipedia and similar sources) it looks like Molly’s Game, the movie, is as close to the real life story as movies ever get. There is conflation and obscuring of individual identities, for obvious reasons. Only one unbelievable thing happens, when Molly’s Father and she bump into each other in New York City at a particularly opportune moment. (Not to say that didn’t happen … but I’m pretty sure it didn’t happen.)

I usually don’t do movie reviews, but I’m a Sorkin fan. Well, actually if I reviewed every movie I saw you would see very few reviews because I never get to watch movies. In any event, I enjoyed this, and I highly recommend it. Clearly, it has not gotten the attention it deserves.

A trailer:

By the way, if what I hear on the street is true about the characters in this movie, there is a particular Hollywood actor that I don’t want to watch in a movie ever again.

And now the interview:

Only with Trump instead of Josh, and it is real life. Yet, less like real life.

Trump, remembering something about watergate, tweets:

James Comey better hope that there are no "tapes" of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 12, 2017

and the Washington Post reports:

Trump suggests there may be ‘tapes’ of his private conversations with former FBI director

Trump experiences verbal diarrhea and says, “In fact, when I decided to just do it, I said to myself, I said, ‘You know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made up story, it’s an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they should have won.’”

Headline:

Trump said he was thinking of Russia controversy when he decided to fire Comey

Trump’s press office is incompetent and the White House can’t keep its message straight, what with all those reporters asking all those questions, so Trump sarcastically tweets:

As a very active President with lots of things happening, it is not possible for my surrogates to stand at podium with perfect accuracy!….

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 12, 2017

…Maybe the best thing to do would be to cancel all future "press briefings" and hand out written responses for the sake of accuracy???

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 12, 2017

Headline:

Trump threatens to cancel White House briefings

And those are just the examples I ran into this morning. This has been happening for months.

Donald Trump needs to learn this thing: When words come out of he president’s mouth, policy is created.

The press needs to learn this thing: When you play the run-up game with a moron like Trump, it makes you look like a bully at the beach kicking sand in someone’s face. Someone we all love to see getting sand kicked on him, sure, but still… you may want to get a different approach to dealing with this president’s random idea puking. Like, for example, always mention that no one takes him seriously.

Here, I’ll give you an example.

The Washington Post wrote:

Trump threatens to cancel White House briefings because it is ‘not possible’ for his staff to speak with ‘perfect accuracy’

President Trump threatened Friday morning to end White House press briefings, arguing that “it is not possible” for his staff to speak with “perfect accuracy” to the American public.

Trump’s comments come after his description of his decision to fire FBI Director James B. Comey in an NBC News interview Thursday flatly contradicted the accounts provided earlier by White House officials, including Vice President Pence, exposing their explanations as misleading and in some cases false.

[Trump said he was thinking of Russia controversy when he decided to fire Comey]

In a pair of tweets sent Friday, Trump suggested he might do away with the daily press briefings at the White House and instead have his spokespeople communicate to the public only via “written responses.”

What WaPo should have written:

Trump bathroom tweets snide remarks about the American Press, threatens freedom

President Trump sarcastically tweeted from the White House Commode Friday morning to end White House press briefings, arguing that “it is not possible” for his “surrogates” to speak with “perfect accuracy” to the American public. Clearly, he doesn’t know what a “surrogate” is, because he’s really talking about his staff. Surrogates are different.

Trump’s comments come after his nonsensical and random attempt at describing his decision to fire FBI Director James B. Comey in an NBC News interview Thursday did not match, because it was nothing other than the random blathering of an ill man, entirely different lies provided earlier by somewhat more articulate but no more honest White House officials, including Vice President Pence. While one might normally assume that the President’s account of what happened in a conversation he was actually in would be the gold standard, and other comments by other White House personnel, if contradictory, would be incorrect, that is not an assumption we can make in the Trump White House.

[Trump also stupidly stated that he was thinking of Russia controversy when he decided to fire Comey, in a different and equally alarming squirt of verbal diarrhea.]

In a pair of tweets sent Friday, Trump sarcastically whined he might do away with the daily press briefings. Nobody gave a fuck.

That’s how to do it.