8
THURSDAY, JANUARY 26, 2006
Flick fails to find comedy
‘Muslim World’ nothing to laugh about
BY SEAN VONLEMBKE
STAFF WRITER
Writer-director Albert Brooks’
new film “Looking for Comedy in
the Muslim World” sounds like a
documentary, or at least a moc
kumentary.
Sadly, it isn’t.
Instead, Brooks created a movie
that sounds great in theory, but one
that ultimately gets lost on paper
and fizzles out on screen.
In the movie Brooks plays him
self, a less-than-quasi-famous
comedian who the U.S. govern
ment asks to travel to the Middle
East in order to study what makes
the Muslim world laugh.
The premise appears smart
and entertaining there is limit
less material for satire and ample
opportunity to explore a commu
nity intimately that Americans
know too little about.
But the first part of the pitch
gets in the way: Brooks plays
himself.
Not that there’s anything
wrong with that. Woody Allen
has played a version of himself in
every movie he ever made.
For that matter, so has
Brooks.
THE Daily Crossword By Alan P. Olschwang
ACROSS
1 Stately display
5 Promenade
10 Type of school
14 Gen. Bradley
15 Jeopardy
16 Libertine
17 Rational
18 Ink ingredient
19 Actor Holliman
20 Start of e.e. cummings
quote
23 Glossy fabric
24 Ham's brother
25 Drenches
29 Faces the day
33 Oven setting
36 Palindromic address
38 "Giant" ranch name
39 Part 2 of quote
40 Part 3 of quote
42 Part 4 of quote
43 Sharply defined
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45 Norway's larg
est city
46 _ in the belfry
47 Serengeti stalk
ers
49 Gossipmonger
51 Exploits
53 Totally con
fused
57 End of quote
63 Medicinal plant
64 Colorful
mounts
65 Stable dweller
66 Leslie Caron
LOOKING
for a part-time job or
internship?
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IRREGULAR PAGINATION
But he doesn’t simply write
himself into this movie; he writes
the movie around himself.
What could have been a biting
critique of the U.S. government
turns into a showcase for Brooks
and his shortcomings as an actor
and as a comic.
A prime example comes half
way through the movie when
Brooks performs a stand-up rou
tine at a school auditorium in
New Delhi.
He goes through a variety of
jokes, each received with a bewil
dered silence from his audience.
Of course, the people in the
theater watching the movie laugh,
but it is only a quiet laugh of com
passion for a kind man, too kind
for his own comedy and far past
his prime.
Brooks has a sharp wit, but
his jabs are only in jest. He is the
inventor and the only practitioner
of soft sarcasm he can make
fun of anything and everything
and do so with such innocence
that it doesn’t offend anyone and
it isn’t all that funny.
What exactly Brooks tries
to accomplish with this film is
unclear. He makes a few com-
film
67 Stingless bee
68 Met highlight
69 Abound
70 Favorable responses
71 Vichy very
DOWN
1 Military stations
2 Nebraskan metropolis
3 "Olympia" painter
4 Argument's proposition
5 Simians
6 Thaw
7 Make beer or coffee
8 Some beans
9 Inventor Gray
10 Early neonate
11 Kerouac book, "On the
12 Continental currency
13 111-gotten gains
21 Lennon's love
22 _ incognita
26 GPs’ org.
27 Pugilist's triumph
28 Pert
30 Thompson of "Family"
31 French state
32 Utters
33 Musical family name
34 Comrade
35 'Twittering Machine"
painter
37 5,280 feet
40 Northern constellation
41 Male progeny
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Diversions
MOVKREVIEW
‘LOOKING FOR COMEDY IN
THE MUSLIM WORLD'
★★
ments about outsourcing and U.S.
foreign policy, but his comedy
keeps him from being anything
but critical about it all.
Yes, he is clever and pleasantly
humorous, but it’s also worri
some how apathetic he is. Brooks
doesn’t try to take a stance on
anything.
He travels to the other side of
the world, looks around, shrugs
his shoulders and comes back.
He does teach us something,
though.
Toward the end, Brooks per
forms the same routine he per
formed earlier, only in a more
intimate setting in front of a
few Pakistanis who are smoking
opium. The routine is a grand
slam.
That is not to say that Indians
have a bad sense of humor or that
Pakistanis are druggies.
It simply shows that Albert
Brooks is only funny to people
who are jacked up on opium.
Contact theA&E Editor
at artsdesk@unc.edu.
(C)2006 Tribune Media Services, Inc.
All rights reserved.
44 Mighty Ducks' home
46 Tub accessory
48 Substantially made
50 Label
52 Put in mothballs
54 Bart or Ringo
55 Unearthly
56 Vicinities
57 Cartoonist Kelly
58 Nastase of the nets
59 Lacquerware
60 Vietnam neighbor
61 Actress Bancroft
62 Employs
Woody Allen’s latest
film a cinematic ace
BY WILLIAM FONVIELLE
STAFF WRITER
Woody Allen’s “Match Point” is
a morality tale without the moral
ity, not so much a struggle of good
and evil as the study of to what
depths evil will sink.
The result easily could have
been “Fatal Attraction, London
Style,” but in Allen’s hands, he
rises above the obvious steps of an
infidelity story to produce a film
that’s as captivating and vigorous
as it is ethically repulsive.
Not a bad step up for a direc
tor who only three years ago was
working with Jason Biggs.
As he points out in a shot that
admittedly draws too much atten
tion to itself, Allen is channeling
Dostoevsky with his biting exam
ination of social class and the
extremes of human desperation.
Jonathan Rhys-Meyers stars
as Chris, a London tennis pro
who falls for his student Tom’s
sister (Emily Mortimer), only
to find himself understandably
enamored later with Tom’s fian
cee, Nola (the luminous Scarlett
Johansson).
“Match Point” is Allen’s first
film to be shot in London, and
he shoots the city with the same
sense of loving detachment that
he does New York: breezily film
ing the landmarks not as land
marks but simply as another spot
in town.
He certainly does not display
the same economy when filming
his leading lady, though.
Has a camera in recent years
loved a woman more than Scarlett
Johansson?
Bathed in an ethereal light, the
screen lingers on her face, and
she seductively flirts back with a
poise that recalls Grace Kelly.
That is, however, as romantic
as the picture gets. While the first
three-quarters has the makings
of a standard infidelity thriller,
something feels aloof, as if Allen
were very slowly pulling the rug
out from under us.
O.C. MUSIC
FROM PAGE 5
“And you can’t stop that associa
tion, no matter what.”
Corporate Co-opting
Sometimes music’s visual asso
ciation can irreparably alter an art
ist’s image, especially in advertis
ing. One Honda ad campaign used
the indie credibility of the Postal
Service and MIA, while a famous
Volkswagen commercial featured
Nick Drake’s “Pink Moon.”
“It seems a little duplicitous,”
said Jason Killingsworth, reviews
editor for Paste Magazine. “People
are thinking, ‘This is cool, this is
indie. I can trust whoever’s using
this music.’
“How do you pry apart ‘The
O.C.’ and Death Cab, and how
do you pry apart the Shins and
‘Garden State’?” he said. “It’s
tough, but any artist that’s attach
ing music to a visual runs into that
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COURTESY OF DREAMWORKS
Chris (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers) and Nola (Scarlett Johansson) prove that
it takes two to tango in director Woody Allen's thriller 'Match Point."
MOVIEREVIEW
'MATCH POINT'
irkirk
Allen cloaks this bulk of the
film in a sense of mystery that he
doesn’t clue the audience in on,
and as a result, we are constantly
mesmerized without quite under
standing why.
It is in the last half-hour
where “Match Point” reaches its
boiling point, where all the little
moments Allen was baiting the
audience with finally collide.
His screenplay takes us to plac
es we didn’t expect to go or maybe
even want to go, and there is no
doubt of Allen’s complete com
mand of his craft.
“Match Point” is proof that
Allen might not have lost his
edge, as many of his critics have
contended.
Taking a razor’s edge to his
understanding of human psy
chology, Allen presents charac
ters who pretend to care about
others, only to, in the end, save
problem.”
But many also acknowledge the
beneficial effects of commercial
use. Television and advertising can
expose bands to new audiences, as
the recent indie trend has done.
“All of a sudden, my mother has
heard of Nick Drake,” said Sean
McCrossin, owner of CD Alley on
West Franklin Street.
“I think it’s great when bands
get the exposure,” McCrossin
said. “I do question as to how
they’re getting to put on these
soundtracks. ... Is there payola
going on, or are the people mak
ing the soundtracks just liking the
music a lot?”
It’s a valid question. Payola
the underhanded exchange of
airplay for cash or perks has
plagued pop music for years. In
1959 there was scandal involv
ing Dick Clark’s “American
Bandstand.”
More recently, in 2001, Sony
BMG admitted to paying for air
play in exchange for on-air con
Tkrihj (Tor Uppl
their own skins.
The events that transpire are
certainly shocking, but what
saves the film from imploding on
itself is that they are completely
believable.
A movie needn’t be morally
acceptable to be praiseworthy; it
only needs to be credible within
the context it presents.
“Match Point” follows a logical
series of steps up until the final
few minutes, during which Allen
continues to embrace the sense of
nihilism his picture established
with a choice that is truly coura
geous.
It has become the norm at this
point to say that “Match Point”
is a dynamic return to form for
Allen that is wholly the truth.
Whether it is a fluke or not
remains to be seen, but for the
time being, he has served up one
of the most uncompromising and
provocative movies of 2005.
Embrace it while it lasts.
Contact theA&E Editor at
artsdesk@ unc.edu.
“Why use
manufactured
music when there’s
so much good
music out there?”
AEXANDRA PATSAVAS, the 0 c
test prizes, station payments and
bribes to the programmers.
But music fans have every reason
to be hopeful. For each SUV com
mercial scored to a Jimi Hendrix
tune, there are a dozen under-the
radar bands seizing an opportunity
to reach new audiences.
“‘Selling out’ is one way to put
it, but you’re just reaching out,”
McGerr said. “You can’t count on
radio to get your music out there
anymore.”
Contact theA&E Editor
at artsdesk@unc.edu.