Slate Magazine - Middlebrow, The

My dinner with Zagat.

Bryan Curtis — Sun, 28 Jan 2007 21:09:12 EST

Tim Zagat—a "well-built but not portly" man, with "hawk-like features" and the garrulous manner of "a favorite uncle of one of your friends from college"—has the good fortune to work around the corner from the Time Warner Center at 10 Columbus Circle in New York City. This is fortuitous because Zagat and his wife, Nina, the publishers of the best-selling Zagat Survey and America's most famous restaurant enthusiasts, like to go on nighttime perambulations of New York restaurants. With its chic eateries and suave maitre d's, the Time Warner Center offers a good starting place for such an excursion, and an ideal laboratory in which to observe the Zagat aesthetic.

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The problem with Christopher Guest.

Bryan Curtis — Sun, 26 Nov 2006 21:13:11 EST

Only someone truly uncharitable could resist the charms of Christopher Guest, the ringleader of an agile troupe of mockumentarians. After watching Guest's oeuvre, including his latest, For Your Consideration, I am afraid I am that man. As David St. Hubbins once put it, "There's a thin line between stupid and clever," and since This Is Spinal Tap (1984), the film that started it all, Guest's movies have become increasingly threadbare. They have a lot of mirth but few laughs. And I think the problem is lodged in his much-vaunted approach to comic filmmaking.

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The secret life of James Bond.

Bryan Curtis — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 18:49:11 EST

Who among us hasn't heard such tender words? Why, it was just the other day a mysterious beauty was telling me that, after I'd killed a cockroach and lugged her suitcase up the stairs. The man most frequently on the barrel-end of such compliments is, of course, James Bond. In Casino Royale, the new Bond film, the woman is a lithe, brown-haired accountant, who initially finds 007 soulless and brutish, but by film's end—one hardly needs to say "spoiler"—has come around to his cocky charms. In one of the film's many luxuriant sex scenes, the camera hovers over Bond and his companion as they wrestle atop white sheets in a Venetian hotel room.

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Dane Cook: insert punch line.

Bryan Curtis — Fri, 6 Oct 2006 18:46:10 EST

As anybody who watched Gallagher smash watermelons can tell you, comedy is a niche business. But lately a few niche comics, who in another life would have been confined to working auto shows, have become rich comics. This year's comedy concert box-office champ, with nearly $400,000 per city, is Larry the Cable Guy, the noted Southern philosopher. Whatever his charms, Larry will not be mistaken for Jerry Seinfeld or Bill Cosby. Exhibit B is Dane Cook, an aggressively unshaven, 34-year-old comic with hair styled like a yucca plant. Last year, Cook's second album, Retaliation, opened at No. 4 on the Billboard album charts—the biggest showing for a comedy album since Steve Martin's Wild and Crazy Guy (1978). Last week, Cook hosted the season premiere of Saturday Night Live, where he had the opportunity to play Saddam Hussein; today he opens a new film, Employee of the Month, in which, as he has pointed out on his Web site, his name appears above the title.

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The passions of Mitch Albom.

Bryan Curtis — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 18:29:27 EST

When we last saw inspirational author Mitch Albom, he stood accused of faking it. On April 3, 2005, Albom, a sports columnist at the Detroit Free Press, published a column saluting two pro basketball players for returning to watch their alma mater play in the NCAA tournament. The column was a misty reflection on the transience of youth and the heady glories of college life—an invention, it turned out. Albom had turned in his column a few days ahead of time, and the pros neglected to show up for the game. In the brouhaha that followed, Albom was roasted by his fellow journalists, while millions of readers, who couldn't have cared less, trudged to the shelves to buy his books Tuesdays With Morrie (1997) and The Five People You Meet in Heaven (2003). Somehow, Albom escaped without receiving the evisceration he deserved.

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