The second installment in the Lord of the Rings story opens in movie theaters Wednesday. Frodo and Gandalf are back in The Two Towers, and NPR's Bob Mondello has a review.
Bob Mondello, who jokes that he was a jinx at the beginning of his critical career — hired to write for every small paper that ever folded in Washington, just as it was about to collapse — saw that jinx broken in 1984 when he came to NPR.