I had a novel experience yesterday: my therapist started our session by telling me how much she’d enjoyed my1 movie. It was actually a pretty springy jumping-off point for our time together. There’s a lot of my psyche on display in THE MIRROR GAME, even if only I hold the answer key to what’s my own raw truth and what’s pure invention. But I digress. The headline here is that she was able to watch the movie at all. She could, and so can you.
THE MIRROR GAME is now available to stream, rent, or buy on several platforms, with more potentially to come.
To get you up to speed: In 2019, InHouse Theater Company staged several performances of my play, A MERE CONCEPTION, in a couple of hotel rooms in LA. The story was set in a Las Vegas hotel room after close childhood friends Rose and Abe find themselves, coincidentally, in the city at the same auspicious time. In 2020, my good friend Will Stribling, who’d seen the show, approached me about adapting the play for the screen and doing it all as a COVID-era creative endeavor. In February of 2021, our minuscule cast and crew spent 5 days and nights in an actual Las Vegas hotel room stealing our shoot as we filmed scene after scene in chronological order, taking SAG-mandatory COVID safety breaks every couple of hours. In 2022, Will and I traveled all over the country presenting the film and speaking to crowds at film festivals (and even winning a few awards).
Will summarized the production in a great thread here:
And now, here we are in July of 2023, finally able to share the film with the world at large, with the partnership of Indie Rights, Inc. Here are the details:
Watch on Amazon
If you rent or buy the movie from Amazon, please leave us a rating and a review! Theoretically this will help us rise out of the depths of algorithmic obscurity and perhaps get more folks to see (and rent/buy) the film.
Nb: The Prime app won’t let you leave a rating or review, you’ll have to go to amazon.com for that.
Watch on Tubi
On Maximum Film!, co-host Alonso Duralde has been singing Tubi’s praises for so long that it’s kind of an inside joke. I have heard many a surprised cinephile describe Tubi’s film catalog as the best around. And you can watch for free, although it will be interspersed with a few ads. I am really excited to be on Tubi.
Watch on YouTube or Google Play
Here are two more simple places to rent or buy a digital copy of the movie. Depending on your setup, this one might be particularly simple to work into whatever way you already watch videos. Again, a rating (or even just a “like”) will be a boon to us on either platform.
I have been looking forward to this day for a long time. In the end, it wasn’t a “day” at all. We find out that the film has been added to a new platform as it happens, and the rollout has been happening over two weeks and counting. Even though it’s different than I imagined, it’s still exhilarating, and a little frightening. As I said, there’s a lot of my insides in this work. Like Rose, I want to be seen and understood. Like Abe, the vulnerability of that seen-ness makes me nervous. And yet, I hope you’ll watch. I hope it will make you feel something, and that you’ll tell me what. The movie was made, with love and faith, to be seen and discussed.
Love,
Marissa
P.S. Tell a friend!!!
Of course, “my” is shorthand. The movie would not exist at all, let alone be so lovely, if not for the work of many hands — director William J. Stribling, director of photography Alex Gallitano, and actors Teya Patt & Michael Tennant chief among them. And that’s just the start. The film’s credits are short, but all those names did a lot of heavy lifting.
SWEEEEET.
I promise to see MIRROR @ my most intimate and personal venue: Samsung G5.
With earbuds.
On Amazon.