Paul Blart: Mall Cop. More Real Than Reviewers

I confess to being one of the millions of Americans who have seen Paul Blart: Mall Cop since it opened on January 16th. More than that, I confess to having thoroughly enjoyed the film.

Having made that now public confession, Nathan Lee of The New York Times and Brian Lowry of Variety would have you believe that I am but a sad and unfortunate example as to why the unwashed masses should not be allowed to think for ourselves. How dare we derive pleasure from a movie elitist reviewers writing for a minute collection of fellow elitists have deemed prosaic, unimaginative, and beneath them?

In the world of writing -- not unlike that of sports or other businesses -- those who can, do, and those that can't, become film reviewers who take perverse pleasure in tearing down the efforts of those willing to put their names, talent, and oftentimes, hard-earned money, on the line to create movies crafted to elicit any number of emotions out of the viewing public. How easy it is to never step into that arena and take potshots at those who do.

While the furthest thing from being an accomplished writer, I have authored a few successful books and novels (two of which have been optioned for films), by-lined a few hundred columns that have run in all of the major papers, and even have a couple of screenplays bouncing around Hollywood. Given that meager collection of work, I thought I knew enough to at least understand a bit of the written word. I thought I knew enough to understand and appreciate when a film was actually giving me a couple of hours of needed escape from the pervasive doom and gloom spread by most of the media in a desperate attempt to stabilize circulation or attract enough viewers to bring in the ad money needed to pay the salaries of the management who just fired some of their own unwashed masses.

I thought my life experience gave me the ability to not only think for myself, but to decide which films were worthwhile and enjoyable. One look at the reviews by Lee, Lowry, and most of the others posted on Rotten Tomatoes shows there is a serious disconnect between them, me and the millions of other Americans who have already seen the film. As I write this, Paul Blart: Mall Cop has been the number one movie in the country for two weeks in a row. Horrors. Clearly a sign of the Apocalypse.

Aside from belittling the film, Lee and Lowry seemed to share the same disgust that the mall in the movie was actually full around the holidays. Lee called it a mall "located in some economically vibrant fantasyland," while Lowry said the film "should yield quickly diminishing returns after a more solid opening than most actual malls are seeing in this economy."

Really? A quick question and point about their belief -- or insistence -- that based on the non-stop negative media narrative about the economy, the mall should be as empty in the film as they seem to think they are in real life. Do these reviewers ever step into a mall? Were they in any malls during the holidays? Are malls, like the films of Adam Sandler, Kevin James, and Rob Schneider, never seen or visited by the proletariat? Because, at least in the malls I was in during the holidays, were just as packed as the fictional mall in Paul Blart. As for that non-stop media narrative that the economic sky is falling, a top investment banker I know in London tells me that the media negativity is creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. Their reporting is contributing to and indeed fueling, some of the economic downturn.

Leaving that reality aside, the more pertinent question at the moment is, what would our nation -- or the world for that matter -- do without those who are convinced they are smarter, more refined, more well-read, and more entitled than the rest of us? If these people did not exist, would The New York Times, Variety and other outlets simply implode? Would we really be the worse for their absence?

Different people like different films for different reasons. All should be respected. To the utter amazement and disdain of these reviewers, Paul Blart: Mall Cop has become a certified hit. Get over it. More than that, climb down from the Ivory tower from time to time and actually speak to those in line to see the movies of Adam Sandler, Kevin James, and Rob Schneider. If you do, you will find that you are speaking to a representation of the vast majority of the people in our nation.

Don't worry. If you find it too traumatic or disgusting, you can always climb back up to your tower, take a shower, and then rip the next bourgeoisie movie that offends your lofty station in life. In the meantime, I'll be anxiously awaiting the sequel to Paul Blart: Mall Cop.

Comments

[JGatsby]

"Nathan Lee ... would have you believe that I am but a sad and unfortunate example as to why the unwashed masses should not be allowed to think for ourselves."

I looked at Mr. Lee's review. I didn't find anything saying that people that like it are sad or that he wants to prevent anyone from watching it or enjoying it. What I found was a witty review pointing out that its a dumb, predictable movie full of fat jokes. The job of a reviewer should be to try to enlighten people and get them to think more about film or some other subject. There are also plenty of reviewers who will praise just about every dumb hollywood piece of crap. Thankfully, those reviewers don't work for the NY Times.

[daedelus]

I'm guessing that you don't know much about art, but that you know what you like.

[daedelus]

Read any good Danielle Steele lately?

[gretchenart]

Hey, the film is simply blartilicious! I found it very entertaining and I am an avid film lover--but need both the mindless hilarity of such films as well as the thought-provoking movies like Revolutionary Road, etc. Often at film festivals, I take a break or two from the high brow fare critics love and go see an ordinary movie! All steak and no potatoes will give you indigestion and we need a nice mix of both.

[ElBruce]

Look, it's not a good film, but that's not what matters. If there had been better competition at the box office that weekend, it wouldn't have done well at all. Movie distributors underestimated how many people would want to go out for a good time that weekend without having to think too hard, and that created the vacuum that "Mall Cop" filled.

Face it. You didn't think to yourself "wow, I want to see that one!" when you saw an ad for it, you thought "I want to go to a movie; what's showing?" and then decided on that one.

And that's fine. It's perfectly entertaining. But it's being graded on a curve of other new releases on its opening weekend, and it lucked out in having the bar set astoundingly low. If you consider a lot of other movies you've seen and imagined two or more of them opening against "Mall Cop," you can see how bad it could have otherwise been.

The job of movie reviewers is to rate movies somewhat consistently, and that means they don't get to lower or raise their standards from week to week based on what's on offer. If you want to go see a movie and that's the one that looks best to you then you don't need a reviewer, and you shouldn't care what they have to say about it.

[gretchenart]

True, had New in Town or Taken opened the same weekend, I would never have chosen Blart first!

[ResearchGuy]

The movie was fun. My wife and I left the theater with smiles. That is enough for this movie-goer.

[Charity]

i agree with you, douglas - you are far from an accomplished writer.

during the depression, the biggest star was shirley temple. people went for escapism.

hence, the inexplicable box office success of paul blart: mall cop.

[Canuck27]

There's only two kinds of movies in my universe the ones I like and the ones I don't like. "Critics?I don't need no stinkin critics!!!

[marychs1942]

My sis and I took our grandchildren to see Kevin James. We are 66 years old twins. Our grand children are 7, 8 and 10. My son went along and he is 48 years old. So a good diverse crowd. We all agreed that it is a very funny movie with heart. We all laughed and talked about it after it was over. A sure sign that we all got something from it. I have been telling all my friends to take their children to see it. Rarely are movies able to entertain whole families. Thanks to comedians like Kevin, he has the right stuff to make us all laugh and forget about it. Whatever it is!
Mary

[abliss2379]

If you enjoy dumb comedies, then enjoy dumb comedies; why are you so defensive about it? As for the critics, I agree most come across as pretentious, but I refer to the great Roger Ebert: It's not what the movie is about, but how it is about it. Dumb comedies can still be inventive and original.

[abliss2379]

Ebert gave it 3 stars by the way.

[middleoftheroad]

Agree with your thread 100%!!! I see pretty much anything, and yeah, this was a silly comedy, but it made me chuckle, Keven James added a bit of heart to an otherwise cardboard character, and it did make me forget that the entire world seems to be falling. Movies are to entertain - like S.Goldwyn said, "If you want to send a message, call Western Union"!

[cplKlyde]

I was agreeing with you until you decided to throw in this piece of Thomas Freidman like economic analysis:

"As for that non-stop media narrative that the economic sky is falling, a top investment banker I know in London tells me that the media negativity is creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. Their reporting is contributing to and indeed fueling, some of the economic downturn."

[BlackJAC]

We already know that taste is subjective, Doug. Movie greenlight decisions are usually based on whatever a specific demo wants to see, and Happy Madison et al figured out that the demo that sees the most movies is the easily stimulated male sixth-grad­er-to-coll­ege-sophmo­re bracket. Some of us who were in that demo have since outgrown it and want something a little more substantive than the cheap popcorn that we used to enjoy by the dumptruck. I've looked at this year's release schedule, and there are only three or so movies I consider absolute must-see ones...and I was an extra on PAUL BLART: MALL COP.

[spaceghost06]

Whenever I hear this argument about the disconnect between box office and critics, it makes me think you could make the argument that Milli Vanilli, MC Hammer, and Vanilla Ice are all better musicians than the Beatles because they sold more records on the initial release of their albums. Nobody would do that. It's a ridiculous argument to make. So-called 'popcorn' movies that have been, for the most part, universally praised by critics: anything by Pixar, Judd Apatow, The Dark Knight, Spiderman, etc. I could go on and on. Why do people insist critics praise the movies they like? I never understood that. Some 'well-reviewed' movies I like (JFK, The Dark Knight), some I hate (The Piano), some are just OK (Slumdog Millionaire), some critically 'panned' movies I love (Charlie's Angels-Full Throttle, for example). Methinks the writer of the article is looking for validation of his tastes from the critics, but I think the critics are looking first at whether or not a movie is well made versus entertaining, see the above music analogy as an example

[BlackJAC]

Agreed. I didn't like LORD OF THE RINGS (I even flunked the test when I had to read it in school), but loved KISS KISS BANG BANG. I was never an ER fan, but I've got a DVD rack full of cancelled-­in-their-f­irst-seaso­n TV shows. SCARFACE, BLADE RUNNER and THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE were all box office bombs.

[Luvial]

Kevin James is the new Jackie Gleason. Love ya, man.