i love albert brooks so much that I traveled to santa monica for him

I had perhaps the best Westside experience this evening. Dinner, movie, and dessert. It was quite the romantic date for both Anna and I, even sitting in this bizarre booth (seated side-by-side) at a crepe place on the 3rd Street Promenade.

I managed to score two passes to an advance screening of Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World. Very advance, you know, less than twenty-four hours before it will start elsewhere. Oh well, free and advance is free and advance.

I loved it. I laughed constantly. I was amazed at how much the crowd laughed. While it's full of Brooks's usual cerebral humor, there are plenty of easy jokes. It's perhaps his most accessible film, but the overall topic and satire certainly doesn't have the broadest appeal. It's full of references to Brooks's previous films and roles, the most obscure one being Modern Romance which is actually never named, perhaps a nod to his fanbase. It's really well done, much funnier than the trailor would indicate.* It was so good, I think I'm going to go pay to see it again in a week or so, hoping the theater won't be full so I can actually hear everything. Usually movies are deafeningly loud, but not this one. Some of the subtle jokes were drowned out by laughter.

Bottom line: go see the damn movie. Albert, don't wait so long to make another one!


* I've never seen a movie whose trailor actually didn't cut out huge context to give details and laughs. That was a surprise. And clearly most of the audience hadn't seen the trailor (or at least the ten times I did) so they laughed the hardest at the jokes that appear in it, which had lost their luster for me.