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Albert Brooks' humor finds some
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Filmed In India
Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World
was filmed in India, and at no point did
Brooks feel uncomfortable or experience
anything remotely resembling anti-
Semitism. "India is very tolerant of
everyone, I found."
Brooks' being Jewish is only men-
tioned once in the film. He gets a mes-
sage to visit the local Al Jazeera office,
and goes thinking the network found
out about his mission and wants to pub-
licize. Actually. no. They are expanding
beyond news and want to know if he'll
Review: Brooks' Comedy expedition
returns empty-handed.
oaftweet Clazdeo
Mon-Thur: 11:00 AM - 10:00 PM -
Fri & Sat: 11:00 AM - 11:00 PM •
Sunday: 12:00 Noon 10:00 PM
ccording to Albert Brooks,
Arab sheiks have far better
senses of humor than the
executives at Sony.
Brooks, 58, is a comedy auteur and
multi-hyphenate screenwriter, director
and star of films like Lost in America,
Defending Your Life and Mother. His lat-
est, Looking for Comedy in the Muslim
World, opens Friday. It's about a comedi-
an named Albert Brooks asked by the
State Department to travel to India and
Pakistan to find out what makes
Muslims laugh. He's supposed to write a
500-page report, which the government
will use to redefine its foreign policy.
Sony originally agreed to distribute the
film, but backed out. Sony execs wanted
him to change the title, suggesting just
"Looking for Comedy" as a suitable
replacement. "But that defeats the whole
point of the movie Brooks said in a
telephone interview. When he refused,
Warner Independent Pictures immedi-
ately stepped into the abyss, agreeing to
release the film and even arranging its
A
bar & grill
showing at the Dubai International
Festival.
Hence the Arab sheiks.
It turns out Dubai was "one of the four
or five best screenings of any movie I
ever made Brooks said. "One of the
sheiks in the country was laughing hys-
terically. I was hearing belly laughs. Just
the idea that this worked was beyond my
dreams. I was hoping for polite laughs
and that nobody walked out. That's what
I expected and this was exactly the
opposite
mir g a
a
ver the course of three
decades of stand-up comedy,
short films and features,
Albert Brooks has etched a West
Coast version of the Jewish intel-
lectual.
Sun-soaked in a blend of L.A.
materialism and existentialism, the
typical Brooks character is less
neurotic and more trusting than
his East Coast cousin. He's self-
deprecating rather than self-
obsessed, occasionally perturbed
but never bitter, all the while let-
ting it be known that he's the
.
smartest person in the room.
That endearing persona is front
and center in the actor-writer-
director's latest, Looking for
Comedy in the Muslim World. But
there's nothing else on offer in this
stunningly slight movie than finds
Brooks coasting on his laconic
charm.
It's all downhill after the title,
which is the cleverest bit. Alas, it
turns out to be false advertising
on two counts.
It conjures all sorts of possibili-
ties stemming from a Jewish
comedian's visit to Egypt, Saudi
Arabia or another Arab country. At
the same time, it promises chuck-