MoviePass: The Ongoing Saga

So I wrote two books on MoviePass.

One at the height of its power and glory, Cinemadness: Live Your Best MoviePass Life

And one on its descent into mediocrity and dysfunction, Cinemadness: The Rise and Fall of MoviePass

There's no way I'm ever going to be able to keep those books updated, as the information changes every day. So I'm just going to blog now and then to keep you updated on MoviePass' nonsense and any interesting cinemad stuff afoot.

Neat stuff to know, in semi-random order:

Sinemia, the most serious MoviePass competitor, made big waves by offering an unlimited plan recently. $30/month for a movie per day.

Sounds legit, right? Sounds at least more SUSTAINABLE than MoviePass, right?

Well, it's fine for Sinemia, but it's not an amazing deal.

I've been iffy about these guys from the start. Their per-ticket prices are okay compared to just buying a ticket at the box office at full price, sure. But they charge convenience fees for any advance tickets you buy, on top of new "processing fees" on every ticket, whether you buy it in advance OR on the spot. The convenience fees are about $2, and the processing fees are $1 or $2.

They added the per-ticket processing fees in the last couple weeks, as a bait-and-switch to nail the suckers that bought into their $30/month unlimited plan. Oh, and they require you pay for a full year in advance, so these suckers paid Sinemia $360 cash money for what they thought would be unlimited movies, not realizing they're ALSO gonna be paying an extra $3 or $4 on EVERY TICKET they buy through Sinemia. That's like MoviePass' disastrous "Peak Pricing" times infinity.

(Disclaimer: You can just pay month-to-month if you want, but that requires a $20 "initiation fee.")

So if you go to the movies every day in a month, that's not actually costing you $30. It's more like $150 with all the fees included. Unless Sinemia cuts it out with these ridiculous fees, I cannot recommend them and I strongly advise you not to give them your money. $30/month for unlimited movies is a pretty great deal. With all the fees on top of it, it's a stinker.

MoviePass is still $10/month for three movies. That's $3.33 per movie, no additional fees. Heck, the per-ticket price with MoviePass is cheaper than the per-ticket FEES Sinemia charges you on top of your monthly subscription fee!

MoviePass' subscriber count is going way down, SURPRISE SURPRISE! I mean, you throttle your service, yank your users' chains, pretend you're not surrounded by competitors luring customers away, and act like it's all good, and people don't respond positively. Imagine that.

MoviePass is producing some movie with Bruce Willis. They posted a video from the set, along with a pic with a MoviePass card in the hands of The Bruce (well, Bruce Campbell is The Bruce, so Bruce Willis can be A Bruce). It made the already rage-filled Instagram comments section go completely thermonuclear, with infinite variations on, "You ruin your service while producing movies and schmoozing with Hollywood stars!?" The video and pic were deleted from their Instagram account within days. Wonder why.

MoviePass took an equity stake in a couple films. And this is kinda neat: they just sent an email to users saying that when either of these films come out, you can see them with MoviePass without either one counting against your 3-per-month limit.

MoviePass is doing shady stuff with their stock. All day, every day.

I LOVE not having ticket verification with MoviePass anymore. Saves so much time and annoyance. Though I hear rumors from friends that it's still being required of them. That's ridic.

Also ridic: MoviePass is STILL limiting the selection on which movies you can check in on each day. With the number of movies people can see per month capped at three, there is no sensible reason to keep angering people with this awful feature. It would make sense if movies were still unlimited and ticket verification was in place. You could actually save a few bucks by limiting options. But now? This limitation can't be saving MoviePass any money and it seems to just be infuriating its customers.

This is old news, but happened too recently to make my most recent book. Carl Schramm, an important MoviePass executive, resigned in disgust. Wouldn't you, if you were a MoviePass executive?

This tool thinks he's hardcore for watching a scant 21 movies in a year with MoviePass. EXCUSE ME?!? You know what's cool? 21 movies isn't cool! 100 movies in eight months is cool! (I don't actually know the writer of the article, maybe they're not a tool, but what a pathetic boast. A measly 21 movies!?)

MoviePass bought Moviefone and hired a Rotten Tomatoes guy to run it. I don't really care, but some do, as this might mean something as time goes on.

This story stole the title of my second book, though technically that article was published a couple days before my book came out. Still. Booooo.

The box office is taking a hit with customers no longer burning MoviePass' cash to see mediocre movies every day in the theater.

Alamo Drafthouse is beta-testing their subscription plan in Yonkers, NY and it seems everyone's on the NDA train as information is scarce. Rumors of a $15-$20 monthly price point, with specialty screenings excluded and no food/drink benefits. Boo.

Regal jacked up their rewards points needed for a free movie. Used to be 15,000 points via the app and 17,000 points at the box office. Now it's 18,000 points on the app and 20,000 points at the box office.

And there are social media rumblings that Regal is working on their own subscription service. We have a big local Regal theater and they get most of my business so I might actually be tempted by that.

And overall, I'm content with MoviePass' current three-monthly plan. I'm missing out on a lot of crap, but that's okay. It's crap. The only movie I missed that I definitely would have seen with unlimited MoviePass was Operation Finale. I don't regret anything else I missed.

On with the show.


-B.P. Kasik/Phony McFakename

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My "legitimate" books are on Amazon here and my Phony books are on Amazon here. I exist on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram.

Favorite Quotes: August-September 2018

“Look at that!”

“Do you think that’s the flying shark everyone’s been talking about?”

-Raiders of the Lost Shark

Beth: [Just before she's stabbed] "You scared me!"

Shrink: "The patient has shown signs of violent behavior in the past but these have been brought under control... I no longer feel that social interaction will be harmful."

"You look like you're having as much fun as shock therapy!"

-Night Screams

“Alright you bunch of pussies! I'm back and I'm kicking ass!”

-Shocking Dark

Emily Asher: "I pray every night that you don't go straight to hell."

Ethan Wate: "Oh, I won't go straight to hell, Emily. I wanna stop off in New York first."

-Beautiful Creatures

Ah, arrogance and stupidity all in the same package. How efficient of you!

Only an idiot would fight a war on two fronts. Only the heir to the throne of the Kingdom of Idiots would fight a war on twelve fronts.

Worst case of testosterone poisoning I have ever seen.

Understanding is a three-edged sword.

Lord Refa: Why should I do as you say?

Ambassador Londo Mollari: Because I have asked you; because your sense of duty to our people should override any personal ambition; and because I have poisoned your drink.

There's always the threat of an attack by say, a giant space dragon. The kind that eats the sun once every 30 days. It's a nuisance, but what can you expect from reptiles? Did I mention that my nose is on fire? And that I have 15 wild badgers living in my trousers?

I have been working up a good mad all day and I am NOT about to let you ruin it by agreeing with me!

A stroke of the brush does not guarantee art from the bristles.

The universe is run by the complex interweaving of three elements. Energy, matter, and enlightened self-interest.

We are star stuff. We are the universe made manifest trying to figure itself out.

I'd like to live just long enough to be there when they cut off your head and stick it on a pike as a warning to the next ten generations that some favors come with too high a price. I want to look up into your lifeless eyes and wave like this.

Reports of our depression have been greatly exaggerated.

-Babylon 5

“There was once a group of men who believed they could solve the mystery of mysteries. They were scientists. Experts in chemistry, biology and physics. Students of alchemy. And of the arcane principles which governed the very equilibrium of our Universe. These men established a small research center on a remote tropical island. Where they proceeded with their humanitarian mission. A task linked to the fundamental principles of our very existence. Their aim was to conquer mankind's first, oldest and greatest enemy... Death itself.”

The Balladeer: [singing main theme song] “Living the night, living for flying so high. Fillin' our bogs for the fine in time. Touchin' our bane will feel your rain on the gain. Dust in your veins, mummify insane. Rising for North, rising for bison high. It's a nightlife, whoa! Runnin' hard if you want it or not! It's a wild life, whoa! You can't stop. You must go on! Oh! Living After Death! Living after death! I'm living after death LIVING AFTER DEATTTTTTTTH! Rising for North, rising for bison high.”

Rod the Mercenary: “When a man’s afraid he’s gonna die, there’s nothing he wants more than a woman by his side. And I want you.”

Rod the Mercenary: [kisses his machine gun] “Now you’re home with your Big Poppa!”

-Zombie 4: After Death

-B.P. Kasik/Phony McFakename

* * *

My "legitimate" books are on Amazon here and my Phony books are on Amazon here. I exist on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram.

"Cinemadness 2: The Rise and Fall of MoviePass"

If you read my blog this week, you know I have some follow-up thoughts on MoviePass since my literary classic, Cinemadness: Live Your Best MoviePass Life.

Lucky for you, they're all collected in this handy-dandy book by the handy-dandy title of Cinemadness 2: The Rise and Fall of MoviePass!

Read it and weep! Weep for joy that MoviePass ever existed! Weep for sorrow that it's kinda meh now!

Learn the amazing history of this service on this emotional journey through the wonder that was and is... MoviePass.


-B.P. Kasik/Phony McFakename

* * *

My "legitimate" books are on Amazon here and my Phony books are on Amazon here. I exist on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram.

MoviePass: Lessons Learned from My Last 50 Movies With the Service

This 50-Movie-List is full of great moviegoing advice, but also functions as a deep, dark document of the last days of MoviePass. One man’s dysfunctional diary of a doomed, downward-spiraling service. Enjoy!

Category 1: Would’ve Been Happy to Pay to See

1. Suspiria

Take initiative to avoid getting the back of your seat bumped at the Alamo. If you recline your chair and the seats on either side of you are empty, reach over and recline both of them to act as shields. This way, the server running back and forth behind you will bump one of those other reclined chairs rather than you. Also: support your local art theater! Few things finer than seeing an Italian classic you’ve always loved being savored by a packed house. It’s being remade soon, so maybe that’s sparking interest, but still.

2. Hotel Artemis (second time)

Did you enjoy the movie? See it again! This is a prime example of something lost with the end of MoviePass unlimited. I earned so many theater rewards points with MoviePass, I was able to see this quirky movie a second time AND take my wife along solely using rewards points. And this is a movie I otherwise wouldn’t have even bothered to see once on the big screen.

3. Scarface

Might as well just give up and accept there will always be talkers at your movie. People are terrible these days and theater-talking is just too ubiquitous and you’re just gonna raise your blood pressure and get cancer if you let it bother you. This was the last film where I bothered to complain about the talkers behind me. As always, the Alamo staff did nothing to stop it, evil talkers kept talking, and I got two free passes afterward as an apology. Shrug. I don’t report the talkers anymore. I give up. It’s your turn to report the talkers now. Life is too short for me to stress about them.

4. Best Friends, v. 1

Search for every available movie within reasonable driving distance! This is another example of something tragically lost with the end of the MoviePass way of life. I saw so much stuff, I burned through all the new movies and every local specialty screening that remotely interested me. (“Half-Baked at the Alamo? Sure, why not? It’s basically free!”) So what the heck, I started looking for specialty screenings not just locally, but regionally. And I discovered a company called “Fathom Events.” They rarely host specialty movies at my local Regal, but constantly host specialty movies an hour or two away, in D.C. and metropolitan-area suburban theaters. So when the new movie from the guys who made The Room popped up on their schedule, I ASAP-planned a road trip for that day. It was a magnificent feeling to be in-the-know about this cinematic treasure (many friends who lived in the D.C. area didn’t know about it) and to get in with my MoviePass. I will be pickier with what I see in the future, but I plan to keep checking websites for fun movie event companies. FOMO is strong and you might find something you’re willing to drive a long distance and actually buy a ticket for. Or spare one of your three monthly MoviePass golden tickets on.

5. The Birds

Even if you have a voucher for a free milkshake, do not order a milkshake at a late-night screening of a slow-paced movie. Guaranteed ticket to slumberland. (I woke up for all the bird attacks, at least. Those are so loud, there’s no way you can sleep through them.)

6. The Incredibles 2

Even back in their glory days, MoviePass was selectively throttling. I was spending some lovely time in New Orleans and noticed there were no theaters listed on the app within walking distance of the tourist-magnetic French Quarter. Found that odd, since that seemed like a prime spot for a theater. We took a trolley to the Garden District to see The Incredibles 2 at this wonderfully funky old-time red-curtains-everywhere theater in the middle of a mansion-y neighborhood that did midnight screenings of stuff like Scanners and Cannibal Holocaust. And I took a trolley northwest of downtown to visit the only other theater listed on the app, an offbeat antiquated block-shaped building surrounded by urban decay. Only after wandering every single block of the French Quarter did I walk through an indoor mall by the waterfront (for the air-conditioning, not to shop) and there, on the top floor, was a Regal Cinebarre theater. Dead-center in the middle of New Orleans and not listed on the MoviePass app. If I hadn’t wandered in there, I never would have known it existed. More on that later.

7. Jaws

Don’t take your small children to see a scary movie, even if it’s PG and you remember it fondly from your childhood. I saw multiple kids in the row behind me race down the aisle to get away from the terrifying scenes in this relentless, intense film. I heard a few cries and pleas from the young ones to their parents to get them out of the theater. The parents did not comply. Don’t be like those parents. PG these days is basically a G-rated film with one bad word or animated characters put in mild peril. PG in the 1970s stood for “Pretty Gory.” They don’t make family films like Jaws anymore. Leave the kids at home!

8. Won’t You Be My Neighbor?

I wasn’t crying, you were crying. Not a dry eye in the house at this emotional work of film. So the main lesson? If you don’t want people to see you cry, sit in the front row, where only the wonderful Mr. Rogers, looking down on you from the screen and from Heaven above, can see your tears of profound emotion.

9. Ant-Man and the Wasp

Trouble was on the horizon. This was the beginning of the end of MoviePass, as Ant-Man and the Wasp was the first film where MoviePass officially intentionally started sabotaging their app on a huge scale. There were scattered reports months earlier of MoviePass randomly blocking people from Red Sparrow, but I had no direct experience with that, nor did I meet anyone who did. But this movie was sabotaged on the app nationwide. We had to see it at my least-favorite theater in town because MoviePass blocked off screenings of it at every other theater. This was also the first weekend with “peak pricing” in effect, a disastrous idea that did nothing but anger and alienate their users. As an annual plan holder, I was immune from it. And I thought I would be immune from MoviePass’ nonsense forever. (I was not.)

10. The Goonies

Similar to Jaws, it’s fascinating to learn how hardcore PG movies used to be. This screening was even MORE kid-packed than Jaws, full of bright-eyed parents looking to share this movie they remember so fondly from childhood with the next generation. Well, this PG film has relentless cussing (the serious four-letter stuff, not just “TV-safe” cussing), murder, hard-hitting violence, sexual innuendo, threats of extreme violence, extreme peril, and extended gags with dead bodies, including a fresh corpse that keeps falling on a kid when he’s helplessly locked in a meat freezer while hiding from murderers. Really, it just has the tone and feel of an edgy 80s action film like Lethal Weapon. (Which makes sense because the film’s director, Richard Donner, made Lethal Weapon two years later.) But again: think twice before you bring your kids to an allegedly PG film you remember being fun as a kid. The squirming and whimpering kids in the row behind me tell you everything you need to know about how good an idea that is.

11. Yellow Submarine

Some movies shouldn’t be watched in silence. Alamo has an alleged no-talking policy, unless a screening is specifically identified as a “Movie Party” (in which case, you are invited to go nuts). But at this silent screening, you could tell everyone wanted to sing along to “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” and “All Together Now” and every other song. But we just kinda sat there in awkward silence. Bonus: a friend of mine got warned by Alamo to be quiet after someone complained that his kid spoke once during this film. The Alamo staff didn’t catch him in the act, they just heard an accusation and issued my friend a warning. (After that one warning, they allegedly kick you out with no refund if you repeat-offend.) I appreciate that Alamo staff finally actually enforced their silence rule, but am bummed that the first time they ever did this, it was against my well-behaved friend whose kid quietly asked, “Daddy, can I have that straw, please?”

12. Sorry To Bother You

Sometimes it’s nice to just share a “WTF just happened?!” look with your fellow moviegoers on the way out of the theater. That’s all it took. We all just needed to look at each other in slack-jawed “Wha!?”-ness and we were fine again. A nice reminder that moviegoing is a social experience.

13. Unfriended: Dark Web

A fairly well-executed thriller can shut up a crowd of talky, texty teens! This new “desktop horror” genre is basically a repackaging of the “found-footage” genre. But between this, The Den, and the original Unfriended, it’s doing okay. Open Windows was a convoluted mess, but that was mostly due to one twist too many. I’m okay with one or two more of these, then it’s time to move on. Bonus points to this film for releasing itself Clue­-style with two different endings. They didn’t advertise it that way, either, they just randomly sent it with different endings to different theaters. Fun little gimmick. We need more fun little gimmicks.

14. Hotel Transylvania 3

Don’t dismiss something just because the preview sucks or just because it looks like a dumb kids’ movie. I laughed harder at this film than I did at almost any comedies on this list. Every adult in the theater was having a blast. Didn’t hear much laughter from the kids, but so what?

15. Three Identical Strangers

Assigned seating is more a guideline than a rule. I found my neck creaking in the seat I chose at this one, so as soon as the previews were over, I tried a couple different seats on for size. Eventually found a Goldilocks-porridge level of seat comfort. No hounds were released on me.

16. Teen Titans Go! To the Movies

Similar to Hotel Transylvania 3, but slightly modified: don’t dismiss a movie just because you have no idea what it is. I seriously didn’t even know this had superheroes in it until the movie started. But my nephew and I had a blast with this thing. Bonus lesson: don’t give up on a movie just because it doesn’t start strong. I wasn’t laughing much for the first 10-20 minutes, but it really picked up as it went along. Bonus bonus lesson: “peak pricing” sucks. My MoviePassed father had to pay about five bucks for this ticket since it was on a Friday night. (Plus there was no cell signal in the theater’s region, nor public Wi-Fi available anywhere nearby, forcing us to drive to a McDonald’s for free Wi-Fi a half-mile away, where luckily, check-in still worked!) But this was the same day MoviePass ran out of money altogether and was shutting down all ticket check-ins nationwide. We were lucky to be able to use MoviePass at all.

17. Mission Impossible: Fallout

Eticketing works! This was during the dark, dark time of MoviePass shutting down all ticket sales on their app nationwide at about 11am each day to save themselves money. And they weren’t letting anyone see the new Mission Impossible movie, a PR disaster that people still talk about to this day despite the dozens of PR disasters they’ve had since. But MoviePass constantly claimed that no matter how bad things got, eticketing theaters would always work. This is because they have sweet financial agreements in place with any theaters set up for eticketing. The downside: there are pretty much zero eticketing theaters anywhere near you or anyone. The nearest one to me was 45 minutes away. So I made an evening out of it. Can confirm: the check-in process worked fine, a major shock at a time of such extreme app dysfunction. I took my phone to the box office person, they entered the code from my app screen into their register, and handed me a ticket. No delay, no hassle. Cool as it was, the theater sucked (I’ll name names, it was the Visulite Theater in Staunton, VA). One door in or out at the front left side of the theater. Light spilled in from the hallway and the door slammed any time anyone went in or out. So this was a one-time experiment. Eticketing=yay. New Tom-Cruise-Running-Around Movie=yay. Visulite Theater=boo.

18. Eighth Grade

Don’t sit in the front row at a film where the bulk of its scenes are close-ups of faces staring right into your soul. It’s unsettling.

19. Blindspotting

It’s not always MoviePass’ fault when things fall apart; sometimes it’s the theater. (This applies to the experience at the Visulite Theater previously mentioned, as well.) It took me three separate attempts to see this movie. On the Monday after MoviePass’ bed-crapping weekend of app shutdowns and MI:6 blackouts, I saw this movie was on the app at 11am. I drove to the theater and by the time I got there, the app gave me the Orwellian kiss of death, familiar to the poor, suffering huddled masses of MoviePass users of this time, “There Are No More Screenings At This Theater Today.” The ability to check in to this movie disappeared during the 10 minutes it took me to drive over there. I tried again a few days later, and finally had success, checking in to Blindspotting on the app with a couple minutes to spare before it started. Yay! But this time, I went into the lobby and found the times on the Regal kiosk were completely different from the times listed on MoviePass’ app. And again, I checked Fandango and the Regal website and they matched MoviePass’ times. Just the kiosk was wrong. But it was the kiosk that was selling tickets, so there I was, stuck. I didn’t want to get my account canceled by buying a ticket for a showtime different than the one I checked in on and I wasn’t willing to use my rewards points on the movie, so I canceled my check-in and left in a huff. The Regal manager stonewalled and gaslit me when I called an hour later and told her the showtimes were wrong on the kiosk when I was there. Won no points with me. A week later, I was finally able to check in to the film on the app and actually purchase a ticket for the correct showtime. The movie was pretty good.

20. They Live

Sometimes an audience will surprise you. At They Live, some bastard who imagined himself quite witty shouted, "Oh, my eyes! They feel blurry!" over the opening Universal logo for the film. I rolled my eyes, assuming I had another movie-ruiner behind me. And at that moment, an Alamo server arrived to bother me and inspect my ticket and pressure me to order something and try to give me their Gettysburg Address-sized speech about their ordering system that I've now heard literally 70 times. I was having a not-good day, so I cut the server off and said, "I just want one thing. Keep an eye on that chucklehead behind me. He thinks he's funny and I'm sick of people talking in your theater. At least half the movies I see here get talked through and you do nothing about it." He nodded and said, "I'll keep an eye on him and get a manager if I hear anything from him." Well, there was a bunch of movement back there, couldn't tell if a manager was involved or if they were just ordering a lot of food, but I didn't hear from him again. HALLELUJAH! The They Live crowd was quite well-behaved, laughing at the right moments and cheering at the endless alley fight and hilarious ending. Tender mercies.

21. Christopher Robin

Have a backup movie handy. Whenever possible, try to see a movie where there’s another movie starting 30 minutes after the movie you’re seeing. I won’t name the movie I walked out of (since everyone else loved it), but out of sheer luck, I walked out of it 20 minutes in and, instead of going to demand a refund or exchange for a future movie, I simply walked into this movie instead. So glad I did! Great film! If you’re not 100% sure about the movie you’re seeing, play it safe and have a movie you can walk in on instead.

22. Wet Hot American Summer

Be spontaneous. I noticed this movie was playing in the middle of the day on a Saturday. I filed that fact away deep in my subconscious. When the stars aligned and all three of my kids went down for a nap at the same time—15 minutes before this movie started when the theater is a 15 minute drive away—I asked my wife if I could go out and play. She gave me a thumbs-up and I got to go savor this silly gem on the big screen. Loved every minute and it’s very satisfying when a spontaneous plan works out.

23. The Blues Brothers

I’m broke. In parallel with MoviePass on the decline, our family happened to hit a rough financial patch. And it was brought into sharp focus when I saw this film and everyone on either side of me at the Alamo was ordering oodles and oodles of popcorn and milkshakes and meals. I almost never order food at the Alamo, but watching all that expensive food fly made me deeply grateful to myself that I’d resisted buying any of it back before we went broke. Seriously, my bank account was down to a 62-cent balance at the time. Our financial woes were due to medical bills for our infant, though, not because I was CEO of a company offering unlimited movies to millions of users for $9.95 a month.

24. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off

Finish strong. Drive it like you stole it. 4ever. This was the last film I got a ticket for using rewards earned with MoviePass. I got my Alamo Victory Rewards up to 50 visits (Regal does points, Alamo does number of visits) and my wife’s Alamo Victory Rewards up to 20 visits. I was hoping to keep going hard and get her account up to 50 visits, as well, so we’d both be “Alamo Top Brass,” the highest ranking they permit. But we didn’t even get her account halfway there. Can’t win ’em all. But having this be the last theatrical film provided by MoviePass was a nice note to end on. R.I.P. MoviePass.

Category 2: Acceptable… for Free

25. Acrimony

Sometimes Regal’s reward points don’t work. And I mean “don’t work” like that Monopoly card, “Bank Error In Your Favor.” I wanted to see Acrimony as my second movie in the theater in one day. I had the required 17,000 rewards points banked to pull that off (this was before I discovered it only costs 15,000 reward points if you use the Regal app). So I used my Regal Crown Club card at the box office to get my free ticket. I looked at my point balance afterward. It seemed to be the same. I dismissed it as a glitch. But, uh… the next time I used rewards points to see a movie for free, the same thing happened. I did not complain to the manager. Either time.

26. The Strangers 2: Prey by Night

I have a much stronger immunity to crap than my friends. I watched every garbage film imaginable through my teen years. On top of religious visits to video stores, when I worked in Northern Virginia’s AMC Skyline as a teen and Regal theaters as an adult, I went to the movies multiple times a week and saw all kinds of crapola. I usually only skipped romantic comedies like Fools Rush In. Did not care about those at all. That policy still applies, though I also generally exclude kids’ movies and inspirational films. So I was able to watch this stoopid film without suffering too much. The “Total Eclipse of the Heart” blood-pool scene was worth the non-existent price of admission alone.

27. Superfly

Don’t bother with an average movie unless you can see it on an opening Friday night with a rowdy crowd. The audience response to this one was way more fun than the movie itself. It wasn’t terrible, I just forgot the movie by the time I reached the exit. I’ll never forget the heckles, nor the phone calls made and received by audience members, though.

28. Best Friends, v.2

Don’t get your hopes up. I really enjoyed everything about my specialty-screening of “Volume 1” of this new movie from the makers of The Room. But this was a cash-grab, stretching about 20 minutes of story to feature-length. My friend and I were not impressed and regretted the two-hour round-trip drive we took to see it. It was nice to hang out and chit-chat with each other. This movie was just an annoying interruption in our friend time.

29. Tag

Sometimes an R rating is wasted. This movie wouldn’t have been any different as a PG-13, other than being f-bomb-less. There’s a certain degree of funny a comedy should be in direction proportion to its vulgarity and this one didn’t quite line up. It was PG-13 funny, not hard-R-raunch funny.

30. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom

Alamo Drafthouse Cinema could learn a lot from Regal Cinebarre theaters. This was the New Orleans theater MoviePass decided not to mention existed on their app, presumably to avoid paying the infinite amounts of cash drunk MoviePass-owning tourists wandering in off Bourbon Street would spend at this theater if they were permitted to do so. This left me with a bad taste in my mouth, wondering if MoviePass throttled theaters in every major city if they were too close to tourist hubs. But the main point worth making here is about the ordering system for Regal Cinebarre’s dine-in theater. Alamo uses a super-crude, distracting, inefficient, and wasteful “raise an order card” system for people ordering food. Regal Cinebarre has a red button under your armrest. Push it and a staff member will come take your food order. And they respond quickly, they always duck in front of the other moviegoers, and they always whisper. Their burgers and sides taste better than Alamo’s, too.

31. Sicario 2

I go back and forth on Alamo. I even enjoy the place now and then, but it feels like an abusive or at least unhealthy relationship. I am currently deeply reckoning about whether I will cut them off post-unlimited-MoviePass. I hope I have the strength to resist them. But sometimes it's tough to breakup with someone so sexy, even when you know they're bad for you and they're just gonna hurt you. ALAMO WHY U SO SEXY SOMETIMES? I love the Alamo, but they aren’t doing what it takes to show they love me back.

32. The First Purge

Stay through the credits. I figured only comic book movies have mid-credits or end-credits stingers, but nope. I walked out on this one as the credits rolled and apparently missed a teaser for the Purge TV show. Which I’m totally gonna watch.

33. Hearts Beat Loud

Some movies aren’t really big-screen material. This was a perfectly competent indie film, but nothing about it was especially special, or warranted its extreme critical acclaim. It’s a deliberately-paced series of things that happen. And the music scenes went on forever. I would have been much happier to see it streaming.

34. Skyscraper

Compromise with your significant other. My wife always wants to sit at the row behind the railing in the middle of Regal theaters. I always want to sit in the back row of the front section of Regal theaters. Sometimes I sit up there with her and sometimes she sits down below with me (usually only when the railing seats are taken) and she packs herself a stool to put her feet up on. It’s our children’s potty stool. Don’t judge. You do you. She do she.

35. Leave No Trace

The front row can be dangerous. With this film, I realized I always use the front row at Violet Crown. The main downside: they're so comfortable and recline back so far, they make you fall asleep almost every time!

36. Across the Universe

You can make MoviePass friends! Talk to your friends about your experiences. Get a friend to join and talk to him or her about every detail. It’s fun! If you’re my wife, you can make friends at the movie itself. She first made friends with a nice pregnant lady at Deadpool 2 who was dragged to the movie by her husband. She continues chatting with nearby people who use MoviePass in theaters to this day. I don’t do this myself, because I am a stoic, reserved, Hemingway-esque manly man. I don’t do “feelings.” I just watch football and grunt.

37. Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot

Watch a trailer before you go to the movie. I was anti-trailer for a mighty long time. When you go to the movies ridiculously often, you just don’t want to bother spoiling something you’re gonna see no matter what. In this movie’s case, I had no idea what it even was. I thought it was gonna be a crime caper or action movie or something. I was not remotely prepared for what it was and that was jarring. It’s a fine drama, very well-acted, but, uh… not what I was seeking.

38. The Spy Who Dumped Me

Be careful which movie you use for your MoviePass checkin. If they’re still doing that nonsense of limiting which movies you’re allowed to check-in on each day, look ahead on their site and plan accordingly. I checked in and saw this one on opening day without realizing it had a sponsorship deal with MoviePass—with ads for it all over the app—and it would be the only film reliably available as a check-in over the next few weeks.

39. The Meg

Movie theaters can be entirely too loud. The big ol’ shark smashing into stuff was deafening to both me and my pal. I really need to start taking my advice and bring earplugs every time. My ears were still ringing the next day, like I’d been at a rock concert the night before.

40. Crazy Rich Asians

The emperor has no clothes. Nice to see this for free while I still could, but it was an incredibly generic by-the-numbers romantic comedy. Its universal acclaim is baffling. Enjoy it if you must.

41. Black Kkklansman

Don’t trust or rely on MoviePass. I made an appointment with my co-workers to see this movie on a Tuesday night. I bolted out of work at 11am to go get my evening ticket before the app shut down. By the time I got to my car, around 10:30am, the app was throttled and I faced the dreaded “There Are No More Screenings At This Theater Today.” At every area theater. Thanks, MoviePass. I eventually saw it and noticed Alamo had trigger-warning signs for the film saying that us Charlottesville residents might be upset by the last few minutes. Since it shows horrible stuff that happened within a couple miles of the theater. And the emotional wound is still pretty raw. Appreciated the warning.

42. Mile 22

Sometimes ushers actually care whether you walk into the movie you got a ticket for. Which is completely ridiculous. I spent years working as a movie theater usher and I never once busted the chops of a nice teen who bought a ticket to a PG-13 movie and then snuck into Scream instead. Real quick: around this time, MoviePass started limiting its users to only two movie options a day (technically there were six options, but four of them were often only playing in New York or L.A., so no, it was two). So your only choice to see what you wanted was to check into the only movie you were allowed to check in to, then wander in to what you wanted to see. The movie I wanted to see in this case was on the other side of the building from the one I had a ticket for. I wasn't EXACTLY busted by the noble and vigilant minimum-wage usher. (I’m allowed to discriminate against minimum wage ushers since I was one for so long—you’re not allowed to, though.) It was just that my usual tricks didn’t work. First one, upon entry: "Is the nearest bathroom over there?" Usher: "You can use the one down the hall, it's right next to your theater." Ugh. And later on, I returned with: "I think I need to meet my friend over in Mile-22, mind if I join him in there?" Usher: "Sure, go to customer service and exchange your ticket." Come on. I walked over and did so, annoying the manager and annoying myself in the process. Fortunately, I left five minutes early so I’d have a time cushion in case something like that happened, so I missed nothing in the movie I wanted to see. And there's no reward without risk. But it was sufficient that I decided next time I needed to pull that operation, I'd just have a frank conversation with the manager at customer service and explain that I want to give Regal my money via MoviePass, but MoviePass is making it hard to do so. Quite reasonable to frame as: "I want to give you money. I don't want to make you do extra work for it. C’mon, just let me walk into whatever movie I want, since that gets you money and causes no extra work for you." Now, to the movie: it was fine. Bit too shaky-cam and yell-y for my tastes.

43. Alpha

MoviePass being on the edge of failure hurt my marriage. By the time this movie came out and was the only movie available for checkin, my wife and I no longer had MoviePass as a smooth, reliable no-brainer free night out as a couple anymore. And even if we wanted to take turns going out to the movies, it became a scramble to get a ticket and was often more stress than it was worth during a very stressful time. Bickering would often ensue. Thanks again, MoviePass.

Category 3: Regrets, Even at No Cost

44. Gotti

It’s hard to find good help. The Alamo managers are very polite and communicative—on Facebook and in person, very responsive—but they’ve all told me the sad truth: It takes a month or two to properly train staff and by the time they get good at their job, they leave. High turnover. So their short-timer waitstaff members simply don’t care enough to make the Alamo experience as positive as it should be. It’s hard to improve processes that aren’t working when workers are just passing through. Their “concierges” (Alamo term for “box office workers”) are pretty great, though. They’ll be flexible with you and are friendly and helpful. Bonus fun fact: this godawful mess of a movie was distributed by MoviePass Ventures. And the concierge at Alamo revealed to me that the distributor “pleaded” with Alamo to let them have the SINGLE SCREENING that was granted to Gotti. And please note: at this lone screening of this film at this lone theater, me and maybe four other people were in attendance. MoviePass probably shut down the unlimited plan as a tantrum against us because so few of us went out and saw this movie of theirs.

45. Uncle Drew

I have mixed feelings about the crowd being part of the experience. It seems almost inevitable that people will text when the movie gets slow. (I'm guilty of this sometimes when I take MoviePass lunches: doing work emails with my phone under my shirt and my face down my shirt’s neckhole to avoid anyone else having to see my phone.) But even after having given the concept of the social experience a lot of thought, my crowd feelings are not fixed. Perhaps the possibility of losing MoviePass lingers so near, I have trouble fully embracing the notion of misbehaving audience members.

46. The Equalizer 2

Don’t bother seeing the sequel to a movie if the original was so forgettable, you can’t recall any details about it. This one had a decent stalk-and-shoot finale sequence in an oncoming hurricane in a beach resort, but the rest was sleep-fuel.

47. Darkest Minds

Enough with the YA movies. I’m just too old for tweenage X-Men rip-offs like this. It wasn’t so bad it warranted a walkout, but it was tough to sit through.

48. Slender Man

MoviePass limiting their service turned it into a game and people love a good game. While most folks angrily complained online or canceled their accounts, I started seeing six movies a week instead of three. It became an adventure to see if I could get to the theater box office to snag a ticket before the app shut down for the day. As soon as MoviePass started listing their so-called “six” available movies on the website daily, I set calendar alerts to make sure I would check-in for the most ideal movie per day to get the maximum number of check-ins per week. Before the chaotic service limitations, I was getting complacent. I was fine to stay home and watch something on Netflix/Amazon/Hulu/Shudder or go out to the movies on any given night. It was all good. But as soon as MoviePass put a stranglehold on their resource, it became the forbidden fruit. A ticket purchased via MoviePass became a white whale I was determined to hunt down as many days of the week as possible. I was determined to see as much as I could and crank my theater rewards points as high as I could get them, because I knew my salad days were about to end. (Final balance on my Regal account when MoviePass cut me off: 70,000 points.) As I boasted at the time: MoviePass, if you try to limit me, you will only make me more powerful than you could possibly imagine!

49. The Happytime Murders

Good riddance to unlimited MoviePass. Because I’ll never have to see stuff like this again if my moviegoing is limited.

50. Axl

I'm in mild withdrawal. This was my last check-in with unlimited MoviePass and it was the only option available that day. The movie sucked. And like Happytime Murders, it left me mildly relieved to know I won’t see movies like this anymore since I’ll have to be much more selective with only three shots per month. But really, MoviePass was making it a struggle even when I was still unlimited. If the new MoviePass normal is one or two movies available at a time, throttled weekends, access cut off at 11am on some days, I highly doubt I'll renew my account when my annual plan runs out in January. But hey, based on their recent well-documented shenanigans, maybe they won’t let me cancel my account!

-B.P. Kasik/Phony McFakename
 (I also wrote the authoritative literary work on MoviePass, Cinemadness: Live Your Best MoviePass Life)

* * *

My "legitimate" books are on Amazon here and my Phony books are on Amazon here. I exist on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram.

MoviePass: Is It Still Worth It?

Hate to admit it, but yes, it's still worth it.

$3.33 per ticket is a good deal, despite all their chain-yanking.

It bears repeating: If they’d come rushing out of the gate with that offer in August 2017, I would have jumped all over it and been glad to do so. So would many others!

On top of that great price, they’re (currently) offering an additional “$2 to $5 discount” on every ticket purchase you make through their app. (We all know what that REALLY means. It means $2 off every ticket. $5? In our dreams.)

If you go to a local $7 matinee or hit up the Alamo on $7-ticket Tuesdays, you can use MoviePass to see movies (beyond your allotted three) on the big screen for $5 a pop.

That’s pretty cool. And a better price than any of their competitors, other than AMC.

*

MoviePass was perfect.

Then it wasn’t.

I wrote the first Cinemadness book in a junkie-like cinema trance.

It probably needed to be broken.

Something that good can’t last forever. And maybe it shouldn’t.

I’m writing this in the cold, hard light of day. Haven’t seen a movie on the big screen in over a week. First time I can say that since I got my little red card in early October, 2017.

I read every single article written anywhere about MoviePass ever. I read all the derisive comments on every single MoviePass Instagram post. I devour information and details and hints from this crazy company.

And far too few people are telling you what I’m telling you now:

IT’S STILL A GOOD DEAL.

*

Will MoviePass survive?

No one knows.

What will MoviePass do next?

No one knows.

Will unlimited movies ever exist again?

Oh, I can answer this—

Wait, no I can’t.

Because no one knows.

We can speculate, based on hints dropped in the media.

If I had to guess, I’d say that if MoviePass keeps existing, they might offer limited one-week or one-month unlimited periods. Or they might let you go see whatever movie MoviePass Ventures is releasing (like Gotti or American Animals) without having it count against your monthly limit. They might follow Sinemia’s lead and offer combined family plans, or access to 3D/IMAX movies.

They’ve messed around with the price point for their movie-a-day plan in the past. If the app worked again and let us choose any movie or showtime like it did during the glory days, you have to wonder what they’d charge for it now. What would you be willing to pay?

Me? I’d say $30/month is a fair price, but I wouldn’t pay it. I’d top out at $20/month.

Time will tell.

*

After I sent MoviePass Customer Service an anguished, pathetic message telling them how they’d broken my heart after their infamous Unlimited-Ending day… they actually responded. Sent me the following message, surprisingly not a generic copy-pasted reply like every response on their Twitter or Instagram posts:

“We are so sorry for your frustrations here. We promise these are temporary inconveniences and we ask for your patience for the short while. Updates are coming soon.”

Who knows what that might mean?

Do we dare to hope?

*

MoviePass made believers out of us all.

And now we’re left to figure out how to go on living in this bleak new reality without MoviePass as we knew it.

It’s still a good world.

MoviePass’ brand is chaos. We’re not likely to affect that, so let’s try to just enjoy the show.

If they’re reading this, though? Here:

*

Dear MoviePass, the most important thing you can do from now on is BE HONEST. I’ve lost count of how many times your CEO sent out an awkward message saying something like, “Sorry about doing the last terrible/ridiculous thing we did and then lying about it. From here on out, we’re committed to transparency and not doing terrible/ridiculous things or lying about them!”

And then you do another terrible/ridiculous thing. And lie about it.

And so on.

Stop that.

When it came time to pull the plug on us blissful unlimited-annual members, you could have eased that blow.

If you’d just said, “Sorry, guys, we’re running out of money and we can’t do this anymore. We’ll be cutting you off soon”—all would be forgiven! We would have understood! But no, you surprise-shived us in direct contradiction to repeated promises you made that we could keep our plan, then twisted the knife by making the cancelation/alteration retroactive and without warning.

Stop that.

Think first, then act.

Remember the wisdom of Schrute and ask yourself: Would a complete idiot would do the thing you’re about to do? If the answer is yes… do not do that thing.

Look, I know your brand is chaos now, so you’re gonna keep altering the deal as much as possible. Just to yank our chain. You’re having fun. And fun is fun.

But it’s not a good idea if customer retention is something that interests you.

Take care. Keep it icy, MoviePass.

*

And hey, if MoviePass dies, it dies.

Once they went unlimited for $9.95/month, the company became like your 18-year-old deathly ill dog. You love it. You know its death is inevitable and impending. You’ll be sad when it dies.

Well, at this point, MoviePass is your dog at age 50, still alive beyond anyone’s rational or reasonable expectations.

It was a miracle.

And miracles don’t last.

They just end or become “sustainable” instead.

*

We all have to move on now.

I considered replicating the structure of the first Cinemadness book and sprinkling both naughty and nice moviegoing advice and pointers through the book, but I’m not gonna waste your time. That’s not what this book is.

The first one was about the joy of moviegoing. This one is more “MoviePass: What Happened!?”

That being said, if you want expert-level advice and pointers, my first Cinemadness book is still in print and the appendix for this book has a ton of helpful suggestions and life lessons for you, gathered from my last 50 theater visits by the power of MoviePass.

Here’s my most important advice: Take this opportunity to re-engage with your life and appreciate your friends and family more. Have movie nights at home. Make a social evening out of it with your pals who used to go to the movies with you all the time. Read more. Think more. Go walk outside more.

As Alexander Jodorowsky said at the end of his renowned film, The Holy Mountain:

“Is this life reality? No. It is a film… We must not stay here. Prisoners! We shall break the illusion… Goodbye to the Holy Mountain. Real life awaits us.”

But one more thing...

-B.P. Kasik/Phony McFakename
 (I also wrote the authoritative literary work on MoviePass, Cinemadness: Live Your Best MoviePass Life)

* * *

My "legitimate" books are on Amazon here and my Phony books are on Amazon here. I exist on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram.