Probably they were thinking that they just could not miss by casting Woody Allen and Bette Midler (and as a married couple, at that !) BUT they gave them a story that started out quite alright with the usual Woody/Bette type bantering. They decided to celebrate their anniversary with a mutual clumsy stripping in bed amidst interrupting business phone calls. Bette Midler's bare butt is not for everyone ! This not being enough, they go off to the mall to buy gifts for each other (a surfboard to carry all through the mall ?) and a big box of sushi for like $375 BUT Woody has a confession to make, they fight, are annoyed by a mime (the terrific Bill Irwin totally wasted.No fear that the ending will be revealed. I did something very rare. I turned off the movie long before it ended. These spoiled, silly, squabbling people were just unbearably annoying and that dreaded B word (boring). Give it a miss.

I happened to rent Scenes From A Mall one time at a video store. The box made it look hilarious and I thought how could you beat a couple like Midler and Allen? But then I popped it into the VCR and was very disappointed. It dragged, it was incoherent, and an 87 minute movie made it seem like three hours. Midler and Allen go to a mall somewhere in L.A. for a wedding anniversary, while they are there Allen confesses to Midler that he has been having an affair with another woman. Midler then wants to file for a divorce but soon confesses to Allen that she has had an affair with another man. It is not a bad storyline but it just drags and leads to nowhere. The profanity level and sexual content is also unnecessary. I would say if you want to experience something like this go spend 87 minutes in a mall. But don't watch this because you will be very disappointed. It is a very unnecessary film.

Someone from Hollywood with a sympathetic heart should gather up all the prints of "Scenes from a Mall" and take a match to them. It would be an act of generosity. This comedy from Paul Mazursky is pretty much an appalling waste of film, and a waste of time for stars Woody Allen and Bette Midler. Allen and Midler play a California married couple 'celebrating' their 16 years together as husband and wife; they share a scene near the beginning in the bathtub, and see if you squirm through it as much as I did. I laughed one time during this atrocious fiasco (where Bette buys a new dress and Woody tells her she looks like his aunt). Otherwise, it's a claustrophobic drag with seemingly no script to fall back on. Everyone is winging it--badly. NO STARS from ****

Allen and Bette Milder play a couple visiting a shopping mall on their 16th wedding anniversary. They confront each other's infidelity and then they make up.This is an effective vehicle for Allen and Midler who go well together. In their grotesque sex scene you do not know whom to feel more sorry for. Director Paul Mazursky's plot is fairly mechanical and predictable but it is a good conceit to have virtually the entire film take place in a shopping mall.