MoviePass - will it die a premature death or is it here to stay

short version of plan:

1. raise price to $15/month, keep on with surge pricing
2. morph into IndiePass by restricting access / focus on cutting deals with small theaters and distribs since obviously amc/regal are never gonna happen
3. something something data
4. ???
5. profit!

i am totally okay with this if it keeps the lights on. by far the biggest benefit to me is unfettered access to all the little art house and repertory options in nyc. they'll shed blockbuster nuts by the truckload but those are probably their most useless users for the long shot (imo doomed) plan of making themselves valuable in a "we can boost attendance and word of mouth for your $15 million film" niche.

I might get this for the two months I am in NY. But at the same time, it's such a chore to deal with movie theaters there.

how so?

I love running into Doc Casino at the movies, but I am not gonna carry a phone just for this precarious thing. I see enough films w/out it anyway.

If a movie is popular at all you need to get there at least 30 minutes ahead of time to get a decent seat. The closest movie theater to me is I think AMC about a 20 minute walk away, otherwise dealing with the subway just to see a movie is not my thing. Also, I might be slightly traumatized from seeing roaches on the wall of one in midtown and then a year later seeing that they had bedbugs.

Oh, although I used to love going to the Momi for movies when I was a member.

Idk about NYC but an increasing number of screening types at chain theaters in Canada have reserved seating options - not sure if those work w/ Moviepass though

yeah, the packed house thing is a real thing. honestly one of the best features of alamo and metrograph is that really only the very front row is too close to take in a pinch, and MG has the balcony for their bigger screen. (both also have reserved seats if you buy online, tho that's not an option with moviepass since they're not e-ticket partners). the quad OTOH has like 25% inhabitable seats per screen and the rake of the floor is so shallow that someone sitting down two rows in front of you can block the picture. their programming is fantastic though. virtually every seat in the angelika is, i believe, actually inside of a rumbling subway car. but overall morbs is correct, the main redeeming feature of nyc's theaters is discovering at the end of the movie that you've been sitting next to an awkward ilxor on a date.

also, totally off the moviepass radar, no reserved seating, but absolutely essential: film forum and spectacle.

my office temporarily moved really close to the film forum and i've been bummed they've been closed all summer

but i guess that ends tomorrow!

Going by yourself is easier, but yeah once you have people with you it becomes a whole stressful thing of getting there way too early to find seats together and the awkwardness of people saving way too many seats with jackets/bags.

yeah that's fair!

pic.twitter.com/xUevXXw9ck

— Nick Wiger (@nickwiger) July 30, 2018

went by the theatre at 11am to get a ticket for the 7pm Across The Universe

For anybody forced to verify ticket purchases, is anybody really looking at that shit?

I have forgotten about five times (cos it's not something I am used to), submitted the wrong ticket twice, submitted a picture of my right leg and my middle finger and no restrictions placed

That's clearly why they're going under, thanks a lot.

Last night i managed to successfully check into a theatre 5 miles away and use it to buy a ticket at another theatre which is the only way I could buy a Teen Titans ticket as Incredibles 2 was the only eligible movie

The idea was that the ticket stubs were being OCR'ed and auto-checked, and ones that failed that were going to people being paid an absolute pittance through Amazon's creepy "Mechanical Turk" program. It's possible that MP is no longer paying for the latter service and the stub verification is currently a sham.

The Regal is IRL screening Eighth Grade, Equalizer 2, Hotel Transylvania 3, Incredibles 2, Jurassic Park 5, Mission Impossible 6, Mission Impossible 6 In 3D, Sicario 2, Ocean's 8, Identical Strangers Three, Skyscraper, and Won't You Be My Neighbour?
All Mission Impossible screenings are greyed out. I can't see if sessions are unsurged on Eighth or 8, because I've seen them already. Sicario only has one screening scheduled, at 21:25, and it is unsurged. The other seven films are not showing at all.

The AMC is IRL screening Ant-Man & The Wasp, Blindspotting, Detective Dee: The Four Heavenly Kings, Hereditary, Jurassic Park 5, Mamma Mia! 2, MI:6, MI:6 3D, Skyscraper, Sorry To Bother You, Teen Titans GO! To The Movies, and Unfriended: Dark Web.
All Mission Impossible screenings are greyed out, as is Detective Dee: The Four Heavenly Kings. I can't see if sessions are unsurged on Blindspotting or Hereditary, because I've seen them already. Unfriended has two sessions scheduled, neither are surged. The other seven films are not showing at all.

The nearby arthouse disappeared off Moviepass altogether two weeks ago.

The revival house has their 7pm Honey I Shrunk The Kids available, their 9pm Aliens is not showing up.

An indie to the south had every session on surge on the weekend; today their screenings of Three Identical Strangers and Sorry To Bother You are available, but Ant-Wasp and Mamma Mia are not showing up.

An indie-chain to the north yesterday had Mission Impossible and The Incredible greyed out, and The Catcher Was A Spy available. Today, MI is greyed out, Incredibles is available, and the Paul Rudd spy movie is not showing on the app.

― 16, 35, DCP, Go! (sic), Monday, July 30, 2018 2:46 PM (two days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

forgot to add: Saturday's surge pricing had gone up to $8. still half of a full-price ticket.

Moviepass sent me a surveymonkey this morning about whether I would have seen Blindspotting without moviepass, whether the trailer on the app influenced me, if my movie companions included a non-subscriber etc, so they're still looking to leverage the data ongoing

― 16, 35, DCP, Go! (sic), Monday, July 30, 2018 3:33 PM (two days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I see stuff like this and is, like, saving a few bucks worth all this brainspace on going to the movies, an entertainment literally based in escapism?

there are expensive videogames that are less entertaining than figuring out how to get moviepass to work.

gaming the system for a few bucks IS a form of escapism.

xp

xxp that's barely a footnote in the ensiclopedia

depends how many bucks a few bucks is. i'm at 62 films seen with moviepass for about a $100 outlay. approaching a $1,000 value assuming 15 a ticket in NYC. more to the point i've seen a ton of stuff i would never have seen at $15 a ticket, and i'm pretty happy with that. also when the service works halfway correctly you don't need to do all this scrambling around in the app; it's really only in the past seven days that it's become a complete maze of stuff not showing up that should be listed.

I'm too much of an Alamo stan to go back to a life without assigned seats

I think I've seen over half my MoviePass shows at a local Alamo-like theater that has e-ticketing

The only downside is they have an "aisle" seat every fifth chair and it's not marked in the MP app, so I either count manually or book the ticket at work when I'm able to double-check the seat/row to make sure I've grabbed the right one. Other than that, it's been completely seamless. I've never encountered a glitch at the local arthouse theater, either. Check in, buy ticket, done.

MoviePass's "e-ticket" theaters can offer assigned seating if that's the way that theater rolls, but they are thin on the ground. E-ticketing requires that the theater integrate its listings and ticketing directly with MP, and MP won't do that unless the theater is cutting them a deal on discounted tickets. NYC has had only three e-ticket theaters - Cinepolis Chelsea, the Roxy Tribeca, and the Landmark at 57th Street - and the last of those has recently vanished from the app. So that's not super helpful.

You can always swing by the Alamo earlier in the day, buy your ticket and pick your seat, but obviously this depends very much on distance/convenience/time/etc. Them and Metrograph are the only ones I regularly attend that do assigned seating.

You may also want to look into Alamo's own "season pass" program, when/if it rolls out past beta.

just waiting for the Brooklyn Alamo to open their video store

icymi

Our final update: pic.twitter.com/nuuUulDUrA

— Video Free Brooklyn (@vfbrooklyn) July 26, 2018

is, like, saving a few bucks worth all this brainspace on going to the movies, an entertainment literally based in escapism?

luv 2 kick back and enjoy the escapist ride of Leave No Trace and Blindspotting and First Reformed and Mother Of George

also m bison and Dr Casino OTM. I'm at 79 films, 1948-2018, from seven countries*, for $69.65 outlay so far. A multiplex ticket costs $15.50 here.

*more if you count the Oscar shorts

For anybody forced to verify ticket purchases, is anybody really looking at that shit?

Huh. Well i probably saw my last movie w them last night anyway.

My year sub doesn't end until December so I'm ridin' this thing 'til the wheel fall off. That said, if I was a monthly subscriber being forced to go to $14.99 with all these new BS rules I'd probably quit.

Looking through my MP history, it probably does trend more to escapist fare.... I guess? I've seen a lot of 'classic escapism' and older blockbusters/b-movies/genre stuff - Wages of Fear, Blood Simple, Liquid Sky, China Syndrome, Rosemary's Baby, Ms. 45, Umbrellas of Cherbourg, etc. etc. I've also seen a fair bit of contemporary Serious Films In the Conversation like 3 Billboards, Fantastic Woman, Florida Project, Sorry To Bother You, and so on. The 'toughest' thing I've watched with it was probably yesterday's screening of Barbara Loden's Wanda. Things like Barry Lyndon, Antiporno, Girlfriends, Maitresse, might be 'difficult' in some sense but are still an 'escape' in a way.

But... idk how much this matters. To me the mild hassle of dealing with the app (when it's not as dysfunctional as it has been this week) don't really add much on top of the basic scheduling thing of keeping track when all this stuff is screening. And that's worth it for the chance to see this stuff on the big screen.

What's the worst movie experience so far that being on moviepass let you shrug off as no big deal?

Super Troopers 2

Either The Foreigner or Proud Mary. Or maybe when a repertory screening turns out to be a really shitty, washed-out pink print, where it's like "that would have looked better on streaming." OTOH being with an audience is always worth something. I saw the Hong Kong action-comedy Aces Go Places a couple months back and it looked like absolute hell but it was enhanced by the big gags getting big laughs.

I saw Uncle Drew and there was screen disruption so I got another free ticket from the movie theatre itself

insult to injury

xp lol I went to go see Uncle Drew and the A/C went out before the movie started. got a free ticket, still haven't seen Uncle Drew...

How do you even watch 79 films from only seven countries?

in breaking news, America makes lots of films

my worst is a fight between Proud Mary, the first Deadpool (at a Hecklevision screening), Infinity Baby and Set It Off.

Fair enough. I guess we still only get to see a fraction.

fwiw only 24 of my 62 moviepass swipes have been for films in their initial theatrical run. in nyc at least you could easily watch a film every single day all year and it never be a new american movie. so watching x number of films from y countries isn't particularly weird. if you think sic's doing it wrong, you should check reddit, where everyone's still sore about not being able to see "infinity war" five times, and branching out to an "indie" means seeing the horrifyingly-reviewed Gotti movie with John Travolta that moviepass was pushing a while back.

36 of mine were new US films from 2017/18. (other new releases were from China, France, Russia, the UK and Australia.)

in nyc at least you could easily watch a film every single day all year and it never be a new american movie

I suspect that NYC is the only city on the planet where one could do this, with Cinefamily and the New Beverly closed in LA. in six days there in June, I felt like crying with wonder every time I looked at Moviepass.

the reddit is incredible, swarms of ppl self-righteously cancelling their service bcz they couldn't see Mission Impossible for free on Thursday. and shouting at anyone who points out that they'd still save money if they only see one movie a month.

wait no, you could still do it in LA with American repertory and three-day runs of new imports in a glorified screening room.

I'm surprised no enterprising hucksters with a couch and a projector have opened "theaters" for the express purpose of gouging moviepass.

I went to AMC A List this morning

Under a dime. I am surprised they haven't thrown in the towel.