Did you see Paranormal Activity? Did you like it? If you answered yes to the second question, you mostly have writer-director Oren Peli to thank. But if you didn’t like it, you can thank Paramount for at least getting you in the movie theater. And the studio’s shareholders have Paramount’s marketing department to thank for the humongous profits the movie has been making — from people buying tickets, not from people liking what they paid for.
Obviously it’s more important to make money than a good movie, which may explain why Peli is reportedly having trouble securing distribution (and his asking price) for his follow-up, a sci-fi horror flick titled Area 51, despite the fact that his film just topped the weekend box office, has earned more than $60 million over five weeks of limited release and has been a Twitter trending topic consistently for about a month now. Neither of those things is at all thanks to him, right?
Maybe it isn’t helping him that his film looks like it was a piece of cake to make, and he kind of makes it seem that it was in fact easy peasy. But this was no Blair Witch Project, which was good in concept but not so much in execution. Paranormal Activity is structured terrifically and there’s nary a dull moment, even during the non-scary daytime scenes, which deserve a lot of credit for providing some very natural humor to balance with the sometimes silly paranormal thrills. Peli may not be a master filmmaker, but he did a pretty good job.
But whatever. Since when does Hollywood care if a filmmaker is actually great at making films, anyway? Didn’t I just hear that Steve Carr landed another gig? Did Paul Blart: Mall Cop make so much money because of his talent or because of Sony’s ability to sell stupid comedies to the masses?
Who wants to set up an Eventful “Demand It!” campaign for Area 51?
Check out what other film blogs are saying about Oren Peli’s troubles after the jump:
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Leave it to Michael Bay to turn something already big into something bigger. No, I’m not talking about the “life-size” IMAX version of Optimus Prime. I’m referring to the gap between critic and general audience tastes, often referred to as the “critic-audience divide.” We’ve already seen it get worse this year via terrible yet popular movies like Paul Blart: Mall Cop, but given the $201.2 million grossed by Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen over its first five days, we film writers are feeling the coming apocalypse soooo much more. Remember how last year we thought The Dark Knight made so much money so quickly due to the fact that reviews were so great? Eh, that probably wasn’t the truth after all.
Of course, a success like Transformers 2’s doesn’t exactly prove critics are worthless, only those who function simply as a thumbs up/thumbs down sort of recommendatory guide. Plenty of critics should continue to be worth reading if they’re otherwise good reads and create or allow for discussion without merely saying a film is good or bad. One of my favorite kinds of critic, for instance, is the kind that may turn me onto a film despite him/her having disliked it, as some scathing reviews of Transformers 2 have almost done.
A reader commented on my previous post about Transformers 2 with the claim that all our negative reviews helped the movie be so successful. If that’s the truth, maybe we should start using negative psychology and trash the great little films we really love. Or, we can just stop worrying about the majority audience liking different things as us and enjoy all the death threats we get from mainstream moviegoers when we disagree with them. Isn’t it often better for our sites’ traffic to stir up contention anyway?
Oh well, here’s another crop of critical whinery after the jump:
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In the subversive new comedy Observe and Report, Seth Rogen plays one very angry mall cop. But despite what you’ve figured out from the trailer, the character is not set off by a pervert flasher, nor is his violent behavior necessarily triggered by his decision to stop taking his medication. No, he’s simply incensed by Hollywood’s depiction of mall cops. If the movies aren’t stereotyping them as idiot police rejects, like in this year’s other mall security guard movie, Paul Blart: Mall Cop, they’re replacing them with also-flawed, laser-shooting, head-exploding robots, as in Chopping Mall. When Rogen is seen bashing skateboarders’ skulls, he’s not merely fed up with teenage hooligans wrecking his own place of employment; he’s also obviously reacting to the scene in Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol where David Spade gets away from a real cop and a mob of irate shoppers after skating recklessly through a mall (there are also skateboarding villains in Paul Blart).
On top of all this, Rogen’s character is likely tired of all the destruction caused to malls in the movies. And after seeing damage caused by police cars, aliens, robots, zombies, time travelers, terrorists, and Arnold Schwarzenegger (multiple times), he’s just so hard on the offensive, because he feels he has to be ready for anything. Unfortunately, teens and perverts are all he’s got. So, to illustrate the kinds of threats he seems more pumped up to handle, we’ve selected the ten best action scenes set in a mall:
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Kevin Smith is having title trouble again. After previously dealing with censorship related to the title Zach and Miri Make a Porno, the filmmaker has run into a snag with his next movie, originally called A Couple of Dicks. Warner Bros. has changed the title of the comedy, which will star Bruce Willis and Tracey Morgan, to A Couple of Cops, obviously so as not to confuse anyone with the multiple (including the offensive) meanings of “dick.”
But this can’t be the end, because nobody in their right mind would distribute a movie with that new title. I’m pretty sure the word “cops” is poisonous. Has there been a single good movie with that word in the title since Buster Keaton’s 1922 short? Singularly, “cop” will occasionally work, such as in Beverly Hills Cop, Super Cop, Cop Land and Kindergarten Cop. But pluralized, I think the best we’ve seen is Cops and Robbersons. Recall that Hollywood Homicide was once titled “Two Cops,” which is quite like Smith’s movie’s name, but better. And maybe the original title cursed it, because the movie flopped. So, unless A Couple of Cops involves fumbling policemen resembling the Keystone Cops, it’s certain that the studio will need to brainstorm a new name quick, if it’s not already too late. Or, if Smith doesn’t really care about this movie, which he didn’t write and is seemingly only directing for the easy money, perhaps he can ultimately take his own name off and let it be an Alan Smithee film.
Here are some of the negative responses to the name change from around the web:
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While Karina (and indieWIRE) sits off to the side celebrating the recent indie box office record-breaker, most of the interweb is talking about the weekend’s mainstream achievements. Well, actually people are mostly focusing on just the shocking success of Friday the 13th, which I believe broke records for its franchise, its genre, its rating and for President’s Day weekend (though not for the month of February). As for the other monumental marker, Paul Blart: Mall Cop, I’ve seen maybe two bloggers comment on how it’s just passed $100 million. How is this a remarkable feat? Well, not only does this make Paul Blart the highest grossing January opener ever, but the oft-derided comedy is also the first film to debut in January to reach the $100 million point (not counting the special edition re-release of Star Wars, that is).
As this is a holiday and most of the web cinephiles are celebrating appropriately by watching North by Northwest or Point Break, there isn’t much else being written about, so here are some noteworthy quotes and links regarding the stunning box office figures:
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After flocking to theaters for the PG-rated Paul Blart: Mall Cop, is America ready for the R-rated version? That will be decided when Jody Hill’s Observe and Report hits theaters this April (and before that, SXSW next month). Starring Seth Rogen in the Kevin James role, the later of “the dueling mall cop movies” has a new NSFW red-band trailer, and it has all the Blart-haters on the net (many of whom probably didn’t see the movie) all excited. Never mind if Observe will be better (it will be for those who prefer a lot of F-bombs in their comedies), the real question is whether or not a darker, raunchier version of a movie that’s already a box office hit will in turn be a flop. Especially in these times of speculating that audiences want more hopeful yet more mindless entertainment. Considering Observe seems almost like a bridge between Paul Blart: Mall Cop and Taken, which took the box office top spot away from Blart a few weeks ago, it’s plausible that this could actually be Rogen’s biggest hit yet.
After the jump, check out the trailer and what people around the blogosphere are saying about it:
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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:
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While many cinephiles were watching indie films at Sundance and celebrating the nominations of little-seen Oscar-hopefuls, regular moviegoers were buying tickets to Paul Blart: Mall Cop, which 
