SxSW Reaction By Antonio – MOVIEPASS, MOVIECRASH

Editor’s note: This reaction is in addition to Jason’s reaction to the excellent documentary MOVIEPASS, MOVIECRASH which you can read HERE. Since Antonio’s reaction is a much more personal and as someone who had a MoviePass subscription (this was never available in Canada), we wanted to feature it in an individual article.

Remember that short golden era of going to the movie theaters just before the pandemic. When you had your MoviePass subscription, and you were watching a ridiculous number of movies. You were only paying $9.95 a month, while being able to at least watch one movie a day. It a was a wonderful time to be a cinephile, where you did not have to budget your trips to the movie theater. Eventually those good times ended when MoviePass filed for bankruptcy. MoviePass became a memory and left us with many questions.

MoviePass, Movie Crash answer many questions that we had about this company and other questions we never thought. Many people are not aware that MoviePass was created by one of the most successful black entrepreneurs, Stacey Spikes, alongside his business partner Hamet Wat. Stacey’s backstory is fascinating. A guy that came from nothing built a great reputation while running the marketing department of Miramax, founding one of the most successful Urban film festivals in the country and then producing the concept of MoviePass due to his love of watching movies at the theater. All ofl his ideas originated from Stacey’s great passion for cinema. This has always been his compass in his business pursuits.



In the film you see how MoviePass was a great idea. Which eventually was corrupted by two Wall Street guys that took the company away from its creators. They turned it into their own private hype machine and piggy bank. This story becomes a slow-motion version of the fyre festival. It shows how much the financial sector can get caught up in the hype of a new company. It shows some of the phony side of capitalism. We also get to see that there could have been a way for MoviePass to survive. It was not completely run by incompetent people; it was just led by incompetent leadership.

The film is dark comedy of how a minority own business is taken over an abuse by a bunch of crusty white men. It is like a perfect reflection of real life. I was massive fan of MoviePass when they were at its height. I got a MoviePass subscription before they started the entire $9.99 promotion. Once that promotion started, I created a diary where I recorded every movie, I watched in MoviePass until the company went bankrupt. In total I ended up filling 5 journals. In the final journal I glued my MoviePass card. At the festival I got the chance to take a picture with my card and the creators of Moviepass.

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