Nobody's Perfect: Writings from the New Yorker

I absolutely adore Anthony Lane's writing. He is one of the joys of my life - too bad he wasn't around when I was a teen!!!

Anthony Lane's reviews' reviews alone probably wouldn't tell you much. Opinion on him is so divided-- I know a ton of people who hate him, but to me he's the most reliably clever reviewer at the New Yorker. If I had read all these love-hate reviews, I wouldn't have gotten the book. I did though, and it put a spring in my step, it was so good. Don't be overly put off by the bad reviews. Or by the abundance of good ones either, it's really not hype, his writing is really very charming.

BOOK REVIEW: "NOBODY'S PERFECT," by Anthony Lane, NewYork: A. Knopf, 2002, 752pp. Reviewed by Harvey Karten 9/6/02. Anthony Lane has a prose style that makes us want to read what he has to say even if we go to the movies but once a year. His writing is so witty, so entertaining, that given the quality of so many films these days, Lane can easily provide us with more laughs than an Adam Sandler comedy and perhaps even more tears than can be evoked by Mike Leigh. He'd better be good: he's had the unenviable task at The New Yorker magazine of filling the shoes of Pauline Kael, arguably the most influential American critic of the latter part of the Twentieth Century. Like most of us critics, he may hate to sit through bad movies but loves to go to town pointing out what's disastrous about "Showgirls" and "Battlefield Earth," yet his satire is more the gentle type preferred by Sir Arthur Gilbert than the scathing sort of a Jonathan Swift or a John Simon.. Whether or not you're a regular reader of The New Yorker?where he shares the film critics' pages with David Denby?you can catch up on the wit and wisdom of this Londoner who spends a considerable amount of time in New York by reading his new book, "Nobody's Perfect." (The title comes from Osgood Fielding III's statement in "Some Like It Hot" when, having been discovered that under that dress lies a man, gleefully responds, "Nobody's Perfect." As self-deprecatory as Woody Allen, Lane employs a style all his own, though his prose can be compared to that of Atlantic Monthly's hilarious P.J. O'Rourke. For example, when he received a phone call from Tina Brown, New Yorker editor at the time, he tells us that when Brown phoned him, "I was sitting in London...I think I actually stood up to receive it much as I would if a letter had come from the Vatican." Answering a question posed during an interview, he states, "I did not decide to become a film critic, any more than one decides to be a refugee or a drunk. To be honest, I cannot remember how this unfortunate state of affairs came about. My family continues to ask whether I might consider getting a proper job." Here is Lane's take on varied elements of the film critics' industry... On Writers: "Writers should be treated like rubber plants?lightly pruned, occasionally watered, but basically left to do their own thing in a corner, away from direct sunlight." On the Job of the Critic: "The primary task of the critic is the re-creation of texture?not telling moviegoers what they should see, which is entirely their prerogative, but filing a sensory report on the kind of experience into which they will be wading." On Corruptible Critics: "However hellish that Adam Sandler fiasco you just saw, don't worry; there'll be somebody in Delaware who is prepared to tell the world, 'Hands up for the flat-out funniest comedy since Father of the Bride! Adam Sandler is a laugh riot, hands down!" By coincidence, that quotester will be the guy whom

Ours is a nation in which baseball fans have heated arguments over who is the best second baseman ever (my choice is Rogers Hornsby over Joe Morgan but not by much). The best this, the best that, etc. Such debates seem inherent in our culture. Is Pauline Kael a better movie critic than James Agee? Siskel than Ebert? Ebert than Sarris? Sarris than Schickel? What about Anthony Lane and David Denby? Who the hell cares? I have read and admired all of these movie critics, sometimes agreeing with them and other times not. Each has helped me to "see" more or appreciate something less in certain films. On occasion I adjust an opinion after a second viewing, thinking more or less highly of a film in part because of what a critic has observed. While reading Anthony Lane's work in The New Yorker since 1993, I have often wished that at least his best of it be published in a single volume. That wish has now come true for me as well as for countless others. For reasons already provided, I will not get into comparisons and contrasts with other writers (Kael, Denby, Updike, Lahr, et al) and cut to the proverbial "bone": Those who generally appreciate Lane's work will thoroughly enjoy reading this book. Those who generally dislike his work need no opinion of mine. The title refers to one of the funniest film lines ever. It is expressed by Osgood Fielding III (played by Joe E. Brown) to "Daphne" (played by Jack Lemmon) at the conclusion of Wilder's Some Like It Hot (1959). Like men dressed as women, films are not always what they seem to be. Matters of agreement and disagreement about films aside, this volume also includes some of Lane's best `Profiles" from The New Yorker. I mention this because those who have not seen a movie since Reagan's first term in office will nonetheless appreciate Lane's formidable erudition, delicious sense of humor, and writing style of seamless precision and eloquence. It is possible to grasp the quality of Lane's thinking and writing even if you have not seen (nor plan to see) whatever film he may be discussing. I share his impatience with The English Patient but think much more of Braveheart than he does. So what? I enjoy the pleasure of Lane's (intellectual) company and appreciate the fact that I can now turn to a single volume to renew acquaintances while awaiting the next issue of The New Yorker.