Mubi

[Bumstead]

Well, well, well...

Here's the link to the tweet.

[Gregory]

Reading a couple of the comments under the apology, it looks like they've offended some folks by apologizing for this and may need to apologize for their apology.

why are you apologizing? it's a very clever ads. Please, stop this trend in which everything someone says "offends" other.

[Cremildo]

I agree with the quoted comment (whose author doesn't really seem to be offended at all). The Mubi ad was a joke which was likely to be understood only by cinephiles, who are their target audience already - which is precisely why it failed as a piece of marketing if their intention was to grab the attention of the general public. Not offensive in the least and hardly the cause for such a breathless public mea culpa.

[Michael Kerpan]

I will never understand the notion that one's taste in movies (or anything else) somehow makes one a better human being than other less (supposedly) "advanced" persons....

[hearthesilence]

You can still be okay even if you're a philistine.

[colinr0380]

With relatively little fanfare Mubi appears to have set up a Blu-ray and DVD label in the UK recently. I just picked up Under The Silver Lake, which has Mubi branding and a "002" spine number (and features a Q&A with Andrew Garfield, "What Lies Under The Silver Lake" and "Beautiful Specter" featurettes), and it looks as if they have released the Swedish film Border as their first title. The Suspiria 'remake' is coming on 7th October.

EDIT: Bacarau has now been released. I'll try and keep this post updated as I find out more information. So far:

001: Border
002: Under The Silver Lake
003: Suspiria (2018)
004:
005:
006: Bacarau
007: Ema
008: Beanpole
009: Matthias & Maxime

Plus the 2020 Blu-ray release of Ryuichi Sakamoto: Coda, which is not numbered

[mfunk9786]

I can't think of a film more fitting for the Seven Samurai slot in a spine-numbered Mubi disc label than Under the Silver Lake

[Bumstead]

Dreadful company. They finally succeeded in getting me to cancel my subscription after an email announcing higher yearly fees.

[thirtyframesasecond]

I started a Mubi trial again - basically they had a run of good films at the moment so I could watch Safe and Missing. I didn't realise it has an Amazon Prime channel too. Pound for pound, which is likely to be better - subscribing direct or via Amazon (I have Amazon Prime already).

[kidc]

I don't exactly understand it but in the UK at least the Prime channel itself has a lot more films and they are not on the 30-days-and-done countdown of the main website (although how long they're up for, I'm not sure).

[A man stayed-put]

A lot of the stuff on the Prime channel appears to be permanent. Under the Silver Lake, Enyedi's Body and Soul and several other's have remained on there since release.
I've subscribed to both in the past and, although everything doesn't make it over from the direct platform, I found the Prime channel better value. Plus it has Mariano Llinás' Extraordinary Stories which, if you haven't seen it, is worth the monthly cost on it's own.

[senseabove]

Just a shout that you shouldn't miss Jodie Mack's The Grand Bizarre on MUBI US if you care anything for experimental film. It leaves tomorrow and was a highlight of last year for me.

[GoodOldNeon]

Mubi has added a library section to their site, which includes hundreds of films available for streaming.

[WmS]

Drowning from MUBI's opened floodgates, I'll single out Heinz Emigholz, the patient & austere German filmmaker of architecture. These are slow and intellectually rich films that grow when taken as a sustained engagement. Here Sullivan's Banks is great, but the medium-length standout is D'Annunzio's Cave, a look at protofascist home decorating with a punchy final shot. Love it.

Any other suggestions for single films?

[lzx]

All of their own releases I've seen are worth watching, but I wanted to highlight Neïl Beloufa's Occidental and Ryuichi Sakamoto: Coda - both worth checking out for the soundtrack alone.

[dadaistnun]

I've seen three of the four Angela Schanelec films they have up (haven't seen Nachmittag/Afternoon yet) and would recommend them. I imagine she's not to everyone's taste, but I love the ones I've seen so far. Of the other three on Mubi, I'd recommend starting with Marseille. It was the first of hers I saw and feels like a good introduction to what she does. I found Passing Summer to be the most beautiful looking of her films (they all look great, though, and her sense of framing is remarkable). The Dreamed Path I found somewhat difficult at first, but more rewarding as I reflected on it later.

[kscotthandley]

I've had some vexing buffering (?) issues with Mubi after just recently rejoining. A bit of hitching with progress pinwheel in center of screen; but mainly just image quality dropping in and out. I tried changing the bandwidth from site/account setting from 1080 to 720 and this did not seem to help.
I use an Amazon Fire Stick, which is no great shakes; but I have none of these issues with Criterion Channel. I noticed that these Mubi problems happened in the evening, but not in the morning (North America)...so maybe traffic is an issue?

Another issue for me is the apparent inflexibility of subtitles. I find the mandatory black windowbox (at least on some titles) to be distracting; but it doesn't seem like that can be removed in setting, either from the Fire Stick app or from the website. Am I missing something, or is there a workaround?
It's nice that there is the option to remove subs altogether (usually); but usually I want them for non-English-language titles.

I am really happy about the Library feature. Many titles there that I have been wanting to see but not had access. Interesting selection and great supplement to Criterion Channel. But these image quality problems!

[Mothravka]

I've had some vexing buffering (?) issues with Mubi after just recently rejoining. A bit of hitching with progress pinwheel in center of screen; but mainly just image quality dropping in and out. I tried changing the bandwidth from site/account setting from 1080 to 720 and this did not seem to help.
I use an Amazon Fire Stick, which is no great shakes; but I have none of these issues with Criterion Channel. I noticed that these Mubi problems happened in the evening, but not in the morning (North America)...so maybe traffic is an issue?

You are not the only one having buffering issues. I live in Sweden and sometimes MUBI works awfully on the PS4 app. For me, MUBI works either perfectly or very bad, but there's not a single problem when I try it with my Android app. When it's bad, the picture quality drops all the time and it will buffer every 30 seconds or something, that makes anything practically unwatchable. The last few days, it has worked fine on the PS4, although you never know when it will be a mess. My backup solution is connecting my phone to the TV with a HDMI cable.

I have mailed them about it and for some reason they just abruptly stopped answering me back after I asked some questions. Very odd. My connection is fine and I noticed that a lot of people have these buffering problems. I think it comes down to their own servers that maybe need some upgrading and something about the hardware (they mentioned that the PS4 app and TV apps have more connectivity issues).

I cancelled my subscription about two or three years ago because of the same buffering issues, but I came back in early 2020. So it's nothing new. Too bad everything isn't fully fixed. At least it works okay for the moment.

[kscotthandley]

You are not the only one having buffering issues.

Thanks for the reply. I did a speed test from the Amazon Stick and the result was 46mbps, so I still don't understand the problems with HD streams, but even the 720 HD stream blurs frequently, most evident with hardcoded subs, but also with the image itself. A really noticeable downgrade in quality during primetime hours (evening/weekend), and an upgrade in quality during very early mornings. Disappointing. I'm going to have to bail on Mubi: it's unwatchable and I can't start serial-purchasing new streaming devices in the hope that this will make the difference.

On the other hand, very shortly after I complained above about subtitle problem (black background window, mandatory for softcoded subs, very distracting), there was an app update, and that issue is solved; plus the subs are located a little closer to the bottom of the frame....an improvement. Not assuming my complaint to Mubi made any difference, but it's nice they were aware of the problem and acted on it. There might be some hope for the resolution issues; and for all I know that's still an ISP issue?

My ISP are regional-monopoly gangsters, so I am just not bothering with Mubi for the time being. A pity! The Library really increased the value of the service.

[John Cope]

Must point out the retrospective currently underway on the films of Rita Azevedo Gomes. Excellent news for this great but still most under represented artist and I almost missed it. Any Gomes is well worth checking out but you get a nice broad overview here. And finally The Portuguese Woman gets an English friendly release. Doesn't seem like it should have been that difficult or taken this long. Now just for some decent Blu representation (for that film or any of them). And I'd still love to see most of all The Conquest of Faro or The 15th Stone, both of which remain out of reach. More on Gomes here, btw.

[lzx]

Mubi hires three new executives, from Kino Lorber, Alamo Drafthouse, and StudioCanal, respectively. They have been expanding aggressively in the US and particularly in the UK for a while now, and I'm curious if this means they will continue their home video relationship with Kino in the US or if they will start releasing Blu-rays themselves like they already do in the UK.