FlixsterReviews 70

We bought tickets to a movie that they never emailed to us. We showed up to the theatre and couldn't get in. Called their service line and was hung up on twice after sitting on hold 15 minutes each time. Then tried their useless chat bot that replies with links to their FAQs before timing out. Flixster/Fandango is a perfect example of everything that's wrong with tech companies. They provide a minimal service that is great at taking your money, but when something goes wrong they are impossible to reach. Just like they wanted. Hopefully they're over leveraged and go bankrupt on the next down cycle and join all the piece of $#*! movie theatres that force you to use these dog$#*! apps to buy a ticket before showing up. If you work at this company and are reading this, jump off a bridge. You know you're a piece of $#*!.

No news flash there, but it did not start out this way. The ownership of the site has taken a useful exercise and rendered it less effective. Increasing the number of critics (of dubious credibility) from sources that are obscure, they have watered down the concentration of honesty and objectivity. All done under the guise of freedom of speech and the decline of newspaper circulation… it's wrong-headed, and prevents the site from being reliable and accurate. Super hero sequels and other franchises don't need the help. A viewer should be able to go in and get an upfront opinion. That is not what is happening. I know the studios spend big budgets on their offerings. That's part of the game. Rigging the reporting isn't an approach that should be tolerated.

Flixster was a very well structured, at least at the beginning, movie ratings website that seemed to suffer most from its own administrators. From what I experienced, personally, and from what I read and was told, it suffered most from those administrators for probably about a year, maybe longer, leading up to the demise of the website. Evidently, those admins were so stuck in the mud ignorant that they really hastened the demise of Flixster. They weren't the reason that the site ultimately died; but, they definitely made it happen faster. And, I am convinced, even if the demise of Flixster hadn't gone down like that, it would have taken even longer and been even uglier. Because, death for a website, any website, is guaranteed when the frontline people that handle the day to day operations of the website are those kinds of people!

As a movie website the one thing that they didn't want to do was allow postings for things that they deemed to be not movies. Television shows were heavily frowned upon. And I didn't really much care about that; it's a stupid rule - but, whatever! Although, there were a couple of things that they did not like that were not television shows - mini-series and sometimes even movies that were made for television, including cable, etc; and this is true even though they had some mini-series posted on the site. (Such as "Generation Kill".) They made stupid exceptions for some reason(s). I made a request for them to add Carl Sagan's Cosmos mini-series & they deemed it to be a television show because it was aired on television. I informed them of the other mini-series that they allowed on the site & was ignored. It was around this time that I started hearing stories/rumors from some of the people/users that I was friends with on there. Some of them were direct allegations from the users that experienced them, themselves; others were things talked about that were 2nd, 3rd, 4th & 5th-hand. Stories about the admins being argumentative. Starting arguments, being abusive, ugly stupid criticisms. Cursing, threatening to delete user's profiles/accounts, for, what were described as, disagreements over Flixster policy, requests to make changes were met with outright hostility, some even called it rage. Over what was sometimes referred to as petty disagreements. It seems that most, & perhaps all, of these arguments, between admins & users, had apparently happened in the forums.

Anyway, I waited about a month & requested Cosmos again. I got no response. So, after about after 3 weeks, I made another request. That one was ignored, too. I felt like they were doing it on purpose. I waited another month & requested it again. They responded by telling me that they don't allow mini-series on the site and that if I kept making requests for things that they don't allow on the site my profile and account would be deleted. And I was told..."You'll lose everything!"

Threats. A very specific and direct threat, in fact.

When I told them about Generation Kill they said that it would be removed from the site, reiterating that if I kept making such requests my profile would be deleted... Well, by this time, I had over 5000 movie reviews on Flixster (both ratings with just stars and full reviews) and I didn't want to just lose them all because I didn't want to let it go. At the same time... I knew I was right. And I wanted them to acknowledge that! So, I made the rounds on Flixster's forums' and I practically made an opera about my `crucifixion` and how I wanted an apology! I guess I was to late; by the time I made my way over to the forums the drama had died down. I don't know if any user actually had their profile deleted; but, I had heard that many users' were fed up & deleted their own accounts and left on their own.

Ultimately, I never got my apology. It was within a few months time that Flixter was merging with another website..."Violet..."... something or other. And within another couple of months Flixster was dead. It was bought out, I heard, by Rotten Tomatoes, a far, FAR, far inferior website in my opinion; at least based on how good Flixster was in its prime. And I don't know who the administrator that I dealt with was; but, I would probably say something if I crossed paths with them today...