The MoviePass alternatives are all pretty
depressing.
None of them come close to what MoviePass was.
None of them even come close to what MoviePass
is, at this very moment.
MoviePass is currently $9.95/month for
three non-3D, non-IMAX movies in the theater.
So…
How do other services measure up?
AMC Stubs
A-List
In its current state, AMC’s awkwardly-named
program (named after “Sir Stubs-A-Lot,” presumably) is $19.95/month for three
movies per week. Charging a monthly fee for a weekly allowance of films is a
bit convoluted, but it’s a reasonable deal.
I suspect now that MoviePass no longer
offers their unlimited plan and AMC doesn’t have to work so hard to compete,
they will restrict their offering. Maybe down to one per week, probably down to
two per week. Or jack the price up. But time will tell.
AMC maxing out at 12 movies a month
sounded pathetic during MoviePass’ heyday. (MoviePass very unwisely and unprofessionally
mocked AMC’s plan on social media.) But now? AMC is offering four times as many monthly movies as MoviePass
at only twice the cost, including
access to 3D and IMAX.
I have no AMC theaters in my region, but I
know multiple people who subscribe to this. They like it, but they also just
want to see whatever new movie is out.
If that’s all you want, it’s acceptable.
Their app is user-friendly. You can make
reservations, including advance tickets, smoothly and without trouble. You can
cancel reservations easily. You can see more than one film a day.
But I am highly skeptical of their fine
print, as the devil is in their details. From their Terms of Use: “other showtimes and events that are priced
above standard ticket price admissions (including select showtimes of certain
foreign language films) are not eligible and are excluded from the A-List
Program.”
To clarify, according to multiple people I
have spoken with who use this service: AMC
does not support one-off screenings or foreign films.
Which means if they have something fun
like a one-time screening of Jurassic
Park or have an Academy-Award-nominated foreign film playing… you probably can’t
use AMC’s program to see it.
That is bush league.
All you get is the new stuff.
If you actually care about movies, this
should bother you on a deep level.
Making a full-price ticket purchase the
only way to see classics and foreign films on the big screen is a deliberate
act of sabotage against preservation of the arts and appreciation of quality
cinema.
AMC deserves way more guff than they’re getting over this.
Or they could just change this evil
restriction on their otherwise perfectly fine plan.
Cinemark
Movie Club
A joke.
One non-3D, non-IMAX ticket for $8.99. Per month.
Oh, and 20% off their 2000%-overpriced
concessions.
Barely worth acknowledging.
Sinemia
Sinemia has always bragged about having a
“more sustainable” service than MoviePass.
Uh, yeah. Good for them.
Bragging that they’re getting a better
deal off you, the consumer? Odd thing to be proud of.
MoviePass: “Here’s a completely bonkers
crazy-pills offer where we’ll give you a ridiculously good deal at the expense
of our investors!”
Sinemia: “Here is our reasonable offer.
Isn’t it nice that it will let us make enough money off of you to keep our
investors and business partners happy?”
Bah.
I am underwhelmed.
Their prices vary so much—thanks to random
discounts and different prices for yearly and monthly plans—and their plans are
so convoluted, they’re a pain to explain.
Basically, they charge you $4 or $5 per
movie depending on your plan.
”But
I get to watch 3D or IMAX movies!”
Not
so fast, Scooter. Here’s a bonus bit of confusion: if you get their “Premium”
three-per-month plan, it sounds like
they’re offering you the option to see three movies in 3D or IMAX if you like.
WRONG.
You can have ONE IMAX/3D ticket per month.
The rest gotta be standard.
“Still,
$4 or $5 per movie is still good, right?”
Well, there’s more nonsense coming…
Ticket convenience fees.
Sinemia has a ridiculously clunky
interface on its app. It bonks you out of it in order to send you to other
websites or apps (like Fandango or amc.com) to buy the tickets there. And
you’re gonna be paying about $2 in fees per ticket, NOT covered by Sinemia.
So you’re really paying about $6 or $7 per
ticket.
And it takes users an average of seven minutes to purchase each movie
ticket thanks to being pinballed in and out of the Sinemia app.
“But
they let me get advance tickets and I can see any movie I want!”
So what?
Ticket verification is disabled in MoviePass
now. So for all intents and purposes, you can get advance tickets with them,
too. As long as the tickets cost the same, it doesn’t matter what day or
showtime you buy a ticket for after checking-in on the MoviePass-permitted movie
du jour. (I would never recommend you do such a thing, though, and I would of
course never do it myself. Just stating a fact in the hopes of swaying you from
that foul Sinemia temptress.)
MoviePass has a fairly smooth app
interface and gives you three movies a month at an average cost of $3.33 per
ticket.
After all fees are factored in, Sinemia
charges you double that amount per ticket.
“You’re
right! I should drop that Sinemia zero and get with the MoviePass hero!”
Now you’re getting it!
Alamo Unlimited
Who knows?
They’re reportedly testing it in Yonkers
now, but there’s no publicly-available info on it. Just rumors of them testing
monthly price points of $15 to $30. Time will tell.
I was famously tough on Alamo Drafthouse
in my previous Cinemadness book. Time
has mellowed my feelings a bit, though I don’t disagree with anything I said.
When you go to Alamo multiple times a
week, its idiosyncrasies and inconsistencies become infuriating.
But if, as I do now, you only go about once
a month… it’s fine. It’s tolerable.
I don’t know if Alamo has actually gotten
their act together and finally cracked down on the movie-ruining talkers that I
encountered at least half the times I was there. Or if I just get lucky and
happen to encounter well-behaved moviegoers on my rare trips there.
Either way, I feel deeply ambivalent about
diving into the Alamo pool as regularly as I’d feel tempted to if I had
unlimited access.
You should, too.
You just don’t know what you’ll find in
that pool.
Sam’s Club/Costco
tickets
You can find discount movie ticket
vouchers (or just-plain gift cards with no added incentive) for various movie
theaters at your local Sam’s Club or Costco.
Prices vary, but the norm these days seems
to be $9 a ticket. That’s a nice discount from normal big-city evening ticket
prices. But not such a great deal if you live in a small town where matinee
screenings are $7.
Pre-MoviePass, this is how I saw most theatrical
movies and I was content, since I only went once every month or two.
It might work for you.
In Summary…
New movie theater subscription services
are probably coming soon.
Amazon is looking to buy a movie theater
chain—Landmark Theatres—and that’s an ominous rumbling.
Regal was purchased by a Chinese company
last year and they’ve probably noticed consumer interest in theater
subscription services by now. (Our big local theater’s a Regal, so if Regal had
a reasonably-priced, functional unlimited plan… I’d consider it.)
Fandango might wake up to its
highly-leveraged position at some point and try to do something more than just
act as a middleman to chisel an extra buck or two off every ticket purchase
from folks forced by Sinemia to get their tickets there.
Other services have come and gone.
I once used this convoluted gift
card/website system, movietickets.com, where you bought a fixed-value
disposable card and went to their website to log in and buy the ticket you
wanted with the number on the card. You had to type out the lengthy 16-digit
code manually every time. And then you had to print out the ticket voucher or,
later in their service life, get it emailed or texted to you. The usher at the
theater would look confusedly at your paper voucher or scan the QR code from
your phone and after they processed what they were seeing, you were all set.
They stopped selling movietickets.com
cards at our local Sam’s shortly before MoviePass’ Great and Terrible Price
Drop. But even with convoluted fees and discounts, we averaged about $7 per
ticket using that service. We felt it was worth the hassle. If they’d had a mobile app, movietickets.com
might have stayed in business. But no, they wouldn’t even let you buy tickets
on their mobile website with your
phone. They had this odd quirk, requiring you make the purchase on an actual
computer in an actual house. Weirdos. They apparently still exist and were
bought out by Fandango in October 2017. So good luck getting any kind of
bargain deal with it now.
There might be another MoviePass-style
company in the future, but there’s no way it will be as good or last as long.
You only get one miracle like unlimited $9.95 MoviePass per lifetime.
-B.P. Kasik/Phony McFakename
(I also wrote the authoritative literary work on MoviePass, Cinemadness: Live Your Best MoviePass Life)
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