I wasn't sure where to put this, but this seemed most appropriate to discuss another forum dedicated to film. In case you hadn't heard, "The Auteurs" has changed it's name to "Mubi" - apparently on the advice of a japanese marketing firm. It's all pretty hilarious to me. I have not spent much time there at all, but the group that does seems incredibly upset and insulted by it all. Witness the reaction thread:

http://mubi.com/topics/9211

and in particular this guy:


Now again, I haven't spent much time there, but the bolded part in particular stands out to me...I have never ever come across anything that remotely resembles mr. Slobodin's representation of the site. So my question is whether it really was/is a place for serious-minded cineastes? Or is it filled with such insufferable self righteous snobbery as this post suggests? THIS site has always been a favorite of mine, but I've been wondering if there are any other similarly themed forums with an as erudite base of posters as exists here. Oddly enough, when I googled the place, one of the first results was a thread there titled CRITERIONFORUM.ORG ELITISTS?

So what's up with the place? and what do y'all think of "Mubi"?

Also of note, I know Criterion itself has promoted The Auteurs as a partner site...but also that they have not changed any of their links to "Mubi" - I wonder how they feel about it or if this will affect the relationship.

When are we changing the name of this forum to Funzo?

HistoryProff, this comment says it all:


I don't know about any of you, but criterionforum dot org is not my home, it's a forum I visit. The people who would consider a forum a "home" are the same people who get seriously addicted to World of Warcraft or Everquest: all their social interaction and sense of belonging and community is done exclusively on the internet. Mubi is a hilariously awful name, but so long as the same members and threads remained, I wouldn't care. Only someone who's invested his personal identity in the place would seriously care.

So, no, I wouldn't take that post as a reliable description of what Mubi is/was.

What an odd decision. As far as I could find Mubi isn't an acronym (which could have saved it from being so awful) and doesn't have any great signifier to it. I suppose having a simple, single word title is rather catchy but didn't they already have a fairly decent sized userbase? Criterion and Masters of Cinema link to them (Criterion on every single topic related to a film). Perhaps less so now than before- since Criterion dropped the fesitvals at "Mubi" in favor of Hulu. On the other hand, The Auteurs did win that Webby recently- so it isn't that they didn't have enough press. If they want to compete with big players such as Hulu, they must realize that Hulu built itself off of Television episodes and easily digestible films. A sudden change for, what can be no other purpose than marketing, seems like a step to alienate its users.

That said, I have never had a positive experience with The Auteurs. Every time I ever visited the forums, nearly everything was regarding lists of favorite films within some parameter. I'm sure most used them for their free festivals, of which the festivals were difficult to find (other than the Criterion link). Other features were interesting but I didn't feel inclined to re-rate every single film I've seen. The non-festival films are $5 for full length films and $3 for shorts (even when it is about 20 minutes) which can be fair for films unreleased elsewhere but most everything is easily within the grasp of Netflix or other source. Most of the pay services for streaming (Netflix excluded) have given way to the advertisement sponsored free play- which would be of the most benefit to The Auteurs/Mubi.... but maybe they needed a larger base in order to get the advertisements. Which leads us back to Mubi.

Everything is the same. I will still head over there every now and then for a laugh on the forums (though they have improved since the early days) and their easy to navigate overview of film festivals (their best feature). The website is still functioning just the same (for now), so why should anyone care?

Being stuck in Japan where nothing is 'within the grasp of Netflix or other sources' (barring illegal means) I find The Mubis to be an excellent source of films. I used to just buy and import stuff I wanted to watch, but when money started getting a bit tighter recently I looked around for a way to rent films (legally). Needless to say LoveFilm and Netflix don't ship abroad and browsing their sites just got annoying (especially LoveFilm which seems to have everything!).

Mubi has lots and lots of great films, some of which are free and the rest are $3 for features and $1 for shorts here. Which I consider reasonable. Especially as they look pretty damn good played on my TV. And there's lots of free films too, which is nice.

As for the name, well I really don't care. I didn't really like "The Auteurs" in the first place. People get so hung up over changes to their personal playgrounds, don't they?
Of course, the first time I found myself at Mubi, I assumed I'd typed in the address slightly wrong and ended up at a virus filled spam look-a-like site.

Speaking for myself, with the exception of World Foundation films like the original 'Housemaid', Dry Summer and Touki Bouki, I actually haven't used their movie facilities at all. And the boards, well, the less said about them the better.
However, I do visit and peruse their Notebook daily. At first I started to because of Daniel Kasman, whose d+kaz site I used to follow regularly, and nowadays because of David Hudson's invaluable contributions as well. And then there's Glenn Kenny and others. Plenty of reasons to be a regular reader.
I mention this because even though it's my number one bookmark, I can't really join either those for or against the name change since it was made on behalf of business considerations concerning an aspect of the site for the which I do not care for.
I'll say this. On the whole, I suspect people would find it easier to embrace if four-letterd Mubi switched to a less ungainly font.

I'm still not sure if "Mubi" is supposed to be a cutesy Japanese Engrishing of "movie" or a comment on the website's target market's average physique.

Apparently the V in "movie" is hard to pronounce in many cultures.

We'd best rename Hulu and Criterion too then. Lots of my friends find 'L' and 'R' hard to pronounce. And most don't know what a 'hulu' is.

If we just rename every site You-Tube, that would solve all these linguistic problems, wouldn't it?
(Of course, it'd have to be Yoo-Choob or the complex spelling might throw some people)

I thought that was done just for yuks?

I like their new name, it makes me think of Keven Smith movies. I have read their forum from the start, and would say it's decent, but far from great. There's a lot of stupid best of something threads, but if you scroll through the topics there's often some good topics inbetween. The problem is that those usually gets flooded in no time, and by that i mean that before I discover it, the thread can be several hundred posts long, which to me suggest that the forum maybe have a too large user base. So I usually just end up reading the first one or two pages before I jump to the next topic.

Also it seems filled with aspiring film makers and young people. The forum do not deal with the technical aspect of dvd/blurays or upcoming stuff, atleast not close to how well it's done on criterionforum.

I can only laugh about people wanting to quit a forum because it changes name, but I'm guessing the threat is just to try and stop the name change.

I see what you're saying, but I think it's a bit harsh. I don't think of the Dot Org forum as my home, but certainly it's the best place to turn to for intelligent or interesting conversation about film, and if an outsider interest-- like, say (to use an extreme example) Hot Topic-- decided to usurp the forum, it probably would bother me to be associated with that. Now, granted, I think being associated with the Auteurs was embarrassing enough without adding insult to injury by calling the place Mubi, but why make sweeping speculative judgments of a forum member's personal life based solely on their being upset over such a move?

Hmm. Didn't expect to be taken up on what was to me just a bit of mockery, but ok.

I've encountered this kind of thing before (over-attachment to online communities for the sake of communal identity), so it was really more of an educated guess on my part than speculation. But surely you can see the difference between how you've phrased your hypothetical objection and how he phrased his objection. To you, this is a great resource and you'd rather it not be associated with some outsider interest which could dilute it. That is reasonable. His objection, however, made no reference to outsider interest or dilution or anything to do with the actual content of the site being altered. All of his objections revolve around how the forum name affects his sense of pride and identity within the community.

Look at this sentence alone: "The Auteurs is more than just a name, it became so much more. It became a badge of honor." This guy think it's a freaking badge of honour to be a member of a forum anyone can join. It's all about what the name says about him, not whether the content of the site is affected. He's angry that he can no longer claim the honour of being one of The Auteurs: he's a Mubi man now*. To me, that screams unhealthy attachment.

*I move that from now on we only address this poster as "Mubi Man."

That article buried the lede:

Mubi is pretty ridicolous but theauteurs was a little too pretentiously snobbish and european...

I prefer 'Moovie'
I think it encompasses everything in their new statement...

EDIT: There is a Hungarian site by that name!

shouldn't it be Agnes Barda?

Mubi streaming comes to Playstation 3 in Europe:

http://blog.eu.playstation.com/2010/05/18/ps3-mubi-you/

LOL @ my special rank

I don't like the name. To me, it sounds like a site where I can discuss films like Battlefield Earth (2000), Jackass (2002) or Eurotrip (2004).

You think they don't...?

Maybe. Just maybe.

I think you hit on a new slogan for them: "Mubis, just Mubis." Quick, call the Japanese Marketing specialists!

I dipped in briefly when it was a few months old, and that was very much the impression I got - far too many people obsessed with listmaking and watching films just because they were canonical/on Criterion than for any particularly interesting personal reasons. Amusingly, to this day I get notifications that people are "following me" on the site, even though I haven't actually posted anything there for at least eighteen months!

On the other hand, I'm hugely grateful to the site for giving me access to three otherwise unavailable Alexei Balabanov films immediately prior to interviewing the man. It wasn't an encounter I look back on with any especial pleasure (let's just say his reputation for being difficult is amply deserved), but at least I can't blame it on insufficient homework.

As for the name, I couldn't care less: their gaff, their rules.