The American Mall

The DVD looks in good shape but when we watched it the DVD skipped and froze. It's not our DVD player as we played other DVD's just fine. Daughter disappointed--my own fault for not figuring out how to return/exchange.

This was an older version of High School Musical. Don't let the MTV part scare you away. I almost did. Okay, so it does have a little bit of fluff, but it has fantastic music and dancing! You'll find yourself singing the songs in your head. Great entertaining fun. Oh yeah, your kids will like it, too!

People who disses this movie are stupid. Way better than HSM. My favorite scenes are the songs "Dreaming Wide Awake," and "Clear". I nearly cried on "clear" I LOVE THIS MOVIE.

I like the High School Musical productions, especially their choreography and the lead actor/actress. That being said, "The American Mall" is funnier, sexier, and has a much stronger soundtrack top to bottom. Nina Dobrev is absolutely magnetic as Ally, and Autumn Reeser's portrayal of Madison. (the period is for extra chic) is wicked excellent. The film has a natural look, but uses certain fantastical musical pieces to explore the characters' inner emotions. These fantasy elements work very well, especially "Survivor".

The film explores the key decisions people need to consider right after they leave high school. Issues of dreams, reality, faith, hope, trust, money, justice, forgiveness all come into play. The movie keeps it real, despite the fantasy departures), and works effectively because of that approach.

Ally has promised her Mom that she will take up a bid from Ohio State to become an accountant, but on the sly she's applied to the New England Conservatory of Music. This paints Ally as something of a sneak, a character flaw only underlined when we see her sneaking into the Mall after hours to play the big grand piano and work on her heartfelt tunes.

You'd think Mom would understand, for she too was a singer-songwriter twenty years ago, but her one single eluded thc charts and she got bitter, and now runs a floundering music store at the huge Huxley Mall, teaching kids the piano and remembering her past. She just doesn't want to see Ally making the same mistakes she did.

Soon a "Phantom of the Opera" element comes into play as we see a gloved hand pullling scraps of music paper out of the trash can under the piano. Someone is saving Ally's abortive attempts at penning a pop song, and pinning them to a wall backstage at the Opera House--I mean, at the Mall. When it turns out to be Joey, the janitor, I was a little disappointed. Joey, like Ally's mother, is another failed musician whose dreams went up in smoke when his trust in another led to the theft of his band's guitars, amps, mikes, speakers and drums.

Now the four janitors play pots and mops in their closet, in a spirited number, and soon Ally and Joey are writing songs together on the roof of the Mall, while a jealous and malignant force, young Madison Huxley, played by Autumn Reeser with full Anne Baxter evil, decides to destroy them both as a way to getting her father to admire her. This part did seem like CAMP ROCK, as though young should feel sorry for the mean girls since they just want the approval of an absent and uncaring parent.

Didn't you think it was going to turn out that, twenty years before, Mr. Huxley and Ally's mom had been lovers and that it was going to turn out that Madison and Ally were sisters? Some passable pop numbers and some OK acting make this one a slightly more cynical and sophisticated take on HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL, but I'm getting tired of shows urging me to hold on to my dreams and have faith in myself, surely they could have gone for a little bit more social significance than having the poor Asian boy dress up as a hot dog and never discover if he was gay or straight.