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)
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