Laughing matter?

RE “Actors, Outside the Box,” by Carina Chocano, March 26: You want to know what we really learn when comics like Adam Sandler and Chris Rock make so-called serious movies? We learn how very shallow they are and, by extension, how debased we are as Americans for paying so much attention to them.

Listen, anybody in a moment of quietude can seem to be thinking. Take Eddie Murphy: Apparently, he was great in “Dreamgirls,” but talent and charm have never been at issue with him. The question is, where’s his head at? I’ll tell you where: “Norbit.”

Will Ferrell’s funny and sweet, but he’s stuck in television. Every idea he gets is based on perceptions gleaned from watching TV. Nearly all American comedians post-”Saturday Night Live” have been sophomoric, developmentally stunted and crude. The bar has definitely been lowered. At least when watching a picture by America’s greatest living comedian, Woody Allen, you know you’re watching a man who’s constantly running interference between bona fide seriousness and an irrepressible gift for cracking wise.

NICKOLAS SILVER

Glendale