Transcript: An Email From 'Assistant 3'

Rob Long on the strike, two-handers and top billing

This is Rob Long with Martini Shot for The Ankler.

I was talking to a young friend of mine the other day about buddy pictures — you know, movies and television shows about a friendship or some other kind of duo.  We call them "two-handers," which I've never really understood as a phrase.  It should be four hands, I think, unless it refers to how many hands are out when it comes time to figure out the deal.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid was, basically, a two hander.  So was Midnight Run and the Odd Couple.

"So that movie where the two women drive off a cliff," asked my young friend.  "Was that Laverne and Shirley?”

I mean, look, he wasn’t trying to be cruel.