Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Paul Blart: Mall Cop (2009)

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Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 01-16-2009, 10:43 PM:

Today at Regal 15 in Eugene, #8. Unsteady image. I was all prepared to spend $10 at the snack bar, but there were only 2 stations open and about 15 people in line at each one. Sorry.

I wanted to like this. Honest. But it's just not very good. In fact it's pretty bad. There were a few laughs for me but not nearly enough. The movie is kid-friendly though and kids in the audience seemed to find it highly amusing.

2 out of 5 if I'm being generous.

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 01-17-2009, 05:54 AM:

quote: David Stambaugh
Unsteady image.

Think they're using Apogees - why of the unsteadiness...

Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 01-17-2009, 10:33 AM:

quote: Monte L Fullmer
Think they're using Apogees

Actually Millenniums. This particular screen is usually very steady but not this show.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 01-17-2009, 12:12 PM:

Donno about the movie and I don't intend to see it but fomr what I've seen of the trailer the Paul Blart character reminds me of a person in my High School Class!

Mark

Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 01-17-2009, 01:04 PM:

The whole time I was watching "Paul Blart" I was thinking the late John Candy would have been perfect in it. Also, Seth Green would have been great as the "trainee cop".

Regal has changed their matinee pricing on weekends so shows are full-price now after 4PM instead of 6PM. Bah.

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 01-17-2009, 01:28 PM:

quote: David Stambaugh
very steady but not this show.

Prob don't know how to adjust band tension on certain prints, or just didn't close the slider gate completely ...

Posted by Tim Reed (Member # 137) on 01-19-2009, 10:53 PM:

Saw this show Saturday at Carmike Allentown, PA, house 6. Digital picture from Christie CP-2000 projector was dim and incorrectly cropped on the screen, chopping off a good deal of the image. Auditorium also badly in need of a B-chain alignment. Front channel levels were way off.

Christie is servicing this theatre.

Regarding the picture, I had fun with it. I quickly warmed up to the character and laughed a lot. My 13 year-old son liked it, too.

I thought the SWAT guy character was totally unnecessary, though, and could've been dropped without changing the satisfaction of the resolution.

Posted by Todd Shelskt (Member # 4684) on 01-26-2009, 09:04 PM:

I haven't watched "Paul Blart" yet, but after seeing the title I immediately felt the name alone was a forced attempt at humor. Paul BLART. Ho ho ho ho ho ho ho. A critic said the main character was trying too hard to be John Candy. That's EXACTLY what I expected after seeing the lame name. It's not fair to comment too much on a film I HAVEN'T SEEN, but comedy isn't what it used to be. There's not much talent out there these days (or so it seems to me).

Posted by John Wilson (Member # 269) on 01-26-2009, 09:51 PM:

Who is Paul Blart anyway? Is he a TV character?

Posted by Chad Souder (Member # 343) on 01-28-2009, 11:33 AM:

quote: Todd Shelskt
A critic said the main character was trying too hard to be John Candy.

What an insightful critic! How did he or she come up with it? [Roll Eyes]

You could say every fat actor is trying to be Candy or Belushi. Farley even admitted it. The fat-guy-falls-down-goes-boom bit is timeless and there will always be fact actors willing to do it. And it stays funny.

Posted by Tim Reed (Member # 137) on 02-02-2009, 10:14 PM:

quote: John Wilson
Who is Paul Blart anyway? Is he a TV character?

No, it's nobody. Just a made-up, non-descript name.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 02-03-2009, 08:40 AM:

I made it through about 10 minutes of this... the use of the Segways was funny but nothing else really was. All this silly stuff has been done a thousand times before by people who could do it alot better. If you want to expose your kids to this sort of stuff take them to see Chaplin, Keaton, Lloyd, WC Fields, or the Marx Brothers. They're all available on DVD too. These guys were geniuses, truely the ones that knew how to carry this sort of comedy and really make it work well. Otherwise the film critics were dead right about this movie.

Minus Three Stars on my Scale!!

Mark

[ 02-03-2009, 11:07 AM: Message edited by: Mark Gulbrandsen ]

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 02-03-2009, 05:02 PM:

quote: Mark Gulbrandsen
Chaplin, Keaton, Lloyd, WC Fields, or the Marx Brothers

Course, that was back when most of these actors were self employed before the studios "owned" them - to put them under salary.
..and they were totally in charge of what they could and want to do.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 02-03-2009, 07:40 PM:

In fact, didn't a couple of those fellows own the studios they worked for.....?

Posted by Tim Reed (Member # 137) on 02-04-2009, 03:56 PM:

Chaplin did. Keaton became indentured to MGM, against the advice of his friends like Chaplin, and there his career was stifled.

Btw, I'm thankful my son appreciates silent comedy. We watched Keaton in "The Cameraman" a couple of weeks ago, and were ROTFL! [rofl]

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 02-08-2009, 05:47 PM:

We saw this at an Epic Cinemas theatre in some smallish town in Florida while on vacation. It had a few laughs but the story was stupid and it had one of my personal movie pet-peeves: A guy who starts out a complete idiot and is super-smart in his chosen profession within 2 hours.

Kevin James can now look forward to being paid $10 million or more to star in a string of similar movies (only with different uniform costumes) that will all flop, followed by a direct-to-video Blart sequel.

1 star out of 5, given for the few laughs mentioned above.

Posted by Damien Taylor (Member # 4255) on 02-08-2009, 06:20 PM:

Chaplin kept all of his own film prints, which is why so many still exist I believe. I have a huge amount of those early comedies on S8, they never fail to deliver.

Posted by Mike Heenan (Member # 392) on 02-08-2009, 09:49 PM:

I rather enjoyed this... I dont think it'll hold up on repeat viewings though. I think they could have injected more humor into it, and did away with some of the excess "fat guy down on his luck and can't catch a break" plot lines.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 02-16-2009, 01:28 PM:

We're playing this right now. It's doing surprisingly well, in fact we were nearly sold out last night. But that doesn't make it a good movie! I'm sticking with my original 1-star rating.

Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 03-18-2009, 11:30 PM:

Uh, Bump?

Paul Blart: Mall Cop didn't work for me but hey, a lot of other people seem to like it.

Production budget: $26M
Box office gross to date: $139M

Posted by Mike Heenan (Member # 392) on 03-19-2009, 02:15 AM:

Anyone notice how the new seth rogen movie looks exactly like Paul Blart? Weird...

Posted by Joe Elliott (Member # 4006) on 03-19-2009, 02:23 AM:

Someone probably went to both studios pitching the idea, and both studios turned him down, and then both proceeded to crank out their own versions of that idea. (Remember Deep Impact and Armaggedon?)

Has anyone else been seing a pick up in business on Mall Cop? 3 weeks after it came out we were shutting it down during the week more that we were playing it, and now it is beating some of our newer movies.

Posted by Justin Gorka (Member # 3727) on 03-22-2009, 06:40 AM:

I only lasted half an our in this one. It doesn't appear to be doing too well at box office either. I think the British prefer for cerebral humour. 0/5

Posted by Tony L. Hernandez (Member # 3524) on 04-16-2009, 04:36 AM:

went to see it at The Lincoln Theater in Cheyenne, Wyoming about 2 weeks ago, but mostly because I wanted to see the theater. The movie was "cute" and I did not get bored, but I must say the storyline was rather nondescript and the basic storyline has been used over, and over, and over throughout the 100+ year history of cinema. The only scene that was vaguely funny was when he was fighting with the fat old woman.

It was OK although I am sure I will have forgotten it within a year. The theater was quite full for the showing I attended though [uhoh]

Posted by Steven J Hart (Member # 2340) on 04-16-2009, 10:18 PM:

I didn't care for the film much, but it was our second highest grosser so far for 2009. Marley and Me just edged it out for the highest gross. [Roll Eyes]

Posted by Bill Enos (Member # 440) on 04-18-2009, 09:27 PM:

Fairly stupid but has some moments, the audiences get lots of laughs, there will be sequels

Posted by Tim Reed (Member # 137) on 05-02-2009, 08:04 AM:

I'm snagging a Paul Blart one-sheet. I just love that pose which says, "this guy takes his job very seriously."

ROFL! [rofl]