In actor-turned-director Tom McCarthy’s third, and most assured, film, Win Win, he again mines a character-driven tale of a likeable sad sack, in over his head wrestling with a moral quandary.

McCarthy’s ear for dialogue and knack for casting make this Palm Beach International Film Festival kickoff entry – following its earlier discovery and acclaim at Sundance – not only a probable winner with audiences, but further proof of Paul Giamatti’s skill at playing complex, yet unassuming Everymen.

Giamatti is Mike Flaherty, a small-time New Jersey lawyer who has such trouble keeping his practice solvent that he cannot afford to replace his antiquated, clanging boiler. Although he moonlights as a high school wrestling coach, assisted by his ineffectual law partner (Jeffrey Tambor), the team is on a losing streak that parallels Mike’s life.

Unable to confide in his wife (tough-edged, but wise Amy Ryan) about his money woes, Mike sees a way out when Leo (Burt Young), an aged, drifting-into-dementia client, arrives at his office.

Mike gets himself appointed the old man’s guardian, pocketing the monthly $1,500 stipend that goes with it and depositing the geezer in a nursing home, against his wishes.

Briefly, at least, it looks like a win-win situation for Mike, when Leo’s grandson, Kyle, arrives from Ohio, on the run from his abusive, drug-dependent mother. Mike lets the kid stay in his basement, at least temporarily, and is rewarded when Kyle turns out to be a remarkably adept wrestler who begins winning matches for Mike’s squad.

Mike seems to have gotten away with his unethical legal maneuver, until Kyle’s mom (Melanie Lynskey) shows up, eager to take over Leo’s care, or at least take over the monthly checks. And if she has to fight it out in court, exposing Mike’s chicanery, so be it.

We do root for Giamatti’s Mike to find a way out of his self-made quandary, just as we pulled for him as the would-be novelist in Sideways and the irredeemable title character in the recent, underappreciated Barney’s Version. The doughy actor again projects a litany of human frailties, having all but cornered the market for endearing scalawags.

McCarthy surrounds him with a solid cast of supporting players, writing them interesting character quirks to gnaw on. Foremost is Ryan, a "mother knows best" Jersey girl (with the Jon Bon Jovi ankle tattoo to prove it), who becomes a fierce maternal advocate for Kyle (soft-spoken, emotionally muted Alex Shaffer).

Bobby Cannavale works his way into the picture as Mike’s bitterly divorced pal, eager to relive his youth by becoming a wrestling coach.

Win Win has much of the same texture as McCarthy’s other films, The Station Agent and The Visitor, but with the sports subplot and Giamatti’s appealing performance as its anchor, it could win the director-writer more of the attention he long ago earned.

R E V I E W

Win Win

A

Rated R: Adult themes

Running time: 1 hour, 46 minutes

Showing: Wednesday, 7 p.m., Muvico 20 at CityPlace, the opening film of the Palm Beach International Film Festival.

After a heady season that included such challenging works as Copenhagen and Three Tall Women, Palm Beach Dramaworks lowers its sights a few notches with its summer offering — D.L. Coburn’s card table skirmish, The Gin Game. True, the two-character serio-comedy won the 1978 Pulitzer Prize, but it was hardly an adventurous choice by the award committee or by the West Palm theater company.
This tale of two elderly residents of the seedy Bentley Home for seniors, who meet, bond and battle over hands of gin rummy, has its merits. But rather than a play of substance with staying power, its chief asset is the pair of juicy acting roles that a couple of veteran performers can take and sprint away with.
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By MICHELLE RADA

Even the most devout archaists, resisting modern trends from iThings to microwaves, are being interpolated into Facebook-world. Maintaining a Facebook-free existence has become increasingly difficult, and not altogether desirable. With features ranging from event planning to relationship tracking, the site has made personal interaction clickable and globally accessible. For better or for worse, Facebook has redefined social networking. Its newfound monopoly over social activity has affected grandmothers and politicians alike.

Long-time technology journalist, David Kirkpatrick set out to uncover the truths lurking under the company’s upstanding public image and a complex corporate history. What he found was a good story (moral import and unlikely hero included). In “The Facebook Effect: The Inside Story of the Company That is Connecting the World”, Kirkpatrick traces the steps of Facebook’s founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, whose idealistic mindset and stubborn devotion to the website turned its probable failure into inevitable success.

Kirkpatrick profiles (pun very much intended) Zuckerberg’s progress from his Harvard dorm-office days to his unanticipated breakthrough in Palo Alto – all the way to today’s all-powerful Facebook empire (out of the way, Big Brother). Additionally, Kirkpatrick offers considerations about how to properly handle Facebook, giving ideas about the ways it can be used to one’s advantage – or detriment. Essentially, Kirkpatrick advises us on how to avoid social suicide, ala virtual networking.

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Having just spent occasional evenings reading “Wine: An Introduction,” by Joanna Simon (wine correspondent of Britain’s The Sunday Times), I thought it plenty worthy to recommend and share some of its highlights with you.

It does a superb job of covering many aspects of wine – styles, grapes, tasting, food pairing, growing, storing and more – simply, yet thoroughly. It also has plenty of color photos to illustrate these topics, from detail images of various soil types to vistas of the world’s vineyards. Read the full story

The day the mayor of a major metropolitan city declares a holiday in honor of a rock band, it’s a safe bet that band has put on its share of spectacular shows.

Nick Hexum of 311 sings at Miami's Bayfront Park Amphitheater on Tuesday, Dec. 1, 2009. (Melissa Patterson / PBPulse.com)

View photos from Tuesday’s show in Miami

That day came in 2000 for 311 in the city of New Orleans. Nine years and a few hit albums later, the genre-bending quintet is still luring massive crowds with dynamic, unpretentious performances held in the spirit of unity and positivity.

An eager but easygoing 20-something crowd packed Miami’s 8,000-person Bayfront Amphitheater nearly to capacity Tuesday night. They got an earful of chart-topping favorites like “Down,” “Beautiful Disaster” and “Amber,” but also rarer tracks like “Jack-o-lantern’s Weather” and standouts from the band’s 2009 Uplifter album such as “Daisy Cutter”.

Alt-rock trio State Radio pounded out a 45-minute opening set tinged with traces of punk and even reggae influence.

Sporting nothing but a sparse set and wide, easy smiles, 311 still managed to keep its audience captivated. A solo by drummer Chad Sexton had heads involuntarily nodding, and the crowd erupted in hoots when the whole band joined in, pounding on drums and cymbals of every size and style. Encore and all, the set lasted the better part of two hours.

Almost two decades after the multi-platinum group’s humble beginnings in Omaha, Nebraska, 311 has kept up a steady touring schedule. Summer’s Unity tour melted into fall’s Uplifter tour, and after a three-month break, the band will celebrate its legendary 311 Day in Las Vegas on March 11, 2010.

Linda judged Andrea McArdle’s voice to be the “best in show,” Florence loved Avery Sommers’ hilarious football widow solo, and Sue liked everything she was able to see. And each of the winners of Charm’s Love is Love essay contest genuinely enjoyed the opportunity for a night out at the theater.
When the three local women wrote to the newspaper about their “love lessons learned,” Florence Block, Linda Gaddy and Sue Foley were just sharing a bit of their hard-won wisdom on how to get by when love is in short supply. But their letters (printed in Charm Oct. 8), were good enough to earn the women — and dates if they chose — free tickets to last Thursday’s debut performance of the new musical revue Love is Love at the Maltz Jupiter Theatre.

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A WINDFALL OF MUSICIANS: Hitler’s Emigres and Exiles in Southern California, by Dorothy Lamb Crawford. Yale; 318 pages; $35.
Let us pause to give thanks to the law of unintended consequences. Hitler wanted to obliterate all the Jews in Europe, which meant that a lot of the Jews who got out came to America, thereby enriching our cultural, scientific and business life, while at the same time leaving German arts and letters a tattered sump for a generation.
Dorothy Lamb Crawford’s A Windfall of Musicians narrows the focus of the forced Jewish diaspora to composers and conductors such as Igor Stravinsky, Arnold Schoenberg, Kurt Weill, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Ernst Toch, Franz Waxman, Otto Klemperer and many others who almost certainly would never have come to America to live had circumstances in Europe been different.
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Occasionally, our food blogger gets wine-related things sent to her for review and has been kind enough to pass them on to one of the Swirlers to review for the paper and this blog. When I got an email from her saying she had received some wine and did I want to review it, I ran to her desk, grabbed the box, and literally ran out of the building.

I unpacked the box and found several beautiful rosés staring at me, almost begging for a summer soireé. So I invited over the Swirlers and set about to find the perfect food pairings.

I consulted Dry-Gwen, who consulted her books about food and wine pairings and together we came up with a menu specifically designed for the rosés.

We started out on my back porch in true summer-sipping style with the 2008 El Coto Rioja, a blend of Grenache and Tempranillo and a goat-fig cheese spread with fresh bread. It has a suggested retail price of 12 dollars. We were all blown away by the color of the wine. It was truly one of most beautiful colors I’ve ever seen in a wine. Pink, cotton candy and a hue that said “savor me.” I made each Swirler give me her impression, so based on what sort of wine you like, you know whom you can trust. Here goes: Read the full story

Before I get started with my first review of a bottle of wine for our new blog, I need to put this out on the table (next to my glass of wine): I have a difficult time describing what it is I’m tasting. I know whether I like it or not, but I’m not always sure what it is I like or dislike.

Whew. I feel better. Probably because I’m guessing you experience this same frustration. And, if you read the intro to Swirl Girls, you know that we’re inexperienced tasters ourselves, but are eager to learn with you. So I won’t be using any adjectives like “slate” and “cigar box” to describe the wine, and many times I’ll be trying to guess what I’m tasting and then comparing that to the winemaker’s notes on a Web site.

So, with my confession complete, I present to you a 2006 Courtney Benham Pinot Noir from California’s north coast. Read the full story