This was a concept I lived for and thrived in when it first found its popularity. A membership that allowed me to see as many movies as I wanted to for as low as ten dollars a month. A membership that made going to the movies cost-effective. There is more to the story though. MoviePass, MovieCrash is a documentary that is realistic and speaks the truth of where the flops of the program, company, and membership of MoviePass started to happen. There may have been a volume of growth with the rise of memberships, but it lost its direction in becoming sustainable.

Directed by Muta’Ali Muhammad, MoviePass, MovieCrash dives into the early days of the creation of MoviePass. It then follows its years of rising and falling. Throughout the film, the depths of profits, struggles, and moving parts of the company are revealed to create a portrait of a module that just did not work. With interviews of many insiders including the main founders, Ted Farnsworth and Mitch Lowe, it’s clear to see the dynamics of business and vision went in many directions. The original founders were Stacy Spikes and Hamet Watt, who then passed it down to Farnsworth and Lowe. Their reputation of faith and personality they built the business on did not find common ground. The film is honest along the lines of seeing the plateaus, yet  what definitely spoke was the rising numbers. The increases kept happening while problems kept being put on the backburner.

With conflicts not finding prioritization, MoviePass, MovieCrash hurts in hearing the truth of what many of the workers, fans, and visionaries went through in terms of all the disasters that occurred as a result. One was sponsorship from AMC Theatres who actually despised MoviePass. Another issue was that there were not enough tools to make the membership cards. Finally, there were not enough resources to handle the amount of traffic from incoming customer complaints when issues in cinemas came up for the members of MoviePass.

When they interviewed the fans, the raves and addictions to countless movies were true, but when the errors happened, they made it clear that it felt like a never-ending nightmare. I can relate to this because I had these same problems when I had the membership. Then when AMC A-list came out, I resorted to that, as I was able to get free movies in premium formats. I could get up to 3 free movies a day. MoviePass only allowed one film a day in no premium formats. The cost-effectiveness for amazing movie memories was not there with a MoviePassmembership. There were only additional headaches as the frequent technicalities due to poor management continued and escalated.

MoviePass, MovieCrash created a culture where money and profit always come first. When studios spend millions of dollars in advertisements, it makes sense why MoviePass had all its plateaus. It had nothing much to offer for its audience. A free movie is nice, but did they have the profits to throw in concession items? Did they can add more premium formats? Why were there glitches in the apps with all the summer releases in 2018? MoviePass, MovieCrash depicts the boiling turmoil of making movie moments less enjoyable when it results in problems all around. The minds of Lowe and Farnsworth were the ones that had meaning. They knew what they were doing, but they did not pay attention to the rising problems on the side of actual operations while they were still hitting it big with their memberships. MoviePass, MovieCrash throws in the truth of the frustration to the many people (including myself) and the reasons for all of the suffrage of the membership. 

A riveting documentary that makes the audience think of the business sides of memberships. The  cinema world still must explore ways to put audiences in physical seats. The true catastrophe of the MoviePass membership debacle boils this issue to the bone. It does it in terms of politics, favoritism, corruption, connections, and the finding no satisfaction in the experience. It feels like a truth that the world truly knows already, but its presentation displays the anarchy of it all. Three out of four stars.