MoviePass and Other Cinema Subscription Services

[Monterey Jack]

SO glad I never bought into this bullshit. Gimme printable "Movie Cash" ticket promos any day (despite ticket counter people ALWAYS having to call down a manager to input them).

[McCrutchy]

New York Attorney General Launches Probe of MoviePass

[DarkImbecile]

...I'm convinced. All is forgiven.

[Big Ben]

In the age of memes I'm used to a lot of stuff by now but every once and a while I'm shocked by something someone puts out. MoviePass at this point cannot be serious. Why not just stop and take the loss?

[swo17]

He can't talk, he says by talking

[MongooseCmr]

I read that as “We’re Charging” which may be more accurate

[McCrutchy]

He can't talk, he says by talking

I think "Chloe" is probably a "she", but she looks like she wants to get the hell out of wherever she is, which is probably what most people associated with MoviePass want to do, at this point.

On a related note, I tried to use Google Image search to look up what kind of dog Chloe is, and got this:

Spoiler

[hearthesilence]

Looks like Buster Scruggs was the last film on my annual subscription. (Am I the only one here who kept it to the very end?) Surprisingly, they just let my subscription lapse - I was expecting them to put me on a monthly plan, but I guess they only did that for users who were already on the monthly plan.

[mfunk9786]

I cancelled my annual subscription as well. Didn't use it in the last two months or so, for better or worse.

[hearthesilence]

I was fine with keeping it for two reasons: 1) they stopped asking for ticket confirmation (i.e. photographing your ticket) and 2) even if I couldn't check into the film I wanted to see, it was very easy to check into any show or even a nearby theater, thus depositing the money needed on to my MoviePass card and getting me into the film I wanted with no hassle. I'm reluctant to reactivate my membership because if I have to confirm all my tickets again, the service will really suck.

[DarkImbecile]

(Am I the only one here who kept it to the very end?)

Mine still runs for another couple of weeks, so we'll see if I can get another ticket or two out of it. My usage has really dropped off since September as I took on a new job, but my profit for the year is still looking to be somewhere between $675-700 (assuming an average of $9 a ticket).

I imagine we'll look back on getting in early on this service like the characters in Wolf of Wall Street look back on their Wall Street careers: surprise at the ease with which you can exploit the system, followed by delirious overindulgence, followed by the walls closing in, before the eventual death with a whimper of a ride that shouldn't have been possible in a responsible society in the first place. Ribs, of course, was the FBI agent who was right to smell a rat but probably still ultimately dismayed at how little comeuppance we suffered relative to how much we got away with.

Still worth it.

[mfunk9786]

Way worth it. Saved hundreds of dollars in less than a year's worth of use.

[senseabove]

And I'm a monthly user still going strong, positioned as I am with easy access to 4 Landmarks and 3 more if I want to travel a bit... So tonight I'll be going going to my third movie this billing cycle, and crossing my fingers the rest of the things I want to see at Landmarks are still showing next month.

[senseabove]

MoviePass is rolling out three tiers of service, with location-specific prices for each tier, in 2019:

2019 Individual Monthly Plans (Not Currently Available)
•Select
Price Varies By Market: $9.95, $12.95, or $14.95 per month.
3 2D Movies Per Month
MoviePass Movie Schedule determines your available selection.

•All Access
Price Varies by Market: $14.95, $17.95, or $19.95 per month.
3 2D Movies Per Month
No Movie Selection Restrictions

•Red Carpet
Price Varies by Market: $19.95, $21.95, or $24.95 per month.
3 Movies Per Month, including one IMAX 2D, IMAX 3D, or Real 3D format.
No Movie Selection Restrictions.

Here's hoping the All Access level brings indie/arthouse theaters back into the picture...

[Timec]

Though if I'm reading things correctly, they're no longer going to accept credit card payments - you'll have to give them your checking account info. Presumably because they got a lot of chargebacks after they drastically changed the service.

If that's actually the case, it's gonna be a big NO from me.

[mfunk9786]

I wouldn't give a company with this much financial desperation my banking info. Set up a separate bill pay account if you must the way you would to mail checks to a slumlord, but don't give them your regular checking account information

[hearthesilence]

Though if I'm reading things correctly, they're no longer going to accept credit card payments - you'll have to give them your checking account info.

That's definitely a deal breaker for me.

[Brian C]

I wouldn't give a company with this much financial desperation my banking info. Set up a separate bill pay account if you must the way you would to mail checks to a slumlord, but don't give them your regular checking account information

Amen. Especially since they’ve been so brazen with billing cancelled accounts in the past.

[DarkImbecile]

“Do We Want to Be in Business?”: The Strange, Never-Ending Saga of MoviePass

“East Tower, 11th floor”—that’s where Mitch Lowe and Khalid Itum, the CEO and executive vice president of MoviePass, respectively, would be. But after figuring out which tower was the East Tower, and then taking one elevator to get to another elevator, and taking that elevator to the 11th floor, I found myself in the large entryway into the offices of Abrams Artists Agency. I turned right, which led to a small room with two chairs and lone, Abrams-branded iPad meant for signing in; it was a doctor’s office, only for actors. I doubled back down the hallway, once again passing the entrance to Abrams, then taking a left, then another left, and then a quick right, before ending up in a communal kitchen area. What the fuck? I whispered to myself, growing anxious that soon someone would report that a man was wandering the halls of the 11th floor of the East Tower at the Pacific Design Center. Finally, I resigned myself to asking the receptionist at Abrams. “Oh, it’s pretty much right there,” she said. “Just walk straight ahead.” Straight ahead there was a nondescript door, the same color as the hallway walls. I couldn’t be sure that I had noticed it the first two times I walked past it; it looked like the door to a broom closet.

As I went to knock, two men opened the door and sauntered out, revealing a full office space behind them. “Is this MoviePass?” I asked. They nodded.

MoviePass does still exist. They’re just a little harder to find these days.

[Fiery Angel]

Does anyone on this board still have/use MoviePass?

[DarkImbecile]

I personally don’t, yet I remain oddly fascinated by their bizarre, slow-motion collapse.

[MongooseCmr]

I cancelled after the summer, but my girlfriend got a year subscription in April, and in September they stopped asking for ticket verifications on it. I just check in to something else and see what I want three times a month. The funny thing is it works more consistently now than it ever did while it was popular.

[mfunk9786]

No. The AMC one seems pretty appealing if they keep it going (or haven't gotten rid of it already), but this is a pretty dead time for going to the multiplex, the ability to use MoviePass anywhere is what made it most appealing.

If we move into the city limits proper and have an easy transportation method to the Landmark theaters, I might circle around and see what desperate monthly offer MoviePass is making. Because I'm assuming they're still full steam ahead with Landmark, at least? No missed showtimes or shady antics?

[Brian C]

A-List is still going strong and remains very nice if you have an AMC theater available to you that shows more than the usual multiplex fare. They did slightly raise prices in some markets, although IMO they did it the right way - they sent me an email a couple months ago explaining the increase, but also said they were keeping subscribers’ intro rates for a full year after their initial enrollment. So the $2/mo price increase for me won’t kick in until this coming August.

Anyhow, that MoviePass article is an amazing read. I agree with them that the movie theater industry is just begging for a subscription service like theirs, but beyond that, these guys seem incapable of saying anything that doesn’t sound amazingly clueless.

[Fiery Angel]

I joined A-List right before the holidays to catch up with the awards-season movies and it's been worth it so far: I saw 10 movies the first month (at $20/monthly) and just saw Peter Jackson's WWI doc in 3-D, which I wouldn't have done without A-List.