Why Steve Martin will never host a talk show

In this 30+ minute video from the New Yorker Fesitval, cartoonist Roz Chast and her cartoons are hillarious. Steve Martin appears awkward, self-centered and disinterested -- though he's also, clearly, a fan of Chast's. You don't expect an entertainment professional to consistently give off the wrong vibe for forty minutes. Wondeful.

On Lane

Occasionally I like to walk into small Christian bookshops in small New England towns and ask where they’ve shelved Nabokov. If you ever wanted to analyze exactly what my problem is that first sentence would be a great place to start. Next, you’d want to consider my gleeful theiving (with my friend Arash) of a large box of cookies from a Boston University Christian youth group. Then, just to clarify that mine is not a war on Christianity, perhaps deconstruct the overlong respite that Ted and I took on the leather sofas at Louis Boston while watching End of Days on their giant television and deflecting queries from various salespeople.

The only reason I’m thinking about this is because if I’d asked about Nabokov at The Book Cellar in Nashua, NH (with it’s Christian Pop music warbling out the speakers and a line of children’s books about great missionaries throughout history) they would have pointed me right to the Classics. Glory and Laughter in the Dark were in stock – not Lolita. I purchased a George Pelecanos crime novel and A Streetcar Named Desire as well. Thankfully, almost everything was mis-shelved or else I might have missed Nobody’s Perfect, the thick collection of criticism from Anthony Lane, the New Yorker’s film critic for twelve or thirteen years running. The softcover has this timeless cover that echoes a film poster I can’t place and somehow also feels like an old New Yorker collection cover. After the intro and the first few reviews you know that this is a book you're going to dip into again and again, whether it's for the gags on bad movies (Lane takes shots at the Star Wars franchise whenever possible) or the perfect explanation for why an action movie with huge plotholes still works as a great popcorn flick.

I keep wanting to write a sentence like "Anthony Lane is the best kind of film critic..." but I don't really know if that's right. The Chicago Reader’s Jonathan Rosenbaum referred to Lane as a stand-up comic. Forgetting that this is supposed to be an insult, I think I know what's irking Rosenbaum. Reading Lane isn't necessarily going to enliven a film for you, he's not the deepest of critics, and he doesn't wear his smarts on his sleeve. I don't think his aim is to dig into a film and raise your appreciation of it -- at least, not usually -- he's writing light, entertaining essays that give you an idea if a film is worth seeing and making sure to put a smile on your face if the film's a dud -- otherwise, what's the point of the review? The reviews are compact, direct and smart -- being entertaining is the paramount goal.

You can find some of his recent articles at The New Yorker site but the anthology is probably the way to go – just the greatest hits. Read an essay or two and you won't be surprised that this interview with Lane turned into a monologue that reads like what you'd find in the New Yorker's movie pages and included this Lane riff on celebrities:

When I went to Hollywood for an Oscars soirée I was the only hack, so I presumed it was going to be like The Wicker Man, that I'd be taken out into the garden and set on fire. Of course, the actors were all exquisitely polite. And most of them came up to my navel, so you end up putting your drink on their heads. I felt like Gulliver. They're very charming, the implication being, 'Please don't presume that what you said matters to us'