Two For the Seesaw

Robert Wise directed this filming of a successful play by William Gibson (no, not the father of cyberspace; he was ten at the time). The stars on the stage were Henry Fonda and Anne Bancroft, her Broadway debut. I’d like to have seen that. Originally it was to star Paul Newman and Elizabeth Taylor, but it was eventually made with Robert Mitchum and Shirley MacLaine.

I could tell ... Read more »

The Two Jakes

It’s sad what happened to this one. I suspect that any film that tried to follow up on Chinatown would be destined to fall short, but this one could have been better than it is. At the same time, I think it’s been somewhat unfairly maligned precisely because it invites comparisons to Chinatown.

Part of the problem is that the ... Read more »

Two Lovers and a Bear

Tatiana Maslany grew up in one of the least inviting cities in the world, in my opinion: Regina, Saskatchewan. She knows something about cold. She has said that she used to walk to school backwards so the wind would not frostbite her face. So she knew what she was doing when she took the part of a troubled young woman in Apex, Nunavut, which is so far north the compasses don’t work ... Read more »

Two Weeks Notice

Another Sandra Bullock attempt at light romantic comedy, this time with Hugh Grant. Again, it doesn’t work. Maybe she needs to get back on a speeding bus.

The Twonky

Henry Kuttner was one of the best short story writers of the 1950s Golden Age of magazine SF. Along with C. (for Catherine) L. Moore, often writing as “Lewis Padgett,” they produced some of the best stuff I ever read as a kid. Much of it was very, very funny.

I wish I could remember more about “The Twonky.” I liked the word enough that I used it in the early stages of writing my ... Read more »

Tycoon: A New Russian

The “new Russian” of the title is a breed that sprang up following the end of the USSR. Things were chaotic, stuff was up for grabs, nobody was looking out for much but themselves. A clever fellow could make a lot of money. A lot of money, and at a rate that would make Bill Gates blink. People became overnight billionaires, if they were willing to kill a fair number of people on the way up ... Read more »