My Drink With Garry Shandling

A few weeks ago, I went to a reception at the Sony Building for the DVD release of the extremely funny “Not Just the Garry Shandling Show,” which is out today. Mr. Shandling was on hand to introduce some very funny new segments he had filmed to compliment his classic spoof of TV talk shows, including an uproarious kitchen conversation with Sharon Stone, whom Mr. Shandling claims he used to date. The wine flowed freely, and every member of the press at the event had a private moment with Mr. Shandling. For reasons that I can’t explain, I chose to use mine to mention to Garry that I was one of very few critics who raved about “What Planet Are You From?” which began and ended Shandling’s career as a top-billed movie star back in 2000. “I heard there were one or two critics out there who actually liked it,” Mr. Shandling, who was not drinking, said with a grimace. “The problem was that there were such great expectations, because it was directed by Mike Nichols.” Then Garry drifted off, and I was left to ponder exactly why I called it “Easily the Funniest Movie of the Year” — and why I was sort of oddly relieved when Sony misspelled my name when they chose to immortalize that quote on the DVD box.