Review for

BOOK REVIEW: "NOBODY'S PERFECT," by Anthony Lane, New York: 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 the studio flew from Delaware to a junket in Atlantic City and then inquired gently for his assessment of Mr. Sandler as the new Jim Carrey."

On Press Junkets: "I once went to a junket and heard the assembled hacks complaining to each other about the water pressure in their hotel jacuzzis. I am as corrupt as the next man, but I must admit, the notion that you could trim your critical opinions to accord with the fizzy water in which you recently dipped your butt had, until then, never occurred to me."

On Publicity Materials: Never read it. Much is taken up with unconvincing claims of the expertise acquired by the stars in the building up to the shoot. 'Not content with a ringside seat, he actually spent ten months preparing for the role by acting as sparring partner to seven professional boxers, and is now hoping to contend for the welterweight title of the world.'"

On Screening Rooms: "My spirits sag whenever a screening is laid on in one of the specialist rooms off Times Square, which I always think of as peep shows for movie buffs. Can one honestly promise a nimble response when the screen is the size of a parking space?"

On Woody Harrelson: "Woody, trying to emote, looks like anyone else trying to go to sleep."

You'd be hard-pressed to find a single page without at least one bon mot in this 754-page compilation of New Yorker magazine reviews, which also includes profiles of people from Buster Keaton to Julia Roberts and authors from T.S. Eliot to Thomas Pynchon. Among the films covered, Lane discusses "Speed" (which he likes), "Indecent Proposal" (wherein he discusses some indecent acting), and "The Remains of the Day" (which should have shown Anthony Hopkins' character tanking on highballs and ripping the back of a lady's gown rather than measuring the distance from the fork to the edge of the table). Lane did not care much for "Pulp Fiction," but then, nobody's perfect.

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