Skip to main content

A Mall and a Movie: Monroeville Mall/Zack and Miri Make a Porno (2008)

 

Monroeville Mall: the Zombiest mall of all.


Welcome back to a mall and a movie, with me, flannelkimono!

Today's movie is a personal favorite. Why, do you ask? I was in this movie! <3

I love Kevin Smith's movies. Many, many years ago, longtime homie and pop culture vulture SuperNoBueno used to work at a video store that I frequented. His staff picks were always solid, and that was how I saw Clerks for the first time.

Clerks blew my mind, because I was at the time toiling away in thankless retail jobs, and I couldn't believe how many "I'm not even supposed to be here today!" moments I would have at work. We also fucked off supremely at said retail jobs, just like in Clerks, although  nobody ever fucked a dead guy on the clock that I know of.

I was very active on the View Askew boards, because when I like something, I REALLY like it and want to know everything about it. The community of fans at the time were great, and I have always loved and appreciated how Kevin Smith has interacted with and treated his fans.

When he was shooting Zack and Miri in Pittsburgh, he posted on the message board that he was opening up one day of shooting at the mall for extras from the message board. I immediately requested the day off of work, and asked my sister to go with me. We worked together, and she called off to go with me, because why would we want to miss this opportunity? We left Akron when it  was still dark, and got to the mall. We were Christmas shoppers in a black Friday scene at the mall. Perfect, right?

 

WHAT MALL IS THE STAR OF THE MOVIE? 

Monroeville Mall, which was made famous Zach and Delaney work at the Bean n Gone coffee shop, which is located in a plaza near the mall. Miri works in the mall, which she mentions in the scene where she is trying on dresses for the class reunion (the dresses came from a girl who worked at Teen Juice, who Miri got a good deal on yarn). 

This is the mall made famous by George Romero's Dawn of the Dead, a movie I will eventually get to, I'm sure. 

There's really only one scene in the movie with the mall in it. You see a quick shot of the exterior, and then you're walking through the mall with Zack and Delaney. They end up on the escalator, and Delaney gives Zack the money he had saved to buy a big screen TV to buy a camera instead. My sister and I rode up behind them on that escalator a bunch of times. 

IS THE MALL STILL THERE? 

Monroeville Mall, as San Francisco International Airport in Mindhunter.

 

Yep! It was used recently in the show Mindhunter as a stand-in for an airport. I haven't been there since the day we did the movie, but as far as I know, it's still a fairly thriving mall in that area. 

IS THIS MOVIE ANY GOOD?

Yes. I love the sweetness of Zack and Miri's friendship, despite also being really really terrible at being adults. I also absolutely love a few of Smith's music choices: the scene where The Pixies "Hey" is playing rips my heart apart every single time. And the use of Live's "Hold Me Up" during the point of entry (so to speak) was really good, too.

The cast in general is really great. Craig Robinson is hilarious. The stand-out for me is Justin Long as Brandon St. Randy. So good.


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Mall and a Movie: Sherman Oaks Galleria / Fast Times At Ridgemont High (1982)

Sherman Oaks Galleria starring as Ridgemont Mall in Fast Times at Ridgemont High   Welcome to a mall and a movie, with me, flannelkimono! When I wasn't hanging out at the mall, I was definitely at home, watching movies. My family always prioritized having cable over everything, so we always had cable with HBO and Showtime. Ridiculous, right? But I'm thankful for that digital babysitter. Now I'm a wealth of ridiculous pop culture nuggets! Fast Times at Ridgemont High was absolutely one of the movies I watched repeatedly on HBO. I still wear the same black and white checkered Vans slip-ons that Jeff Spicoli wore in the movie. And the carrot scene from that movie was absolutely in my head the first time I ever gave someone a blowjob. Ah, youth. Like many of the movies of this time, the mall acted as a central character; it was where all of the stories and the people came together. It could absolutely be argued that this movie is the one that planted the idea in my head that t...
Post a Comment
Read more

Shiny Happy People, 1978

 I love this ad for Rolling Acres Mall, my childhood mall located in Akron, Ohio. The ad is for the expansion of the mall, which included the bubble elevator. 
Post a Comment
Read more

Johnstown Galleria's Storage Wars

  The owner of Johnstown Galleria mall in Johnstown, Pennsylvania is mad and ready to go to court, following the sale of the former Sears to a storage company. Johnstown Galleria is a two story mall, which according to their website, has typical mall staples (Hot Topic, GNC, Claire’s, Auntie Anne’s), but is otherwise populated by local businesses.  It is owned by Leo Karruli, who is a longtime business owner in the area. In 2022, he purchased the mall at auction for $3m, pledging to bring the mall back from death. , From what I’ve read, he’s doing just that. He took an entire dead food court and repopulated it with local businesses, and it looks to be working well in the interior of the mall, too. The mall has very few empty spaces. I have yet to visit Johnstown Galleria, but it is on my map of places to visit, especially after reading about all of the revitalization and seeing the fountain in Ray Out There's Johnstown walk-through (hot tip: rayoutthere is also a great IG fo...
Post a Comment
Read more