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.

From a Huffington Post piece by Douglas MacKinnon, titled Paul Blart: Mall Cop. More Real Than Reviewers

There are a number of really amazing things about this story:

1. That MacKinnon, who calls out Nathan Lee and Brian Lowry by name, would suggest that it’s an “easy” career path to writing film criticism for Variety or the New York Times;

2. That MacKinnon more than once slams “non-stop negative media narrative about the economy,” and implies that journalists should ease up on reporting all the bad news, and focus on the bright side. You know, like they should have focused on all the good news coming out of Iraq, instead of, like, Abu Ghraib.

3. That MacKinnon is so intent on diverting our attention away from the state of the world that he posits patronizing Mall Cop as not only a recommended “couple of hours of needed escape from the pervasive doom and gloom spread by most of the media” but also a stick in the eye of “elitist reviewers writing for a minute collection of fellow elitists.” There’s a vast media conspiracy that wants you to think! But Kevin James just wants you to laugh!

4. That in showing such distaste not just for film criticism, not just for journalism, but for the wider practice of thinking, MacKinnon manages to make virtually everythng published on Breitbart’s new bastion for conservative film chat Big Hollywood seem positively intellectual and urbane. Nice work, Huff Post!