Billy Pilgrim Woody Allen with a pony tail.Need I say more.Allen is a gifted filmmaker. I am currently trawling his oeuvre, and to be fair there has not been a film I couldn't watch (although Interiors did tax me) This is better than most actors bad films, and has a nice premise, moving in and out of a divorce as infidelities are admitted.It has Bette Midler. It is one of her better films (The Rose apart, that is not saying much, and I love Bette Midler's music) However, whenever I see this film, I look at Woody's pony tail and wonder why he does films like this.Still, nice colours, annoying mime, surprisingly little product placement, so worth a watch on a quiet Sunday

jzappa This is a "comedy" that pairs two of the funniest, fieriest Jewish comedians alive. It is about a bickering married couple that works out all their marital problems during a trip to the mall. Sounds great! Get to work. Wait. What is this? This is crap! Fix it! What? You can't? You already filmed it with a second-rate crew in just the past couple of days? What the hell is wrong with you?!I can understand it if Paul Mazursky wasn't as successful as one would think with this film because he didn't want to make the screwball comedy that everyone would expect, but what is so pathetic about this is that there are many moments where the film truly does believe it is being funny, such as the scenes with the irritating mime.Like most modern marriages, after about half an hour you might really want to reconsider your vows with this film, because although it starts blandly enough, you still feel that you can expect the laughs to start piling up, but they never ever do. Not once. Bette and Woody aren't even very good. What do they have with which to work? They can't spark off of one another in spite of generally giving as much as they can to these two-dimensional characters.Overall, this is quite an unnecessary film, a contrived effort to cash in, but with no juices at all except the anticipation of having Bette and Woody in the same film. It's almost unbelievable how bad it is. I understand if one does not trust the almost unanimous bashing this film gets until one actually sees it, because I am guilty of this. Woody Allen, as a writer and director, has never made a bad film. Even his worst film is twice as good if not more than this waste of talent.

gcd70 Well-regarded director Paul Mazursky's one joke film, "Scenes From a Mall", is a hopeless going nowhere comedy that only succeeds in making one yawn. The unoriginal, predictable script from Mazursky and co-writer Roger L. Simon manages but a few laughs, while the unlikely characters fail to generate any sympathy.This is not a memorable performance from the Divine Miss 'M' either, and while Woody Allen does okay, neither one of them create believable characters. Obviously Woody is better doing his own brand of dry, observational humour while Bette Midler has been better in dozens of other movies. Give this "scene" a miss!Saturday, February 22, 1992 - Video

drosse67 He lives in Southern California. He spends time in a mall. He carries a surfboard. He wears a ponytail. Is this really Woody Allen, or an imposter? This movie received a critical beating when it came out, but it's really not that bad. In fact, I sort of got a kick out of seeing Woody in this. He is well matched by Bette Midler, who reprises her Down and Out in Beverly Hills character. Director Paul Mazursky, who usually makes either Southern California or Manhattan-set social comedies, brings Woody out to the Beverly Hills that he's trashed in so many movies (the most obvious being Annie Hall), and plucks him into the center of '80s and '90s California consumerism--the mall. The story involves Allen and Midler discussing their infidelities in various mall settings, but the dialogue is merely a clothesline for the idea. It was a hard idea to pull off, but I, being the Woody Allen fan that I am, enjoyed it.