How to Read Anthony Lane

Although I like The New Yorker, I don't care for the work of Anthony Lane, one of the magazine's two main movie critics. Lane is British, and my problem with him is that his perspective so obsessively British as to seem almost pathological. A while back, though, I figured out a way to enjoy reading Lane. His frame of reference is so narrow that in almost every piece, whatever the subject, he manages to reference one or more of the following:
1) Shakespeare; 2) Charles Dickens; 3) James Bond; 4) Royalty; 5) Something European (but not British), often French; 6) Harry Potter; 7) Lewis Carroll; and 8) J.R.R. Tolkien.
So, for me, his recent review of Dark Shadows was fun to read in almost the same way a scavenger hunt can be fun.  In it, Lane manages to reference Nos. 1 (specifically, The Merchant of Venice), 3 and 7, with references to fellow-Brits Michael Powell and Edward Lear thrown in as a bonus. Jolly good!