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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

67
$9.99
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24 City
66
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Easy Virtue
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End of the Line, The
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Girl from Monaco, The
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Harvard Beats Yale 29-29
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Rudo y Cursi
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Seraphine
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Sex Positive
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Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love
91
Hurt Locker, The
89
Goodbye Solo
88
Tulpan
87
Gomorrah
86
Seraphine
84
Summer Hours
83
U2 3D
83
Revanche
83
Tyson
82
Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country
82
Sugar
82
Hunger
82
Anvil! The Story of Anvil
81
Il Divo
81
Beaches of Agnes, The
80
Food, Inc.
80
Tokyo Sonata
79
Harvard Beats Yale 29-29
78
Boys: The Sherman Brothers' Story, The
78
O'Horten
77
Every Little Step
77
Sin Nombre
75
24 City
74
Treeless Mountain
74
Afghan Star
74
Two Lovers
74
Song of Sparrows, The
74
Lemon Tree
71
Pressure Cooker
71
Jerichow
70
Shall We Kiss?
70
Tony Manero
70
End of the Line, The
69
Valentino: The Last Emperor
69
Unmistaken Child
67
$9.99
67
Rudo y Cursi
67
Girlfriend Experience, The
66
Adoration
66
Moon
65
Sex Positive
65
Departures
64
Outrage
64
Examined Life
64
Throw Down Your Heart
64
Lymelife
63
Tokyo!
63
Cheri
63
Dead Snow
63
Tetro
63
Great Buck Howard, The
62
Cherry Blossoms
62
Big Man Japan
62
Not Forgotten
61
Sunshine Cleaning
60
Under Our Skin
59
Sleep Dealer
58
Julia
58
Easy Virtue
57
Away We Go
57
Merry Gentleman, The
57
Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love
56
Girl from Monaco, The
56
American Violet
55
Brothers Bloom, The
54
Is Anybody There?
54
Pontypool
54
Stoning of Soraya M., The
52
Quiet Chaos
50
Management
48
Alien Trespass
45
Whatever Works
42
Little Ashes
42
Tennessee
40
Limits of Control, The
40
Paris 36
38
Gigantic
36
Life is Hot in Cracktown
35
New York
28
Big Shot-Caller, The
28
Surveillance
22
What Goes Up
18
Downloading Nancy
16
I Hate Valentine's Day
xx
Call of the Wild
xx
Home
xx
Offshore
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
|
Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World
Warner Independent Pictures
FILM:
MPAA RATING: PG-13 for drug content and brief strong language
Starring
Albert Brooks,
Jon Tenney,
John Carroll Lynch,
Sheetal Sheth,
Amy Ryan,
and
Fred Dalton Thompson
Albert Brooks provides an inspired and comedic view of America's approach to other cultures. (Warner Independent Pictures)
| GENRE(S): |
Comedy
|
| WRITTEN BY: |
Albert Brooks
|
| DIRECTED BY: |
Albert Brooks
|
| RELEASE DATE: |
DVD: August 29, 2006
Theatrical: January 20, 2006
|
| RUNNING TIME: |
98 minutes, Color |
| ORIGIN: |
USA |

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
91
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Nathan Rabin
Like "The Aristocrats," Looking succeeds smashingly both as a comedy and as a savvy deconstruction of comedy.

75
Chicago Sun-Times
Roger Ebert
I liked the movie. I smiled a lot. It maintained its tone in the face of bountiful temptations to get easy laughs.

75
Christian Science Monitor
Peter Rainer
It would have better if Brooks had invested more time trying to discover what makes AMERICANS laugh.

75
Philadelphia Inquirer
Steven Rea
Fans of Brooks and his wry, dry neuroticism will not be disappointed as he whines and whimpers around New Delhi.

75
USA Today
Claudia Puig
Albert Brooks may have come up with the funniest movie premise of the year in Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World.

75
New York Post
Lou Lumenick
It's a sly, low-key comedy in which he casts himself as a neurotic, self-absorbed curmudgeon.

75
San Francisco Chronicle
Mick LaSalle
A funny and appropriately skewed comedy.

70
Chicago Reader
Jonathan Rosenbaum
Brooks' film is especially welcome now because it frankly admits that most Americans are ignorant about Muslims and have a lot to learn, in contrast with the few other Hollywood movies dealing with Muslims -- "Syriana," "Munich" -- which seem to suggest that non-Muslim viewers can emerge knowing the score.

70
Washington Post
Stephen Hunter
The movie doesn't so much end as reach a stopping point and limp hurriedly off-screen, like a bad stand-up chased out by boo birds.
But God, is it funny.

70
Variety
Deborah Young
Though it risks political incorrectness every step of the way, film is more a pleasant laugher than a sharp-edged satire.

67
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
William Arnold
It's only half of a good comedy. After a delicious opening and setup, the movie really doesn't go anywhere very interesting, and doesn't come close to any epiphanies about the subject at hand, even in subtext.

63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Liam Lacey
Brooks is always a dry vintage, so the lack of outright laughs is to be expected. But Looking for Comedy is more depressing than funny.

63
Rolling Stone
Peter Travers
This Brooks is a comedian who forgets the golden rule of "know your audience." He thinks he'll get his laughs if he keeps doing the same act with better lighting.

60
Los Angeles Times
Kevin Crust
Not Brooks' funniest film, but it possesses his trademark wry humor and is slyly observant.

60
The New York Times
Dana Stevens
Front-loaded with inspired gags, and the first half-hour is both sneakily and explosively funny, raising expectations that are never quite met.

60
The Hollywood Reporter
Frank Scheck
A reasonably amusing effort that manages to poke fun at Brooks' neuroses and governmental blundering with equal skill.

60
Slate
Stephen Metcalf
For the first half of Looking for Comedy, Brooks' hangdog demeanor performs reliably, and there are plenty of solid laughs.

58
Portland Oregonian
M. E. Russell
Eraser-dull.

50
ReelViews
James Berardinelli
Strange that a movie about comedy is so lacking in this quality.

50
Miami Herald
Rene Rodriguez
Doesn't conclude so much as just stop, because Brooks, having come up with a great hook for a movie, didn't bother to come up with a satisfying story to go along with it.

50
Salon.com
Stephanie Zacharek
The movie has a perversely unifying effect: Muslims, Christians and Jews may not be able to agree on exactly who the heck Jesus is, but they're fully capable of bonding in boredom.

50
Premiere
Jessica Letkemann
At heart, a light, watchable film.

50
Chicago Tribune
Michael Phillips
The results are distressingly flat, frequently patronizing and, for a topical comedy, strangely out of it.

50
Village Voice
J. Hoberman
Almost despite itself, this is a deeply pessimistic movie.

50
New York Magazine
DavidEdelstein
Brooks is looking for comedy in all the wrong places. He's no longer his own White Whale. He's something slower, in a shell--his own turtle.

50
New York Daily News
Jack Mathews
You don't have to be a Muslim, or a humorless person of any persuasion, to
find Brooks' performance excruciating.

42
Entertainment Weekly
Owen Gleiberman
The movie isn't racist; it's just lame. If Brooks truly cared about Muslims or how their funny bones worked, Looking for Comedy might have had some zing, but all his character is interested in is the 500-page report he has to deliver - a homework assignment from hell.

42
Baltimore Sun
Chris Kaltenbach
Looking for comedy in Albert Brooks' Looking for Comedy In the Muslim World is a fool's errand. There's hardly any there.

40
LA Weekly
Ella Taylor
The question for skittish distributors is not whether Looking for Comedy will play in Peshawar, but how long the movie will take to put Peoria to sleep.

40
Dallas Observer
Robert Wilonsky
A particularly painful event for those of us weaned on Brooks' earliest films, Saturday Night Live shorts and vintage clips of his deadpan standup appearances. It contains precisely two funny moments.

40
Film Threat
Phil Hall
Unfortunately, Brooks errs badly by having his film centered in India. Yes, India - which, as most people know, is not a predominantly Muslim country. Rather than look for comedy in the Muslim world, Brooks uses this film to make fun of contemporary Indian society.

40
Austin Chronicle
Marc Savlov
An essentially toothless affair, poking fun at American imperialism and its attendant cluelessness while never illuminating much beyond the obvious.

38
Charlotte Observer
Lawrence Toppman
There's nothing more painful than watching comics tank, and Looking for Comedy in a Muslim World is a 95-minute wince.

38
TV Guide
Ken Fox
However deep the divide currently separating the Middle East from the West appears to be, there's at least one thing we can all agree on: Albert Brooks isn't all that funny anymore.

25
Boston Globe
Wesley Morris
This is by far the most embarrassing of his seven movies.


The average user rating for this movie is 6.5 (out of 10) based on 7 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
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