Just what are Vishnevetsky's qualifications? Based on his reviews at Mubi, he doesn't seem to be particularly knowledgeable or discerning. Then again, he can't be worse than Roeper was.

It's helpful to mention that they reviewed a full slate of January releases, including No Strings Attached, The Dilemma, and The Green Hornet.

Wasn't Elvis Mitchell supposed to be filling this position? Why the hell didn't that happen?

You know, thumbs up and thumbs down leaves a lot of elbow room. He didn't gush all over every film he reviewed the first week, most just fell into the B- category.

So waste your money to go see it even if it's really just a rental at best.

Dudes, I didn't invent the successful decades-long format of Ebert's show

Somebody should let the Mubi dude know what it means then.

It's always been that way. Films that Ebert would give three stars or above, sometimes even films he'd give an enthusiastic 2 and a half, would get a thumbs up on the show. You don't think anyone explained the format of the show to this guy? Jeez, some people are really jealous of a young film critic getting a big break, it's absolutely bizarre to see the backlash. He was perfectly fine in the first week considering the circumstances. Nobody seems equally bummed that Lemire gave a thumbs down with varying levels of dislike to each film that came up last week.

I don't really have a horse in this race but I think most people here (justly) just hate Mubi. If Amy Adams and Jean-Luc Godard collaborated on a praise project for Mubi I'd still lead the charge

I have absolutely no opinion on Mubi, I can only really go off of how the show went last week. I have never been to Mubi, and frankly, the main page seems annoying enough for me to stay away.

It wasn't just the thumbs. I might have expected Lemire to like at least one of the films, but she just seemed more relaxed and relatable to me. But yeah, it's his first week, not just on this show, but on TV period, and I'm sure he must have been a little nervous. I'm willing to give him a chance and I hope the show finds its footing.

That is why this guy is my member of the year for two years running.

To quote Futurama:

You should become acquainted with his excellent blog, Sounds, Images. I for one was quite excited when I heard he got the job.

Elvis Mitchell was originally hired as Lemire's co-star, but he left the show (or was dropped, whichever) and is now doing something for Movieline (which I was amazed to discover is still something that exists as an internet web site).

Wow, that's certainly a completely different side of him. I can see now why Ebert picked him for the show. Though it's kind of sad to me that the reward for an intense personal interest in world film history is a gig having to watch and treat seriously every mainstream film released in America.

What do you find excellent about that blog? It offers nothing unexpected and only reinforces my low opinion of Vishnevetsky.

Donald Brown's blog offers much more. Especially unexpected stuff. A lot of that.

Does anyone know what's happened to Mubi? It used to have a huge range of films for something like £7 per month. Last time I looked, it's a revolving 30. I was thinking of subscribing, I quite like the idea of a Netflix/Lovefilm that's more arthouse/foreign language based. Does anyone know if anyone else is doing what they used to?

Fandor does something similar.

Thanks. Looks like it's US only though (I'm from London).

Looks like Curzon On Demand does this, though they charge per film rather than a flat membership rate. Most are £2 per film though so maybe I should try this.

Must be some kind of a local rights thing in the UK - all 100+ films on my watchlist are still available (I'm in Scandinavia). But there haven't really been any new additions in months for my area at least.

Now the really fucking irritating thing about MUBI is that their rights for the films will lapse without any warning - I've had that happen for dozens of films on my queue - there's no way of knowing which ones will disappear and when. Surely they must know beforehand, should think it would be good for business to put little "x days left" counters on the film pages...

There's a lot of things that MUBI doesn't do right in terms of streaming, for example no Roku support in the US. I've just recently started a trial with Fandor and I like it. They have a great curated selection and a lot more films than MUBI. I do think/hope that a true cinephile pay streaming website will eventually come along that is well-developed and considered, but I don't think any of the websites that are out there have that potential yet.

Oh I think MUBI has potential, if they just fixed those couple of issues - there's loads of great stuff on there (at least for European users): lots of Iranian, Turkish and Chinese films, almost the entire works of Varda, most of Balabanov's work, some Raúl Ruiz, lots of experimental shorts. Some of Miguel Gomes' earlier shorts seem to be up as well. I must admit that about 80% of the stuff I have no idea what they are, but I'm sure there are discoveries to be made there. In fact, I have to take this opportunity to plug the excellent Together by Nicolás Pereda, one of my greatest recent discoveries - has anyone seen Greatest Hits yet?

Plus there's good writing to be found from the actual contributors, but the less said about the forums the better (last time I looked anyway)

How are those of you who use Mubi handling the new layout?

I don't mind the visual side of it, but I'm not sure it was a good idea to ditch the entire structure. The streaming service will obviously be a lot less useful with this new system, although there is probably the upside of getting around to actually watching the currently available films instead of just adding them to your watchlist! Apart from streaming a hard-to-find film now and then, I only ever read the Notebook over there, which is fortunately still intact.