Director: Muta’Ali
Stars: Mitch Lowe, Nathan McAlone, Sydney Weinshel
Synopsis: Exploring the company founding and the implosion of the business by outside investors who took over the company, left it bankrupt and under investigation.
The new documentary MoviePass, MovieCrash, brought up some resentment for me. For one, like many cinephiles, when I heard about MoviePass, it was as if a business and product were finally made for me. This was a time I call the golden age of American life (you know, except for the guy with orange hair running the country at the time).
I mean, for God’s sake, you could hide out from the searing 100-degree-plus heat here in Las Vegas from 9 a.m. to midnight, having access to three square meals a day, unlimited drinks, and bathrooms while lounging in comfortable chairs for $9.95 a month. I saw more movies in three months than in the previous five years.
Then reality set in, and MoviePass turned off its cards, began refusing to respond to customer complaints, and removed the unspoken agreement between owner and customer on the metaphorical handshake to see any movie they wanted on July 17, 2018, shutting down access to a little film called Mission: Impossible—Fallout.
(Side note: I had to buy a ticket to a little film called Blindspotting because of the blackouts which turned out to be my first published film review and sat at the top of my 2018 top ten list.)
Even director Christopher McQuarrie had to issue a tweet saying he had no comment on the MoviePass fallout, pun intended. (Though he should have since members were buying tickets to other films and sneaking into his Tom Cruise action-spectacular, cutting into their reported profits.) By the following year, the dream had ended in the fall of 2019, but the movie industry had changed forever.
That’s the feeling captured and conveyed in MoviePass, MovieCrash, a relatively straightforward and informative *cough* true crime *cough* documentary that is entertaining and can even cause feelings of anger, especially when you look back at the public relations spin put on by MoviePass executives. Remember when we were told the executive was a former co-founder of Netflix? According to the film, all he did was supply the DVDs.
The film reveals that the scheme was to market how well HMNY stock was doing. The only way to do that was to promote a subscription price that was a non-viable market and claim that data was the key to making profits (which was a lie). They then used the subscribers’ monthly contributions to fuel lavish parties and movie productions (do you remember Kevin Connolly’s infamous Gotti?) and even launched an airline version called MoviePass Air.
Yes, it was a thing. According to the film, the scheme’s executives, Mitch Lowe and Theodore Farnsworth, will soon stand trial for fraud charges.
Director Muta’Ali Muhammad’s (Cassius X: Becoming Ali) white-collar crime documentary reflects on the racial divide in American business. It was not Lowe and Farnsworth who started MoviePass; it was Stacy Spikes and Hamet Watt, two African American businessmen who were forced out of the company.
They even held 80 million dollars worth of company shares at the time, which they could not sell for twelve months after being kicked off the board. By the time they could sell, they were worthless. The documentary is like Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened, but on a grander scale.
Muta’Ali Muhammad’s film is a slick and fun experience, similar to Eat the Rich: The GameStop Saga and Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room. However, MoviePass, MovieCrash is different because it highlights systemic racism in the minority public. Here, a white businessman took control of a black-owned and led business, then defrauded the American public.
The Max documentary MoviePass, MovieCrash, is tailor-made for anyone who is a fan of the spectacular rise and downfall of public figures and businesses. Some of the film comes across as a puff piece for co-founder Stacy Spikes new venture, who bought back the company last year in a bid to relaunch. (Frankly, to the extent that it made me wonder if a studio like Warner Brothers bought a piece of it. My concerns will be realized if a Max subscription comes with a MoviePass membership in the near future.)
While the story of MoviePass is still incomplete and the future uncertain, the documentary MoviePass, MovieCrash provides a thorough and entertaining coverage of the fraud, offering a nostalgic, enlightening, and frustrating trip down memory lane. Now, excuse me while I run to eBay because the defunct MoviePass MasterCard that I found in my junk drawer is selling for up to a cool grand, and who couldn’t use that kind of money nowadays?
