It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything on the Police Academy documentary. Got an email update yesterday from the team:
We finally got Steve Guttenberg on board and his 3-hour interview was amazing, but really reshaped the narrative of the doc. We tried to insert him in where he was needed but in the end, we felt we needed to start the edit from scratch. We strongly believe that this was the right decision and now the doc is shaping into something very special. We will have a more detailed update soon!
The Quad Cinema is showing Dr. Jekyll & Sister Hyde as part of their Hammer Films retrospective, giving me another excuse to recycle some old material, a clip that was recycling old material to begin with. Back in 2006, I produced a video podcast (before the format had really been established or anyone knew what it was) called Potluck: Substance Over Style. The person I was supposed to interview backed out last minute, so I had to come up with an episode on the fly. I pulled out some old videotape of my mom, a couple of other old tapes and some digitized public domain film and put this together. By the way, my mother has never even seen Tim Burton’s Ed Wood, believe it or not.
Been a while since I posted anything new, and it’ll be a while longer. If you’ve been here before you might have noticed that I’ve updated the design of the site and I’m now going through it and fixing broken links and whatnot. Just to post something (sort of) fresh, I’m recycling a comment I made on a Police Academypost at The AV Club six years ago. I know, you’re thinking, “A comment?!? Seems like a pretty half assed thing to repurpose!” It’s not; the comment is about 1300 words of objectively deep insight. I was intending to write a thesis further expanding on the those ideas, but never did.
It’s been a while, the longest while since I started this blog in fact. I got an email from Google last week letting me know that the site wasn’t mobile friendly anymore, so I logged on to fix it, and saw that I didn’t post anything at all here in 2014. I’ve still been online, just sharing my thoughts in other places like Twitter, Facebook and commenting on various other sites. I’ve added links to the menu above so you can check them out if you’re so inclined. I haven’t even really been that active on those places in the last few months because I always seem to be out of time.
In the years since I’ve started this blog, the amount of things available to fill my free time has grown considerably. I’ve upgraded my TiVo to a modern unit that’s capable of recording six channels at once. There’s shit on there from last year, entire seasons of shows that I haven’t got around to watching because there’s not enough time in the day. I still haven’t watched The Knick, Extant, or Gang Related (which I just learned was cancelled when I looked for the link to the show, that’s what I get for trying to avoid spoilers); I haven’t watched Halt And Catch Fire either and they added it to Netflix already, so I might as well delete those and make space for shit I won’t get around to watching until Christmas.
The title says it all, doesn’t it? In this video, I explain and demonstrate how to get around MoviePass‘ Countdown Clock and why it works. This doesn’t violate MoviePass Terms Of Service, either; I explain that towards the end, but once they get hip to this, I’m sure MoviePass will make some changes. Most ironic is that while MoviePass may not be too thrilled about this video, it’s the smoothest MoviePass transaction I’ve ever recorded. Seriously, I wonder how many MoviePass users have ever checked in and got their ticket that fast.
I can’t front, I’m feeling pretty Damian Sandow-ish right now, but this is so face palmingly simple that I’d honestly be amazed if I was the first one to come up with it. You’re welcome.
If you’ve read my other posts on MoviePass, it’s clear that overall I was happy with the service and how it was implemented for the first 11 months of my membership. Even with the Countdown Clock, many of you may find that MoviePass is indeed a great value that would suit your needs. The way the Countdown Clock was implemented and announced is only the latest in a string of ethically questionable practices that I have issue with.
Right off the bat, it was pretty impossible to recommend the service to anyone, despite how much value I was getting from it. Whenever I would tell anyone about MoviePass, they would ask, “What’s the catch?” at which point, I would rattle off a list. “So, the very thing MoviePass advertises as their service is pretty much bullshit,” is how people would basically respond to the list of restrictions on the “unlimited” service. I would contend that I didn’t believe it to be an intentional deception; the service was in still in “beta,” and I believed they were working towards offering what they were advertising.
If English isn’t your first language, that might not make sense. Hell, it might not make sense even if English is your first language. The distinction between a day and 24 hours is important. What is a day? That seems obvious: Monday is one day, Tuesday is another and so on. Now consider the period of time between 12 noon on Monday and 12 noon on Tuesday. Is that a day? What day? It’s 24 hours, and 24 hours is not a day.
The MoviePass card is actually a branded Discover Card, so it should be accepted at any theater with a ticket kiosk that accepts Discover for payment. This includes most (but not all) of the theater chains in America. Many independently owned and operated theaters also accept Discover, so you should be able to use your MoviePass there. However, you can only see movies at venues that are listed in the app. Even if a theater is listed in the app, not every movie showing will necessarily be available to purchase with MoviePass. This can effectively limit your choices based on where you live. You can see which theaters in your area accept MoviePass at their website before you sign up.
smile 
You must be logged in to post a comment.