The Death of Movie Pass (Updated 8/1/18)

Another Update! Yesterday, I got an email from Movie Pass with a kind of apology about how things were going. Mostly they said that they were going to start reducing the movies that were available to see - like with Mission: Impossible, as they adjust the business model.

Yesterday, when I opened my Movie Pass app, it said that there were no available showings for the rest of the day... at 5 pm in the afternoon. It's 2:30 pm as I write this, and my local Regal has Hotel Transylvania 3 and The First Purge available to use Movie Pass with. That's it!

It's a far cry from the days of  "See a movie everyday" that got me to subscribe in the first place. Even though there was no mention in this in the email from Movie Pass, they are also raising prices from $9.99 a month to $15 a month.

Yesterday, I canceled my membership through the app. Though we shall see what happens on my billing date if it was actually canceled. I've heard some horror stories online about people having issues canceling the service.

I'm sad to have to cancel but the service just isn't worth it. And for $5 more a month I can do AMC's plan that gets me much more for the money. Though I will probably wait to sign for up that until the end of the year, to see if Regal comes up with their own program.

Update (7/28/18) A few days ago, Movie Pass was all over the news because their service was down due to them having no money. They took out a loan to get it back up and running, but they have to start paying it back early August.

I think their death is possibly going to come next week, if they can't raise the money for the loans. From what I've read on Facebook, pretty much every movie this weekend has a surge charge of $5 and they have the new Mission: Impossible movie blocked so no-one can use Movie Pass to see it.

I still have my subscription because I'm waiting to see how things shake out. But if they keep going the way they are, I'll probably cancel before my next payment due date.

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At the beginning of the year, I wrote a post singing the praises of Movie Pass. Sadly, the company has pretty much killed what was a great service.

Things have been going downhill for a while. Right before Avenger: Infinity War came out, they changed their terms of service so you could only watch a movie once using your Movie Pass. I'm the kind of person who watches movies as often as I can in the theater and honestly being able to do that was a selling point for me to get Movie Pass in the place.

I've never had a problem with my app or the card, but their Facebook page is full of complaints of people having issues with both and not getting any sort of response from their customer support, which isn't good.

So I have just been rolling with it. I don't get to see a ton of movies because my husband works a lot and I can't get a Movie Pass for Emily because you have to be 18 years old or older. I did see a lot when she was in Michigan and it was nice to have the Movie Pass then.

But then Movie Pass rolled out surge pricing. Basically if a movie time has surge pricing they are going to charge you an extra $3 to $4 to see that movie. And that's just for a 2D movie and some of the movies are month old or older. They don't seem to have any rhyme or reason why certain movies are surged.

As you see from the picture above, Hotel Transylvania 3 at 10:45 pm is surged. A kids movie at a not kid friendly time. And people are screaming on the Movie Pass Facebook page about it, as tons of people post pictures of empty movie theaters that they had to pay surge pricing for.

Looking at my app right now, Ocean's 8, The First Purge and Uncle Drew are the only movies at my local Regal that aren't surged. I've been to the movies late on Sundays since I don't work on Mondays, and usually the theater is pretty empty.

Movie Pass's parent company's stocks keep dropping like a rock. When I looked it up right now, they are at 10 cents a share. I can imagine that the company will be folding soon and that this surge pricing is a last ditch effort to keep the door open.

Personally, I refuse to pay surge pricing. I'll use it for movies that don't have surge pricing. Hopefully Regal Theaters will roll out something like AMC's A List where you get to see 3 movies a week of any kind for $20 a month. I'd honestly just switch to AMC but the closest AMC theater is 26 minutes away and I don't think they have recliner seats. But if Regal were to do something like this, I'd cancel Movie Pass right now.

It's probably a moot point anyway. Movie Pass has done things in such a way that has gotten it so much bad will from the public that nothing they will do will probably keep them in business. So pour one out for Movie Pass. It was great while it lasted!

MoviePass!

I love seeing movies in the theater. It's just a great experience to see stories play out on the big screen. We are a movie family in general which is why we own hundreds of movies (slowly getting our library on digital) and go to the theater as often as we can.

Out of the three of us, I might be the biggest movie freak of the family because I love seeing my favorites multiple times in the theater. I've already seen The Last Jedi three times (twice opening weekend!). I saw the Lord of the Rings movies so much in college that I ran out of people to come with me. Thankfully, I like going to the movies by myself!

I had heard, before Christmas, about MoviePass. For about $10 a month, you can see one 2D movie a day. Most of the movies I see are 2D anyway so I thought about it for a while. Now I had read online that some people were very unhappy with MoviePass, mostly because of cards never showing up. But I decided that I would try it out.

I paid for it a few days before Christmas and I got the card earlier this week. Today was the soonest I was able to get to the movies and I was a little nervous that it wouldn't work. Basically you have to have the app and the card. Once you get to the theater, you pick the movie you want to see on the app and click 'check in'. From there, you have 30 minutes to buy your ticket with the MoviePass card.

When I got to the front of the line, I gave the cashier my rewards app for the theater I was at and the MoviePass card, and held my breath for a minute (yes, I am a worry wart). The cashier ran it like a credit card and I got my tickets plus my rewards points for the theater! It was so simple!

Today I enjoyed Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, tomorrow, I'll probably go see Star Wars again. Next week, maybe Pitch Perfect 3! There are tons of great movies coming out this year and I can't wait to see them all! I would highly recommend MoviePass to anyone who loves movies!

Summer Adventures - The Drive-In

One of my favorite memories as a kid was going to the drive-in. My mom would always buy us new pj's since we would nearly always fall in asleep in the car. I honestly don't remember any movies I saw, but the experience of sitting in the car to watch a movie was awesome.

There is a drive-in that shows new movies about an hour away from my house. We've passed it a few times over the years on the way to Charlotte, but we'd never gotten there. Finally I decided that Emily and I were going to go this summer.

A few weekends ago, the Sunset Drive-In Theater was showing Despicable Me 3 and Spider-Man: Homecoming. This kind of killed two birds for me because I had promised to take Emily to see Spider-Man once she got home from Michigan.

The gates opened at 7 pm and I got there about then. Since this was our first time, I wasn't sure how fast it would fill up. It was pretty empty when we got there so we got a great spot right by the bathrooms and concession stand.

We had a few hours to kill so we checked everything out. They had a Despicable Me 3 coloring contest so Emily sat down and colored a picture. They also had a Despicable Me 3 photo booth and one for Spider-Man too.

As the sun was setting, we got some popcorn. We got some other snacks as it got closer to movie

time. Before the movie, they gave out some prizes. Emily didn't get anything big but she got a little Despicable Me 3 poster and some Minions stickers.

To hear the movie, we had to tune into their radio station which was a bit different. But it worked well. The drive-in filled up quite a bit before the movie started. After Despicable Me 3 finished, quite a few people left. We stayed to the end.

Emily was clad in pj's but she did stay up until the end of Spider-Man. I do think she passed out as we drove away.

It was a lot of fun! Next time, I may bring my own drinks and just get popcorn there. Hopefully we'll get to go again this summer!

Wonder Woman

No spoilers for those who haven't seen it - though if you haven't seen it, go and see it! It's awesome!

I loved the movie, it was excellent, but I also am loving the fact that I was able to take my daughter to see a movie that I wish was made when I was a kid. I loved the Wonder Woman tv show when I was small.

I do admit that I did tear up during different parts of the movie, in part because Emily was sitting beside me watching Diana kick all kinds of butt. I felt similar things when we went to see Ghostbusters last year, which both Emily and I liked quite a bit.

I'm very happy that my daughter is growing up in a time where she can see women being able to shine as the stars of their own universe. Wonder Woman does fall in love, but she still had her own drive and her own goals.

Basically, Wonder Woman made me so happy as a geek, as a woman and as a mom. My husband did see it as well, and he really enjoyed it too. So go see Wonder Woman!

The Importance of Ghostbusters

Image:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghostbusters_(2016_film)

There has been a lot of talk about new Ghostbusters pretty much since they announced it. Lots of anguish over the fact that the Ghostbusters were now going to be females. Many people shouted loudly that their childhoods were going to be ruined over this.

I love the original movie, it is one of my favorites from my childhood. But I adopted a "wait and see" attitude with the new one because I thought it had the chance to be good. I didn't see it opening weekend but as soon as reviews started pouring in and friends posted on social media how good it was, I knew I had to see it.

Finally last week, Emily and I headed to the theater to see it. It was wonderful! It was funny and a bit scary. But it also had these amazing characters who were just doing their thing - which was busting ghosts!

Even though I'm a girl, I've never been a fan of romcom's. Honestly, my husband likes them more than I do so I've see my fair share. But I was very pleased when there was no romance at all in Ghostbusters. Yeah, Erin kind of drools over Kevin, but he doesn't seem to notice her. And her appreciation of him isn't really noticed by him. He seems to like himself more than anyone else.

Holtzman is a big flirt, but flirting with her fellow Ghostbusters is as far as that goes. In the end, they are just four awesome women trying to save their city from destruction. It was empowering to see and I was very glad that my seven year old daughter was able to see this movie because it showed her that girls can be anything and save the day.

This is why Ghostbusters is so important. You have your Black Widows and Wonder Womans in the  super hero movies, but they are just part of a team that is vastly comprised of men. Hopefully from this point forward, we are able to see more women lead action movies.

If you haven't seen Ghostbusters, I highly recommend it. Beyond the whole girl power thing, it's a solid movie that doesn't disappoint!

The Star Wars Experience

Last Friday, I took my daughter to see Star Wars: The Force Awakens. The movie was amazing and there will be no spoilers in this post, though I think you all should go see it as soon as humanly possible!

But seeing this movie that is part of a fandom that was and still is huge for me in the theater on opening day with my daughter was an amazing experience. We went to an afternoon showing in 2D but the theater was still packed. We had gotten there really early so we were able to get great seats.

With popcorn and drinks, we settled down to watch the first new Star Wars movie in a decade. As the words "Star Wars" burst onto the screen, I got a little teary eyed as I watched my daughter getting excited to see the movie.

Emily enjoyed the movie as well. Her favorite character was BB-8. She is also a big R2-D2 and C-3PO fan. We laughed, I cried as we watched the movie and I look forward to seeing the upcoming ones with her as well.

Star Wars is a family experience for me. Like my father before me, I love sharing this universe that I love with my child.

Date Night!

Image: wikipedia.org

When you are married with a child, alone time can be a rarity. Luckily, Todd and I have fun with Emily in tow quite often, but we do like our occasional date nights.

This past Saturday we went down to GA to visit my aunt and uncle. We missed the holidays with me being so sick so we went down mostly to see family. We spent several hours - my cousin, Casey, and his wife, Serella, brought their kids over. Emily played with them happily - their oldest is only six months younger than Emily.

Seeing family was great, but my aunt and uncle offered to watch Emily so we could go to a movie. Todd and I left a little early so we could also go to dinner. The movie theater we picked was party of a huge mall and we misjudged the time so we had plenty of time.

The mall was great! We just had supper in the food court and then did some looking around / shopping. I may have squealed out loud when I saw they had a Disney store. They also had a Lego store and a cool Japanese store that had a lot of anime stuff.

I only bought something at the Disney Store though. I got Emily new pj's because they were having a sale. Todd also found a great Nightmare Before Christmas hoodie for me and a Sofia the First stuffed griffin for Emily in the clearance section. It was a great deal!

We took our stuff back to the car and went to the theater. We saw Kingsman which was excellent and we saw it in this fancy theater that had reclining chairs. It was an interesting experience. The chairs were very comfy and it was almost iMax like with the sound quality. The screen seemed bigger too.

It was really nice to get some one on one time with Todd outside of the house. Hopefully we'll be able to do it again soon!

Guardians of the Galaxy & The Kindergartner

Image: en.wikipedia.org/

In my house, we have a love of the new Marvel movies. Both Todd and I have collected comics in our past but not so much anymore. But we love the superhero movies and have found the Marvel ones to be highly entertaining.

We have just about all of them on DVD and I like watching them especially when I'm not feeling bad. Even though she's just five, Emily's seen pretty much all of them. She loves the Hulk and tends to cry out, "HULK SMASH," when we watch The Avengers even when Hulk or Bruce Banner aren't on the screen.

When we saw the trailer for Guardians of the Galaxy, she instantly loved Rocket and wanted to see it. Even though she's only 5, we decided to take her to the theater when we saw it.

She was extremely excited - bouncing around as we waited in the long line to get tickets and then snacks. As the movie went on, she laughed a lot. She wasn't scared and honestly there wasn't of content that I thought was objectionable.

We saw it in a 2D show because while Emily will wear the 3D glasses she tends to want to take them off after a while. There were a lot of kids there - the theater was nearly full!

Marvel movies are really great family films - especially for a super hero lover like my daughter.

Classic Geeky Movies

I tweeted the above tweet last night. I was kind of joking about Ghostbusters being a classic when I first tweeted, but the more I thought about it, it really is.

I'm 37 years old and my youth is behind me. I don't feel that much different than I did when I was in my twenties, so it's hard to believe that it's nearly been 20 years since I graduated from high school. I'm firmly in my middle aged years and I want to share my favorite things from my younger days with Emily.

Emily is five now so she's old enough to see some of the classics. We've already watched The Dark Crystal, and she really liked it. Her favorite parts were the ones with Fizzgig. She's not scared by much so it didn't scare her at all.

Today we will watch Ghostbusters, which is one of my all-time favorite movies. Other classics on the list are Star Wars, Labyrinth, Goonies, and The Last Starfighter. All geek staples from the 70's and the 80's.

I hope that she'll like the movies that I love. I've been holding back from showing her Star Wars because I may feel a bit crushed if she doesn't like it. Plus I can't find my DVD of A New Hope. But since it's suppose to be stormy this week, it's a good time to start watching some classics.

My Very Own Empire Records

Image: Wikipedia.com

I love the movie Empire Records. If you aren't familiar with this wonderful example of the 90's, it's about a group of people working at a record store. The main conflict is that their store is about to be sold to a major chain, killing the indie vibe and the fun.

This morning I was thinking about how I'd like to watch it again. And then I realized that I had my own Empire Records when I was in college.

My favorite job in college was working at the local movie theater. Most of the time when I worked there, we had the Cinema Four, which obviously had four screens. We also had two one screen theaters downtown - the Ward and the Broadway. I usually worked at the Cinema Four or the Ward. I didn't like working at the Broadway - it was (is?) very haunted with no so nice spirits.

The head manager was an older guy who was a lot like Joe from Empire Records. He loved the theater and he loved movies. We had different people working there and we'd have a lot of time to talk while the movies were playing. It was an easy job and a ton of fun.

There was a Soul Calibur arcade machine along with other games. One of the other managers had rigged it so we could play games for free. My proudest moment at that job was when I actually beat one of the managers. I wasn't great but I had gotten good enough on one character to kick some butt.

Alas, our story didn't have a happy ending. A big 12 screen theater was built and the Cinema Four got knocked down. The last time I knew the Ward was a church and the Broadway was used by the community theater.

I worked at the big theater for a while. It wasn't the same at all and they didn't want to promote me because I was from the old crew. I ended up quitting out of frustration.

Real life is rarely like the movies. But for a short time, I had my own version of Empire Records and I'll always have fond memories of that time.

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

I’m a huge Tolkien fan and have been since I was a kid. I adored the Lord of the Rings movies and I loved the first Hobbit movie. I was able to see The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug at the midnight premiere and it didn’t disappoint.

Now I’m going to let you know, I’m not a huge fan of The Hobbit as a book. I always preferred Lord of the Rings. I re-read The Hobbit after seeing the first movie, and it is really lacking in some area. Character development is a big one and a lot of things seem rushed near the end.

After the image, there will be both book and movie spoilers.

Image: http://en.wikipedia.org/

Desolation of Smaug was very good. I think what I like best about the Hobbit movies are that they try to give the dwarfs beyond Thorin some character development. Kili gets his own subplot with the new elf character, Tauriel. I like the character of Tauriel a lot but they were a little heavy handed with trying to compare her to Arwen near the end.

Beorn and Bard were awesome to see come to life, as well as the barrel ride. Bomur actually got to shine in that scene. The subtle and not so subtle hints that Thorin is starting to lose it were extremely well done as well.

Smaug was so good and that entire sequence where the dwarves and Bilbo are trying to evade him to get out of the mountain was brilliant. It was just a lot of fun to watch. I was also happy to see more of Gandalf once he left the company. That was one of the biggest things that bugged me about the book is that Gandalf goes off but in the book itself we don’t know what the heck he did.

The only issues I have with the movie is that they built up this whole subplot with Kili being poisoned and Tauriel having to save him. But Kili dies in the book during the Battle of the Five Armies. Annoying enough in the book we don’t see the death, it’s just mentioned that him and Fili had died like an afterthought. It makes me wonder if the movie will let them live.

Beyond that, the movie was great. I was hoping to see Bard against Smaug but the movie ended right before that. I’m very excited to see the 3rd movie next year!

New Movies Set in the Harry Potter Universe

Harry Potter cosplayers from the D*C 2007 Parade

It was announced today that new movies set in the Harry Potter universe have been green lit by Warner Bros. The movies will be based on one of the textbooks, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, with the story supposedly following the author, Newt Scamander, as he writes the book.

While I love Harry Potter, both the books and the movies, I’m not sure how I feel about this. It seems like a money grab a bit, but on the other hand I’d love more from the Harry Potter Universe.

I’m sure I’ll go see the movies though, since I am a geek. Hopefully they will be as soon as the other movies in the Harry Potter Universe.

What do you all think of the news of new movies?