I just like to turn up on the day to buy a ticket don't bother with a monthly pass or whatever. Weekends are packed now with popcorn /spicy food gaggling 20 something's,.cinemas are becoming eateries
The fact that the "ticket verification" system is being ramped up is lesser news than the revelation that you have three friends!
I went to see a Hindi film yesterday ("102 and Not Out" for you Bollywood fans). As usual, MoviePass got the price wrong (I paid $3 and change out of pocket this time). I also got the privilege of returning to the verification club (I was in the club until the price rollback, when it suddenly disappeared), even though I've probably only seen 2-3 films a month across the spring semester. Still just minor annoyances inside the bigger picture, in my mind anyway.
Out here we get one Bollywood film each month, never for more than a one week run. And that only happened after a major campaign by the owner of the Indian food store I frequent, who promised to promote the movies in his store. But it's better than NO Bollywood films each month.
Raazi, if you get a chance to see it, is a very serious film about the 1971 India/Pakistan war. A young Indian girl continues her father's work as a spy by marrying the son of a Pakistani general. No dancing, and only a handful of songs used as montages.
I mainly go to the dollar theater since it's not as loud. It seems like every time I go to the main theater I leave with ringing ears from their over amplified sound systems.
Just got the notification that I now have to provide photo proof of my ticket stub. The theater on my app wasn't showing any movies playing, but let me purchase a ticket. The time the email was sent was immediately after my purchase. So yes, not a random beta testing thing, but because my purchase was of an unlisted showtime.
Everyone ready for this? MoviePass is going to introduce surge pricing on popular movies by July It’s not all bad news, tho. They’re introducing a fee to allow imax/3D, if that’s your thing.
Thanks for the update. Luckily it doesn't apply to my wife and myself: Lowe also said subscribers who signed up for the annual plan would not be subject to "high demand" pricing and could opt out of the bring-a-friend or premium-price features.
If it keeps cinemas open I'm all for it. But ..I try and avoid evening performances now to many cellphones glaring and even people talking into them while the films on.
Either I'm the luckiest person in the world, or Chicago urban audiences are far more polite than anyone has ever suspected, because despite seeing more than a hundred films a year in the theater, this has only happened to me twice in the last twenty years or so. And the two theaters where I see films most often are the AMC River East 21 in downtown Chicago, and the AMC Galewood 14. The latter is the least expensive AMC theater in the Chicago area where first run adult ticket prices are $6.49. If theaters were truly the hellholes that I keep being told they are, wouldn't I see more of this behavior than anyone? My wife tries to see a new film in the theater every night and saw more than 400 films last year hasn't had any worse luck than I do.
Maybe I'm just sensitive to restaurant/cinema eating smells ..cell phone activity ..hen parties and translaters, for folk who can't speak English so someone who translates the film. I usually move to a aisle seat now ( alone) as side view is unpopular. Matinees are better time, but time wise cant always be flexible. Prefer home viewing nice blu ray steelbook.
I work 3rd shift so most of the movies my wife and I see are early matinees (we see around 40 movies a year). Its great to be in a near-empty theater and (during the school year) not many kids. We just don't go at night - its too crowded and I find people eating to be very distracting (the crunching and the smells). We had an Alamo theater here for a few years and although I liked their policy of no talking I really disliked the servers constantly running around during the show.
It’s funny. I really love my Movie Pass...my wife and I both have one. It has worked really well, as long as you know it’s limitations. Like not trying to go to a blockbuster film the first week since generally you will want to buy your seats in advance, etc, which isn’t the fault of the pass itself. My local theatre tells me a ton of people are using this now. But, as it turns out I’m in that demo that I likely think is all too rare for them. I have had it since you guys started talking about it, so maybe ten months. I’ve used it maybe five times, so they are far ahead. I keep thinking it will only take a few movies and then I’m “caught” up, but I’m just so busy running my business I don’t get around to using it. But I think it’s a fine product, it mentally allows me to buy more at the concessions stand (because the movie was free, right...lol?), and it’s certainly stayed around longer than I thought it would. And I agree with Chris...I really think a lot of people exaggerate about how rude people are at the theatre. There are always going to be exceptions, and some may just have bad luck or are a bit more sensitive to issues (which is certainly their perogative). But I think since theatres have gone to the trouble of addressing this with preshow ads making patrons aware that this is not okay, it really hasn’t been the huge problem that I think in the earlier days of cell phones has been. I haven’t been to a theater yet that is really pushing food, but I can see how that could be a real issue. I don’t know that I would want to smell all that, or anything else associated with it. And most people I see pick up after themselves. Being older, I was used to leaving my popcorn trash on the floor but I don’t think that’s etiquette anymore. I see most people pick it all up, and now I do too.
On behalf of the people who see a truly absurd number of films...thank you. I suspect bad behavior is worse in suburbs, where I get the impression movie theaters are used as babysitting services. I had two bad experiences; one was at the AMC Studio 30 in the Kansas City suburb of Lenexa where I was in a very crowded theater and a 17 year old nitwit thought she would be using her phone to text her friends during the film. I disabused her of that notion very quickly. My wife (who loves me, mind you) describes me to strangers as "scary looking", and when this big, hulking hairy guy sitting next to her said "Put that thing away. Right now!" she complied. The other was in the Chicago suburb of Evanston at the Cinemark Century, where a couple of mid-30s women thought a movie theater was the perfect place to catch up on their lives - and we could hear them from 6 rows away. I stood up and told them the Starbucks was downstairs, and they should go there. They got all huffy, but left. I got a round of applause from the other audience members.
There's an Alamo in Kansas City, and while I've been there a few times, I avoid it. They have hard back seats that do not recline at all - apparently to make it easier to eat over-priced entrees. It's a crying shame, as the theater had previously been the AMC Mainstreet and had the best seats of any theater in Kansas City, very comfortable recliners with bass shakers installed in the seat.
Don't get me wrong - I've been very happy with my Moviepass membership since last fall. I've seen a TON of movies I never would've otherwise and quite a few I thought were excellent. HOWEVER, I also think their customer service is pretty much a joke and their "tact" (or lack of!) when dealing with their customers is amazing. One of my friends has taken to incorporating messages to them ("SURGE PRICING SUCKS BALLS") when sending them photos of his ticket stub (when he's not flipping them the bird in the photo - ). He roared when he got their most recent email explaining surge pricing ("you can avoid this peak surcharge by choosing an alternative date or film") - "Oh," he said, "you mean I can just go at a different film?" Anyway, after their not-so-consumer-friendly changes over the past few months, I had to laugh big time at the email I just received, offering Moviepass merchandise: Should I put those next to my Ticketmaster shirts in the closet?
I went to see "American Animals" yesterday. To my surprise "Movie Pass" (specifically "Movie Pass Ventures") is one of the first (the first?) things you see on the screen. They apparently are in the film financing and/or distribution business now.
I hope you liked that one as much as I did. Ran circles around something like "Oceans 8", IMO. Speaking of which (sort of), I was particularly amused by the scene showing how they envisioned the heist going down, which was quite obviously an homage/satire of Ocean's 11 (even down to using the same Elvis track as musical backing).
Funny you should mention that. I live in a movie desert, and I saw "Oceans 8" out of "Can't find anything else I'd even see for free" desperation last weekend. I was in Nashville yesterday to see Roger Daltrey, so I took advantage of the local film society to see "American Animals". I didn't plan the back-to-back "caper" double feature, but yeah, I couldn't help but compare the two films, and think how one is a rich cinematic experience worthy of lengthy discussion over dinner and the other evaporates like air as soon as the theater door opens.
