Just recently, with the elimination of the Miami Heat, NBA fans were robbed of a chance to watch two former teammates and good friends compete against each other for a trip to the NBA Finals. While we didn’t get the Eastern Conference Finals matchup we wanted, we sure did in the West. Kevin Durant and Steph Curry are battling it out for a trip to the NBA Finals, and it is must see TV.

The NBA has a lot of stars, but LeBron James, Steph Curry and Kevin Durant are on a level all their own. The trio has won seven MVP awards and will have a combined ten trips to the NBA Finals once they get underway. Regardless of the matchup, someone will be looking for revenge in the Finals. In 2012, LeBron beat Durant and won his first NBA Championship. Last season, Curry beat LeBron (without Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving) and won his first NBA title (the first for the Warriors since 1975).

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While the past two months have featured several potential award contenders, there’s a surprising lack of prestige films on the November release slate. That’s not to say it’s completely devoid of Oscar bait, because “Spotlight,” “Carol” and “The Danish Girl” are all earning serious buzz, but this month is geared more towards high-profile fare like the new Bond movie and the final installment of the “Hunger Games” series. There’s almost too much to choose from this November, although that’s a nice problem to have.

Who: Daniel Craig, Christoph Waltz, Léa Seydoux, Ralph Fiennes and Monica Bellucci
What: A cryptic message from Bond’s past sends him on a trail to uncover the truth behind the sinister organization known as SPECTRE.
When: November 6th
Why: Daniel Craig may not be doing the movie any favors with his series of controversial remarks during the publicity tour, but you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who isn’t excited about “Spectre,” especially with the core creative team behind “Skyfall” all returning. Though it will be difficult to top the last installment in the long-running series, director Sam Mendes probably wouldn’t have signed on if he didn’t think it was possible. My only problem with “Spectre” is the casting of Christoph Waltz as the main villain, because while he’s perfect for the role, the actor has played the mustache-twirling bad guy so many times that it feels too obvious.

Who: Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams, Mark Ruffalo and Liev Schreiber
What: The true story of how the Boston Globe uncovered the massive scandal of child molestation and cover-up within the local Catholic Archdiocese.
When: November 6th
Why: After delivering an uncharacteristic dud with “The Cobbler,” writer/director Tom McCarthy has seemingly bounced back with this investigative news drama, which gained serious Oscar buzz following its debut at the Toronto International Film Festival. The Academy loves movies based on true stories, especially ones as noteworthy as this, and the cast is overflowing with talent. Though Michael Keaton is hot off his Best Actor win for “Birdman,” early reviews have singled out Mark Ruffalo as the cast member most likely to earn a nomination come January. But regardless of what kind of presence it has at next year’s awards ceremony, “Spotlight” looks absolutely riveting.

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This week we finally come to the end of a cycle of posts featuring a number of good-to-fantastic cocktails, all courtesy of the gods of booze publicity and the free bottles of booze they are kind enough to occasionally send me. This week’s drink is a very tasty way to end the series and is intended as a sort of salute to the relatively new season of what I imagine has to be the most popular of all web-only television series, Beau Willimon’s bass-heavy, caustically compelling “House of Cards.”

Basil Hayden’s Power Play caught my eye not so much because of the promotion tied in with the latest adventures of the ultra-ruthless Democratic pol-on-the-rise played by the great Kevin Spacey, but because of one very unusual cocktail ingredient. You see, we’re actually a week late for the premiere of the new season and I’m only just now caught up with season one. However, the combination of one of the USA’s great bourbons and the inclusion of root beer was the grabber.

I’ve often wondered why, unlike ginger ale/ginger beer, cola, and 7-Up/Sprite, root beer and cream soda never seem to make an appearance in cocktails. And, yes, these are easily my two favorite sodas. Let’s give it a try.

Basil Hayden’s® Power Play

Combine the bourbon, lemon juice, simple syrup, vanilla extract and one splash of your favorite root beer in a double sized rocks/old fashioned glass with plenty of ice. Pour into a cocktail shaker, mixing glass, or really any receptacle large enough to hold the entire drink. Do not shake, but instead pour directly back into your double rocks glass. Add another splash of root beer and  your lemon rind garnish for a bit of additional ruthlessness. Toast the fact that you are almost certainly a much nicer and/or less broken person than Frank Underwood or almost anyone he knows. It might be fun and, sadly, educational, to watch political thrillers about conscience-challenged humans, but niceness is underrated!

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First of all, I usually hesitate to actually include the names of booze brands — no matter how excellent — in the names of the cocktails we use here, even if that’s the name I’m given by its purveyors. However, there’s already another drink called the Power Play, which is very different from this one. Also, as is my usual practice, I tried this with a good Brand X bourbon and it was disappointing. Stick with the call brand this time.

Justifying it’s super-premium price tag, Basil Hayden’s is one of the very few bourbons I’ll drink semi-straight (on the rocks, say) by choice. It’s got a Scotch-like astringency to it and is less sweet than a lot of other bourbons. That’s important because, between the simple syrup and the root beer, this is a pretty sweet concotion and sweeter bourbons are a real problem here.

I also typically like to give readers an option to switch out simple syrup with suger as a way to may life easier. That substitution didn’t work either. You can always simply combine a heaping tablespoon of easily dissolved superfine sugar with an equal amount of water and mix them together for simple syrup on the fly.

Finally, I wish I could report you to you how this drink worked with various brands of root beer. I love root beer at least as much as I love my favorite cocktails and there are a number of brands I like more than the others. Still, the stuff is, to me, far more addictively irresistible than booze, and I feared the impact on my blood sugar if I bought more than one brand. I fortunately found a half-size six pack of my beloved ultimate default root beer, A&W, and stuck with that. It was mighty good as long as I didn’t overdo the splashes.

And one last thing. I know, I know, this post has nothing to do with St. Patrick’s Day this Tuesday. I’m sorry…I failed to give the calendar a look before it was too late. Frank would try to capitalize on my weakness, but I hope you’ll be more forgiving and not try to blow my house down.

The attraction of casino games is universal. Taking one’s place at the table provides a jolt of excitement; the games are fun to play, and the prospect of a big win is appealing to players of all levels.

For centuries, casinos have been popular destinations for celebrities and “regular” people alike. In the late 1800s it was not uncommon for tourists to go to the casino in the hope of spotting the “stars” of the time, which included authors like Dostoyevsky, musicians like Johann Strauss, and even the future King of England, who played under an assumed name and sometime in disguise. Business tycoons and European nobility often tested their luck at the various popular games of the time.

Today, casinos are still a favorite haunt of celebrities, but thanks to mass media and the internet, it is far easier for us to spot them.

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Whether you’re being raised by trolls, surviving a Westoros defenestration, or making a career in the wild and wacky world of international show business, it never hurts to be both enthusiastic and, believe it not, genuine. Now 15 years old, Isaac Hempstead-Wright is best known to most as Bran Stark on “Game of Thrones,” HBO’s Emmy-winning adult fantasy sensation based on George R.R. Martin’s gazillion-selling literary doorstops. His voice is also soon to become known to family film audiences as the heroic young Eggs in “The Boxtrolls,” the latest from Laika Studios, the stop-motion animation whizzes who brought us the rightfully acclaimed “Coraline” and “ParaNorman.”

An apparently very down-to-earth youth from an industrial English village, Hempstead-Wright seems unaffected by the fact that he’s spent several of his formative years working on a long-form dark fantasy spiked with graphic violence and NC-17-esque sexuality. Soulful and earnest on TV, in person, the young actor is eager and friendly to a fault – after we were told our interview was completed, he engaged us in some neighborly small-talk until yours truly was very nearly forcibly ejected by publicity.

That enthusiasm has no doubt been a plus in the physically and emotionally challenging role of the disabled, steadfast young Bran alongside the stellar “Game of Thrones” cast. It also must have factored into Laika’s decision to place Hempstead-Wright alongside the top-drawer “Boxtrolls” voice ensemble, which includes Elle Fanning, Toni Collette, Jared Harris, Simon Pegg and Sir Ben Kingsley.

As the old saying goes, you need sincerity to succeed in show business and, if you can fake that, you’ve got it made. Here are five pretty sincere answers we don’t think young Hempstead-Wright had to fake.

1. Can you persuade the Bullz-Eye core audience of males, aged 18-35, that it’s safe to see “The Boxtrolls” despite it’s family-friendly PG rating?

IHW: I would say go and see “The Boxtrolls” just because the Boxtrolls are really cute, even if you’re sort of this big, butch person, I think you would enjoy how cute they are, because that’s kind of what they are. They look like, on the outside, they are these terrifying creatures, but you realize they are very soft and sweet inside.

[My character, Eggs] is a boy who thinks he’s a Boxtroll. He’s an orphan who was raised by Boxtrolls because they’re the only people who really care for him. If you look at a lot of the people in the upper world – the Boxtrolls live in an underground cavern – [the human parents are] all really horrible. Well, not horrible — they just don’t care for the children. If you look at [lead female character, voiced by Elle Fanning] Winnie’s parents, they are much more interested in cheese than in [their] daughter.

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