Emulsion Compulsion Officially Endorses Fred Dalton Thompson for President

December 2nd, 2007 by Scott Marks

fred-thompson-looking-for-comedy-in-the-muslim-world.jpg

Fred Dalton Thompson is an anti-abortion Republican who’s against a constitutional amendment to recognize gay marriage, not convinced that global warming is the fault of humans, and a gun nut.

Who cares about that nonsense? Anybody who worked for both Albert Brooks and Martin Scorsese automatically gets my vote.

Tags: Albert Brooks, CAPE FEAR, Fred Thompson, Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World, Martin Scorsese

Filed Under Rants

LOOKING FOR COMEDY IN THE MUSLIM WORLD / Albert Brooks (2005)

May 31st, 2007 by Scott Marks

Albert Brooks & Danny in LOOKING FOR COMEDY IN THE MUSLIM WORLD

Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World (2005)

Directed by: Albert Brooks

Written by: Albert Brooks

Cast: Albert Brooks, Fred Dalton Thompson, Penny Marshall, Victoria Burrows, Paul Eric Jerome, B.J. Ward, Lynda Berg, Steve Kramer, Vipin Kumar, Avinash Kaur, Rima Laham, Sanjeev Johrai, Imran Mashkoor Kahn, Kavita Ashok, Sandhya Bhatia

Aspect Ratio: 1.85 : 1

Genres: Comedy

Rating:

Even though Match Point has less laughs than Shadows and Fog and September combined, it is essential to celebrate the fact that the two most superb, trustworthy and knee-slappingest comedic voices of 70’s and 80’s cinema (Albert Brooks and Woody Allen) both have films opening this week

Along with Jerry Lewis and Howard Stern, I have spent the greater portion of my adult life defending the comic (and at times cosmic) genius of Albert Brooks. The reasons why most Americans shun spastic Jerry and gamy Howard are fairly obvious: people either dislike them or they hate them. Certainly Albert doesn’t provoke the same sense of disregard. From the start, he was branded an “acquired taste.” Didn’t they catch-on to his hip-before-its-time “Danny and Dave” routine (an unashamedly lip-moving ventriloquist) on Ed Sullivan? What about The Albert Brooks’ School of Comedy on PBS’s Great American Dream Machine or his sublime shorts for SNL? It seemed the harder Albert tried, the faster the general public sought asylum in another multiplex.

Had the “comedian’s comedian” stuck to supper clubs and the small screen, he still would have earned a spot right alongside Ernie Kovacs in the comedic Pantheon. With Real Life, Modern Romance and Lost in America, Brooks forged a vision and persona that heralded a mastery of cinematic form and elevated him to the ranks of comic auteurs Buster Keaton, Jacques Tati and, gulp, Jerry Lewis.

As in all classic film comedies, the set-up of LFCITMW is a simple one: In order to bring about peace and understanding through laughter, Brooks is asked by the government to travel to Pakistan to compile an ominous 500 page report on what makes the locals laugh. With the possible exception of the SCTV gang, no one understands, and, in an insanitary way, enjoys old (ancient?) school showbiz superficiality more than Albert. LFCITMW could be the finest Bob Hope vehicle that the violently unfunny Ski-nose never made. With feet firmly planted at the altar of The Jack Benny Program, Albert plays an ostensibly autobiographical character, well-versed in the art of rehearsed showbiz spontaneity, named Albert Brooks. The ersatz Albert has a wife and daughter, and while Brooks (nee: Einstein) is married, he has yet to produce an off-screen offspring.

It’s not just the passing generations of sincerely insincere comics that Brooks revels in ripping apart. He obviously knows what a perfect target Penny Marshall is. (Does she?) Anybody could (and did) direct Big. Jumpin’ Jack Flash (Brooks contemptuously displays the poster) and particularly Awakenings are abominations of cinema and the notion that A League of Their Own probably grossed more than all of Albert’s directorial efforts combined is sick-making. It is the talent-free Ms. Marshall’s refusal to “see” Albert in the Jimmy Stewart role for a remake of Harvey (compounded by a boatload of self-deprecating The In-Laws barbs) that sets Brooks on the road to Pakistan.

Unlike Woody who constantly relies on verbal and visual digressions (surprisingly there are few of either in Match Point), Brooks employs an unobstructed point-of-view and straightforward structure. With a pair of Government foils (John Carroll Lynch and Tony Montero) to guide him, we rationally observe every step of Albert’s two-month pilgrimage. He secures an assistant (the doe-eyed, effervescent Sheetal Sheth), sets up shop in a ramshackle building and reasons that the surest way to gauge a culture’s sense of humor is to put on a show, hit them with everything you’ve got and see where the laughs fall.

Brooks’ on-screen persona was never really all that likable. In order to add drama to his reality-TV forerunner Real Life, Brooks decides to burn down his subjects’ home. There is nothing even remotely cute, cuddly or Alvy Singer-like in his hilariously unflattering Modern Romance and his egocentric yearnings to “touch an Indian” in Lost in America prove as illusory as they are amusing. This time around Brooks presents a self-eviscerating overview of his career and no one is more aware of their ‘Q’ rating (the measure of a celebrity’s name recognition) than Albert. Hindis might not place the face, but everyone knows the voice of Nemo’s father!

To discuss the film any further would result in revealing too many gags and laugh-lines. It’s been ages since filmmakers took comedy seriously enough to actually attempt a breakdown of just what makes us laugh. Preston Sturges’ Sullivan’s Travels was one of the first films to put laughter under a microscope and Jerry Lewis continues to explain comical humoressness every Labor Day. Last year’s The Aristocrats renewed the trend and leave it to Albert, the most intelligent comedy mind currently at work behind a camera, to up the ante.

Don’t let the title deter you as it did Sony Pictures who refused to release it under its current name. At a time when movie comedy has coarsened to the point where wedding crashers and 40-year old virgins are as good as it gets, God bless Albert Brooks (and Warner Independent) for bringing logic back to laughter.