Jasper Mall - Documentary

[wilder]

Jasper Mall chronicles a year in the life of a dying shopping mall, its patrons, and its tenants. There's no denying retro malls are having a moment. Between the setting of the new season of "Stranger Things" and the countless videos of dead mall tours gathering millions of plays on YouTube, the mystique of the "mall" is everywhere. "Jasper Mall" peels back the curtain on this nostalgic reflection to show the reality of the American mall, complete with shuttering stores, elderly mall-walkers, an optimistic mall manager, a series of community events designed to increase foot traffic, muzak echoing through empty corridors, and the constant threat of impending closure that hovers over so many malls in the 21st century. It's a community on the brink of disappearance, and yet around every corner, there exists a strange beauty and a new kind of Americana that reflects the unique, touching, and frequently hilarious realities of the shopping mall in the internet age.

Directed by Bradford Thomason & Brett Whitcomb
Release Date - Now available on blu-ray and VOD

more than the decline of the mall, the film is subtly, but clearly, also about the passage of time, of how things change no matter how desperately one wishes to hold onto the status quo or, perhaps even more futile, recapture former glory. Life moves on, Jasper Mall tells its audience, for better or for worse. The tenants and the customers represent a microcosm of the mall's past glory and future fate, its story mirroring life's inevitabilities. One shop owner retires. Young love comes to an end. Dreams are made and shattered. Death comes calling for one of the film's subjects. These frameworks tell the mall's story but also the story of life. The film certainly intends to paint a broader picture beyond the mall's decline, but that it does it so well, that it juxtaposes the passage of time both commercially and socially with such grace and authority on the subject, is quite remarkable. Come for the memories, leave with a more fruitful understanding of life's inevitable, and irreversible, forward march.

[jenkins]

gee golly gosh in terms of the distributor, Gravitas Ventures, sitting around with a huge selection of movies i've never heard about, so it's like Artsploitation Films again

i didn't look through all of them but the one that immediately interested me looks like the kind of movie i'd watch. i think hollywood sucks at making suburban movies, i want them to be like this

here's what's going on at Artsploitation

[MarcoJefferson]

Your movie is great. I watched it on the thoptv app at https://techbigs.com/thoptv.html, where you can watch more free TV channels and favorite movies with high quality.

[jenkins]

def count it

[polkablues]

I want to find a blockbuster movie with many beautiful girls

My years of searching have proven fruitless. I grow anxious that the legends of such a treasure were only ever that... legends.

[wilder]

Now streaming on Amazon Prime

[jenkins]

it's great because it exists in a space of life unobstructed by outside influences. or rather, this is what allows it to be great, and it is great in many ways

we're in alabama, where in 2016 twice the number of people who voted for hillary voted for donald, but you don't hear about donald. jasper, alabama, red indeed, between birmingham and shitelse, when an interracial relationship is brought into the narrative the question proposed concerns not politics but religion. what does the bible say about an interracial relationship? some might say the bible opposes it but a pastor says the bible doesn't mention it

the protagonist is the jasper mall steward, who was once something of a tiger king. he says he went from the zoo to the jungle. and who has owned robin's nest for twenty-five years? robin, and her husband, who will choose to retire

the vacant kmart and jcpenney spaces are one (two) thing(s), but when it was mentioned that subway closed i almost started crying. not subway. what hope is there when subway leaves? the jasper mall steward is placing calls