Mubi

[htshell]

It sucks. Used that site quite extensively as a tool for film discovery. Hopefully it will be functional again at some point but it's quite a mess the way they have rolled this redesign out.

[prokosch]

Still trying to figure out what's still there and what they've gutted. Very disappointed in the redesign so far, particularly as my watchlist seems to have been purged. More visual harmony with the streaming service obviously (which I'll still use on and off, probably), but the overhaul locks in my drift toward Letterboxd for aggregating film journaling and to-watch functions.

[My Man Godfrey]

Mubi, for some reason, will no longer be available on PlayStation platforms. From an email sent to subscribers today:

We wanted to be the ones to break the news that unfortunately MUBI will no longer be available on PlayStation® starting next month — so we are reaching out to all our Playstation watchers to give you a heads up and apologize for the trouble.

I wonder how many people are actually using Mubi?

[Raymond Marble]

I don't mean to imply that this is definitely, or even necessarily, the problem, but I'm a two-time ex-Mubi subscriber who full-stop loves their programming, but the PlayStation app to watch their films on drove me batshit, so much so that I wound up cancelling my subscription in a fit of rage after the most recent bout. I've never once had any issue streaming Mubi on my laptop, but at least half the time on my PS4 it was just unwatchably awful--it would play for two seconds, buffer for five seconds, play for two seconds, buffer for five more seconds, etc. Elsewhere, the app didn't always seem to want to update with each day's new film, and some other assorted bugginess like that.

It really is a shame, too, as like I said, their programming is in general stellar. (Today's film is The Crime of Monsieur Lange, for fuck's sake.) I'll probably resubscribe at some point, like when I get a better means of streaming stuff to my TV.

[MyFathersSon]

I dropped a note to Mubi (Help/Send a Message) that I would like to be able to sort 'Now Showing' by their star ratings. I received a reply that my request would be forwarded to their development team.

[RSTooley]

Because I didn't throw a big enough tantrum over at Reddit's Criterion forum, I wanted to note that MUBI curiously increased their price this morning by three dollars. As far as I can tell, this was without notice. The only reason I can understand this increase is if they launch a full on-demand service with more titles to choose from. We'll wait and see.

[Monsieur M.]

Because I didn't throw a big enough tantrum over at Reddit's Criterion forum, I wanted to note that MUBI curiously increased their price this morning by three dollars. As far as I can tell, this was without notice. The only reason I can understand this increase is if they launch a full on-demand service with more titles to choose from. We'll wait and see.

Hi RSTooley. I received the same notification this morning, though since I live in Europe, the increase is three euros, from 5.99 to 8.99 euros. This is a quote from the aforementioned email:

Well, there’ll be more eye-opening, head-expanding, life-affirming cinema, more MUBI exclusives and Special Discoveries, more Notebook coverage connecting you to filmmakers, more guest curators more language and subtitle options (soon you can watch French cinema in the U.S. with Italian subtitles)… Basically, more of everything.

That is quite a mouthful of pretty words. From what I've understood, Mubi has recently announced its entry in to the Chinese and Indian film markets, and has attracted several new investments. Of course I could be wrong, since at this time we have no details as to what they have planned for the higher price point, but seems to me the subscribers are at least partly paying for these investments. I really would love to support Mubi, but given that they are unable to even give us English subtitles for English-language films, still use burnt-in subtitles (this is a huge issue for subscribers with large TVs if the source material is of poor quality/resolution), have had quite a few mishaps with wrong aspect-ratios, Netflix offers superior AV quality for many of the more mainstream films available on Mubi, and the fact that their PS4 app is very slow and buggy, I feel even the current 5.99 euros per month for 30 films is a bit of a reach. They would really have to step up their game if they are expecting people to pay 8.99 euros. A shame really, because with these little tweaks they could really be something special for the lovers of world cinema.

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

From what I've understood, Mubi has recently announced its entry in to the Chinese and Indian film markets, and has attracted several new investments.

Mubi canceled their plans to enter the Chinese market because the regulators wouldn't let them, which was frankly a predictable outcome. They did get some investment from a Chinese firm regardless, but it was much smaller than the original deal ($2m instead of $10m). The India deal will include an actual Mubi service in India (they've already announced subscription plans starting at around $8 a month) but I haven't seen any details on how much it's actually worth.

[domino harvey]

Condescension is always a great business model

[soundchaser]

He founded that crystal company, right?

[MongooseCmr]

No he makes the Hotel Transylvania movies

[Big Ben]

I never did quite figure out what happened to this site. The forums were an absolute hellscape.

[Gregory]

Apparently this is for those who know so much more about film than those benighted others that they want an extremely limited selection "hand-picked" by some nameless band of "curators" who keep them safe from "bad films" by limiting the choices to "the best films," exactly thirty, which are yanked away one by one as a month's time passes by, like it's some desperate crash course with a set curriculum and deadline pressure. Sorry for all the quotation marks, but those key phrases seem to be the main ploy they're using to sell the service.

So they've gone with curating value rather than wider selection, and without that expert guidance, how would members ever find on their own such Ealing films as this month's selections Kind Hearts and Coronets and The Lavender Hill Mob? If anyone wants another curated Ealing selection, check out one called The Ladykillers. NOT the 2004 one, the 1955 one with Alec Guinness from Star Wars. A little-seen gem.

[black&huge]

Or that time they curated the extremely hard to find Tarantino film Reservoir Dogs

[MichaelB]

Condescension is always a great business model

The BFI shot themselves in the foot rather gloriously when they headed a recruitment ad 25 or so years ago with “Heard of Errol Norris?” [sic]

I naturally replied “no”, and still managed to get shortlisted for the job, although I didn’t ultimately get it.

[BenoitRouilly]

I remember in 2010, when they changed their name from The Auteurs to Mubi, they weren't so snob back then...

[The Pachyderminator]

I can understand finding the marketing off-putting - and certainly that Tarkovsky ad is awful - but I greatly value the service that Mubi provides.

At one level, it's a possible solution to the deciding-what-to-watch problem, for those occasions when you're at risk of being so paralyzed by choice you end up not watching anything (it's stupid, but happens to me all the time). Just play the film of the day on Mubi, or one of the next few films if you don't like the look of the first one on the list, and it's almost certainly going to be something interesting.

More seriously, I really do find it a good way to discover things. To be sure, some of the good experiences I've had on the site were things I would have gotten to in due time if left to my own devices - certainly the Godard and probably the Raul Ruiz, for example. But I don't know why or how else I would have seen Gaston Solnicki's Kékszakállú, a whimsical and puzzling film (supposedly inspired by Bartok's Bluebeard, though I could never discover what the similarities are) that was just strange enough to hit the sweet spot on a day when a film like that was exactly what I was in the mood for. THAT'S what Mubi is best used for, IMO.

[thirtyframesasecond]

What I didn't get about the ad was that it was having a dig at people who knew Tchaikovsky, as if that makes you uncultured?

[Gregory]

I don't know why or how else I would have seen Gaston Solnicki's Kékszakállú...

If it's helping people enjoy films they otherwise wouldn't have heard of or had access to, then that's great, but it seems unfortunate put in all the work to introduce a relatively unknown filmmaker only to have it available streaming for such a short window. Most of the pages on Mubi seem to be about films that are unavailable. They have a New Argentine Cinema rental page, but it does not include Kékszakállú. If you wanted to recommend the film to a friend, what would you say? It seems like one of the key advantages to streaming is convenience and availability, but Mubi is going for exclusivity.

What I didn't get about the ad was that it was having a dig at people who knew Tchaikovsky, as if that makes you uncultured?

The dig is at some imaginary people who are somehow new enough to both to conflate them on the basis of their names—strictly a pandering marketing tactic.

And speaking of snobbery and Swan Lake, does this new re-imagining "re-vitalised for the 21st century" with a "menacing male cast," look like the worst thing ever or what? Is Jerry Only of the Misfits in it?

[Bumstead]

Oh, but it gets better!
(image courtesy of own Peerpee)

[knives]

That's can't be real, can it?

[EddieLarkin]

Pretty sure it's his own Photoshop job

[The Pachyderminator]

I don't know why or how else I would have seen Gaston Solnicki's Kékszakállú...

If it's helping people enjoy films they otherwise wouldn't have heard of or had access to, then that's great, but it seems unfortunate put in all the work to introduce a relatively unknown filmmaker only to have it available streaming for such a short window. Most of the pages on Mubi seem to be about films that are unavailable. They have a New Argentine Cinema rental page, but it does not include Kékszakállú. If you wanted to recommend the film to a friend, what would you say? It seems like one of the key advantages to streaming is convenience and availability, but Mubi is going for exclusivity.

Yeah, I hear that. In some cases, I suspect, the short time window allows them to show things that otherwise wouldn't be streaming at all, but the disadvantages are real. I agree that the exclusivity angle is unappealing, but ultimately I think the discoverability still makes it worthwhile for me, for now.

[thirtyframesasecond]

Haha I saw the Einstein/Eisenstein one on Twitter; no way is it real. The condescension of highbrow folks towards let's say middlebrow folks is quite astonishing if you have any, you know, expansion plans. I had a sub for a while, but just find its curation and selection policy weird - just do what Netflix and Amazon Prime do and whack as many arthouse films on your platform as possible, instead of thirty films I often have zero interest in. Amazon has done a deal with Criterion and some of these other suppliers though, right?

[kidc]

I'm really confused about Mubi's UK presence. They have their own website, which has the rotating 30 day selection for £7.99pm, but then they also have an Amazon Prime channel, which has a much wider selection, the films seem to be available for longer than the usual 30 days, and it's only £5.99pm.

No idea what's going on but I'm grandfathered in on their website for a couple of quid a month, which I'm happy with. I actually like their selection - they have the usuals to draw people in, but then they do screen some genuinely obscure stuff (Godard's Rise and Fall of a Small Film Company).

And speaking of snobbery and Swan Lake, does this new re-imagining "re-vitalised for the 21st century" with a "menacing male cast," look like the worst thing ever or what? Is Jerry Only of the Misfits in it?

Yeah... that's Matthew Bourne's production. It attained the status of modern classic incredibly quickly, but "re-vitalised for the 21st century" is a bit misleading seeing as it premiered in '95. (Agreed about the Misfits crack though!)