Scenes From a Mall

What do you get at a shopping mall, apart from shopping (duh)?

During the school holidays, entertainment is provided for the kids.

After hours, all sorts of nasty critters can be around.

Jobs for the trolley boys with their crazy trolley trailer driving – surely you’ve all seen it?!?

Westfield can always be relied on for some good entertainment.

Personal disputes between friends, family members and total strangers? Ah yes, what trip to the mall would be complete without watching a dummy spit? Well, why go to a mall when you can see a big one on this DVD with Bette Midler and Woody Allen starring in Scenes From a Mall? And just like the real annoyances of a shopping mall, you can relive these here too – mime artists, singing quartets, buskers and, of course, freaky people such as Woody Allen with an oddly girlish ponytail.

Now I’m not sure how everyone else takes Mr. Allen, but this one just is so edgy and nervy, not to mention stuttery, that you feel like grabbing his shoulders and slapping some sense into him. And you know what, it’s not funny. Bette Midler is superb in her role, but the annoyances of Allen just make it nearly impossible to enjoy anything about this film. The premise is interesting, however this reviewer found the execution to be missing something.

Nick (Allen) and Deborah (Midler) are your happily married couple with two kids living in Beverly Hills, California. This day is their sixteenth wedding anniversary, and after an attempt to make love on this precious day, the pair, with kids away for the weekend, head off to a mall to pick up some gifts and finalise shopping for their dinner party that night. But this day reveals more than just the commemoration of sixteen years – Nick confesses that he has had an affair outside of wedlock. Their perfect lives now begin to publicly unravel in the setting of the mall, divorce plans, as well as Deborah’s own surprise. It looks comically - and dryly - at the do’s and do-not’s of the privileged and successful, as well as the double standards that are around us every day. It has a few good moments, but generally the 83 minute duration seems to drag on for a lot longer.

The video is presented in an anamorphically enhanced widescreen aspect and looks pretty hunky dory – especially given the age of the print. Colours are their luminescent selves, boasting healthy and neat saturation levels. Blacks appear a little washy and faded, and whites stunningly NapiSan-ed, with the contrast between the two quite nicely mastered. Film artefacts are surprisingly nearly absent from this film, with a remarkably clean print, with grain a minor blemish over the image. Compression-related artefacts such as posterisation and blocking are quite minimal, however a few edges sometimes appear a little blocky, but generally this is pretty hard to spot. For a film of over ten years in age, this transfer really does the film justice, just like the recent stint of older releases such as Son in Law and Betsy’s Wedding.

Presented with two Dolby Digital 5.1 tracks, with English being the prime option, what’s on offer is reasonably nice but a little over-hyped – after all, a 5.1 soundstage is not used to its full potential in this film. Dialogue is clear most of the time, although when more than one person is talking at once the legibility goes out the window, making it almost impossible to tell what they’re saying. Even when you turn on the English subtitles, the confusion doubles as we have a heap of fragments appearing briefly on-screen before being replaced by more fragments which you, the audience, needs to be able to put together in a matter of seconds. Hmm, not really relaxing entertainment. Surround activity is pretty much non-existent and the soundstage is fairly hollow and empty, yet bass levels are quite nice even without punches and bangs from the woof-woof.

Sorry, extras are not available on this level. May I take you elsewhere?

Whenever I go to a crowded shopping mall I always get easily agitated by the dawdling of people and the constant natter of minor complaints. This film, set almost entirely in a mall, conjured the same feeling of frustration but this is one mall I couldn’t walk out of quite so easily. Woody Allen, ponytail and all, is like an itch you can’t scratch – a solo bird lost from the rest of the flock – or just downright plain annoying. Bette Midler is great in her role but Allen just really got to me. Transfer-wise there’s a treat in store here, with decent video, reasonable audio and not a single extra on show. Fans, go for it as this is a great presentation, but those in Scenes first-timers, give it a rent first perhaps – it may not be for everyone.