MALLS R US - Deadmalls.com

MALLS R US discusses the psychological appeal of malls to consumers, how architects design their environments to combine consumerism with nature and spectacle, how suburban shopping centers impart social values, how malls are transforming the traditional notions of community, social space and human interaction, and shows nostalgic mall fans who commemorate the closing of older malls on their DeadMalls.com Web site.

As entertaining as it is informative, MALLS R US offers a trip to the mall like no other, reveling in their architectural splendor as consumerist paradises but also showing how the social dynamism they represent can be a destructive force, one that confuses the good life with the world of goods.

http://www.icarusfilms.com/new2009/mall.html

Category:

Film & Animation

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• trailer
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• edmonton
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• mirabel
• jon
• jerde
• mall
• of
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• ray
• bradbury
• Icarus
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[slobomotion]

Won't play. After "Maine . . . grandparents." Am sending to a friend in California who doesn't know about the dead malls thing and who doesn't seem to believe it started so long ago. For me, the hard slide began around 2000. He thinks it's very recent. Greetings from France, over here to get healthcare.

[IcarusFilmsNY]

I'm not having trouble with it playing. I wonder what happened!

[crit1227]

Interesting . Thanks for this documentary and information. This is sad.

[patsaxon]

Good video! I am glad that you have such a sight available! I love the architectural designs of such older malls as it so sad to see many of them going down or being torn down. The Houston Galleria is a wonderful mall and still active with many unique designs! I prefer indoor shopping to out door shopping centers.

[HattieLovesCattie]

Read they're building a megamall outside of Montreal.Do the deadmall.com guys still film dead malls for this site?Its been a few years,they probably don't have the time anymore and working.

[nordqk]

We are all weeping over the death of, what was, the national religion for the past half century. Materialism/consumerism. The forces that conspired against it are:

No more cheap energy

internet

outsourcing

globalism

financial speculation

I say "Thank God". Now China is following our footsteps and, even with a billion + people, they are building brand new malls that are empty from the start. Watching China's growth is like watching a perverse cartoon of ourselves from the last 40-50 years.

[mormor39]

I love your mall film, or at least the trailer. How can I get hold of the whole film. I'm doing an oral history of the mall in the UK. Check out my site, and maybe you can give me some tips.

[mormor39]

the biggest mall is in china and it is stillborn

[HattieLovesCattie]

Just read two articles and one says 100 malls will die this year.:(

[HattieLovesCattie]

The few " malls " I've seen in Europe are really small stores in one building,like with a big long hall and the stores are along the hall.

[slobomotion]

I'm not an expert on European malls, but here in Saint-Denis, there is a "commercial center." Rents are high, though.

[HattieLovesCattie]

I remember reading about the " dying malls " in the NYTimes 20 years ago.I've been to Paris.European " malls "are very different from ours.