“MoviePass, MovieCrash” is a surprising story of racist venture capitalism

I loved my MoviePass card. You picked a movie from the app, went to the theater, bought some popcorn, put your feet up for a couple of hours. And you could do it day after day after day for $10 a month.

I didn’t quite know how the company would prove to be profitable. I don’t think anyone did. We all just assumed there was some grand plan we didn’t know or understand. We were content in our bliss.

And then, they changed the rules. You had to be within a certain distance to the theater. Then you could only see certain movies. Then only at certain times. Then the app stopped working and customer service proved no help and such a great service proved to just be a pain.

I canceled. So did everyone else. And then MoviePass went belly up and became a big joke.

So what happened?

Director Muta’Ali’s documentary, MoviePass, MovieCrash, attempts to answer that question with interviews from all the key players involved, from CEO Mitch Lowe to original founders Stacy Spikes and Hamet Watt to board member Chris Kelly to former FTC director Daniel Kaufman. And what begins as a story of corporate greed rears into the realm of racist sabotage, a surprising twist.

The dynamics of the collapsing company are hilariously explained, the pure amount of hubris and greed stunningly relayed. Much like how nefarious Wall Street crooks wrecked our economy in 2008, the same idiotic gumption is proven prevalent still in the marketplace.

But what elevates the documentary is actually the narrative of how Mitch Lowe, executive Khalid Itum and scheming promoter Ted Farnsworth, three rich, white scoundrels, stole and ruined the passion project created by two Black men, Stacy Spikes and Hamet Watt. A story I was totally unaware of, how Spikes and Watt were screwed out of power as these “businessmen” took their enterprise and broke it to line their own pockets is humbling and a little devastating. Add in the fact that a little poetic justice has risen from MoviePass’ ashes (Spkies has rebought the company from the scrap heap while Lowe and Farnsworth await trial for securities fraud) and you have a rollicking story that surprises and entertains.

An illuminating narrative on corporate greed that illustrates a broader theme of racist corporate financing, Moviepass, Moviecrash is engaging documentarianism.