Word: smarting
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...some very smart people as well. "The dotcom generation loves poker. It gives you a sense of control you don't find in other games," says Howard Schwartz, the proprietor of Las Vegas' Gambler's Book Shop. "It's a roller coaster with an adrenaline high." Schwartz links poker's popularity to a natural migration from other games. "Blackjack players have gone to poker because the casinos are breathing down the necks of anybody who counts cards or increases their bets substantially. They're so afraid that these M.I.T. kids are going to take them down for a million dollars...
...Spooner. There's a nifty car chase, with the cop (in an Audi, its logo prominently displayed) set upon by a vicious android posse. Even if the scene is not up there with the 14-min. freeway free-for-all in the second Matrix movie, it's a smart, vigorous blend of live action and computer graphics...
...lead in NBC's hit hospital sitcom Scrubs had the cockiness to write and star in his directorial debut, Garden State (which opens July 28). The film is a love song to suburban New Jersey that is so smart and touching, Bruce Springsteen might be able to retire soon. "I kind of wanted it to suck. I wanted it to be a big, noble failure," says Scrubs creator Bill Lawrence, who will have Braff, 29, direct some episodes this season. "I was extremely jealous. I might have to put myself on the show as an actor to even the playing...
Eventually Braff got Danny DeVito's Jersey Films to co-produce it, partly by trading on the fact that the company had never made a film about its eponymous state. Then he got Natalie Portman, Peter Sarsgaard, Ian Holm, Jean Smart and Method Man to be in it. At Sundance he sold it to Miramax and Fox Searchlight for a $5 million distribution deal. "He's a very confident guy. To be a director, that's what you have to do," says Portman, 23. "He demands confidence in others. You just have to talk back...
...Castro more than 54,000 bbl. a day on favorable finance terms. The politicized atmosphere at PDVSA--many workers say devotion to the Chavez revolution is a job requirement--helped provoke the 2002 strike. Says Ignacio Layrisse, who was afterward fired as production manager: "Ali Rodriguez may be a smart and capable man, but he's just a has-been lefty carrying out Chavez's plans to turn PDVSA into a mediocre state-run company...