my week at the movies: ‘Paul Blart: Mall Cop,’ ‘Chandni Chowk to China,’ ‘My Bloody Valentine 3-D’ (maybe)

I really do wonder about the career of Kevin James. I hope he realizes he was lucky to have come along just at the time when unappealing oafs like him can find work in sitcoms about unironic Homer Simpsons with impossibly attractive wives that celebrate idiocy as all-American. (I’m guessing he may not.) And now we have James in Paul Blart: Mall Cop [opens in the U.S. on January 16 and in the U.K. on March 13], which surely can’t be as awful as it looks but will probably be even worse. I wonder if James -- one of the writers -- knows the slang usage of blart in the U.K.? (I’m guessing he may not.)

I do hope that Chandni Chowk to China [opens limited in the U.S. and in the U.K. on January 16, 2009] is as fun as it looks.

I should learn never to say never. Literally moments after I posted today’s trailer for My Bloody Valentine 3-D [opens in the U.S. and the U.K. on January 16], wherein I suggested that I would not be seeing the film because it won’t screen for critics, one of my editors at the several alt-weekly newspapers who run my reviews asked if I could catch it after it opens in order to cover it for him. I never say no to such requests if I can avoid it, so I said yes. He’s yet to confirm that he needs to review, and if it turns out he doesn’t, I may still skip it...