Once again, after my review of Legally Blonde last week, I began taking flak about my ability to give fair reviews to comedies.  Before reviewing the new comedy, Zoolander, I'd just like to take just a moment to rebut this erroneous perception among some of my readers. A quick scan of my reviews this year shows that while I did trash Legally Blonde, Shrek, and America's Sweethearts, I quite liked Miss Congeniality, Bridget Jones Diary and The Dish.  I will admit that quirky, intellectual comedies like The Dish, State and Main and Rushmore, tend to get better reviews than more slapstick movies like There's Something About Mary.  This all brings me back to Zoolander which is a quirky, intellectual comedy and a slapstick comedy.  It's pretty funny both ways.  The story involves a male model, Derek Zoolander (Ben Stiller) who has been on top of the fashion world for a long time but is now threatened by an upstart named Hansel (Owen Wilson).  A shadowy group of fashion designers, who meet in semi-darkness a la SPECTRE, is worried that their sweatshops in Malaysia are about to be closed down by the new Prime Minister.  So they brainwash Zoolander and give him the mission of assassinating the Prime Minister.  I know this sounds a little heavy for a comedy plot and a few doubts did cross my mind but it passes quickly as does the shock of seeing views of the beautiful skyline of New York City.  I don't know whether they were lucky in their shooting of the scenes or whether they did some fast editing but the World Trade Center Towers are nowhere to be seen.  The nefarious assassination plan is being spearheaded by Mugatu (Will Ferrell), one of the fashion designers, his sidekick Katinka (Milla Jovovich) and Zoolander's Manager (Jerry Stiller).  Zoolander is aided by a Time Magazine reporter (Christine Taylor) who thinks he is dumb as a post.  The main plotline is mostly secondary to the battle between Zoolander and Hansel for model supremacy.  Zoolander is famous for his `Blue Steel' look while Hansel is a bungie-jumping new age man-child.  They butt heads first at the Model of the Year Awards Ceremony and then at a hilarious ``Walk-Off" where they compete to do the best walk down a runway with David Bowie as referee.  But Zoolander and Hansel are too similar not to become friends and allies by the end fighting against the evil Fashion Designers.  Stiller and Wilson are both great as the not-to-swift models.  Wilson plays basically the same goofy, friendly character he plays in all his films, most notably, Armageddon and Shanghai Noon.  Along with all the banana peels, the film is very clever and provides humorous moments on many levels.  Stiller shows he can do it all by mixing Laurel and Hardy physical comedy with deconstructing the fashion industry.  He also wrote and directed Zoolander.  The movie also works because Derek Zoolander is a likable, nice person even if he is a bit slow. Zoolander is a bit like a low budget feature where you use all your friends and family as actors.  Stiller's parents, the comedy team Stills and Meara both appear, Jerry Stiller as Zoolander's manager and Anne Meara in a small cameo.  And Stiller is married to Christine Taylor who plays the reporter and love interest for Derek.  She is best known as the new Marcia Brady in The Brady Bunch Movie.  There are lots of cameos as Zoolander is peopled by lots of celebrities from Donald Trump to Winona Ryder playing themselves.  David Duchovny does a funny bit as a paranoid ``hand'' model.  The film is nicely paced and not too long.  It only loses its focus briefly in the middle but gets back on track quickly.  Stiller has been on a comedy roll lately building on There's Something About Mary, Keeping the Faith and Meet the Parents.  This time, in the theatre, I was laughing along with the 16-year-old girls in the audience.