The Grand

Just got in from seeing The Grand at the Alamo Drafthouse on South Lamar, and thoroughly enjoyed it. It's an entirely improvised film about 6 players who reach the final table of a huge poker tournament, The Grand Championship of Poker which parallels the WSOP main event.

Improvs are hard to do because it's tough to come up with something funny on the spot and it doesn't always come out the way you want. The strong cast pulls it off though.

The movie has a stellar cast, Phil Gordon, Woody Harrelson, Cheryl Hines and Richard Kind, just too name a few, so I put it on my list to see. There were also plenty of cameo, professional poker players that were in the movie, although none of them had many lines. I expected a little bit of a stronger movie with the cast, but I guess there were just too many to have enough time to develop their characters.

You should also be a fan of watching the WSOP tournaments on EXPN or ESPN2 to understand some of the satire. It makes many of the whacky scenes enjoyable and keeps you giggling for a bit.

I might even see it again, but it's another one of those movies that isn't a "must see", but for the poker community, it's a "should go and have fun see." It's currently playing at the Alamo Drafthouse on South Lamar, so get some good friends together and check it out. Relax, have a beer or two and enjoy some good food. My favorite is the tasty BBQ chicken pizza and a nice bowl of vanilla ice cream with raspberry and chocolate sauce.

It's rumored that the people in the movie actually played the poker game straight and didn't know who was going to win or lose the tournament, so that gave it a cool twist during the filming. I do love the person who wins the tournament and I was pulling for that person the whole way. Glad "the person" won. *winks*

Also, this movie wasn't released in to many cities, but Austin was one cities that it hit - so support our local theater, Alamo South, and go check it out!