MUBI (curated streaming service)

Didn't see a thread for this so I wanted to get a conversation started about it. I abandoned Netflix earlier this year and signed up for MUBI, which is a curated service with one new film each day and one bumped off the listings, so each is available 30 days. The focus is indie, arthouse, international and underground/experimental cinema. Not everything is great or even good, but the appeal is that the majority of the films they feature represent an interesting point of view from a filmmaker or filmmakers -- and when you connect with one, it'll be really satisfying.

I've watched quite a few films on here over the past several months, but the most recent one that really grabbed me was Honeygiver Among The Dogs (2016), a mesmerizing film from Busan that takes on the detective story in quite a unique way. The elevator pitch is that this is a "Buddhist noir," and while that description does distill the overall idea effectively, it doesn't really get at the experience of watching this movie. Some of the cinematography is beautiful, immersing us in the Bhutanese countryside for much of the story, with a few really powerful frames scattered throughout, and all those images build to create an effective mood. Although I can find little nits to pick (the score is a bit repetitive, a climactic moment is handled flatly), on the whole I was hypnotized by this film.

They also had several Argento films recently to celebrate Halloween, which gave me the opportunity to watch a few of his movies I hadn't seen before. This is definitely a service for a specific audience, but I am of that audience and I'm enjoying it.

I post more reviews as I run across new things.

 

I have it bookmarked in my "Movies" folder, so I appreciate your experience and opinion about this site.

 

It's great to see this thread. Years ago I had a subscription to Mubi. It's a splendid concept. I didn't watch many films though as I've never enjoyed watching on a laptop or tablet computer. Is there now an option to stream HD to the TV? (Just logged in again and I did not see any clear indication of the option.) That's what would get me back. Instantly, in fact.

 

This is exactly the kind of thing I'd like to have brought to the fore by a streaming service. It's like an ongoing film festival that you can connect to.

 

My Sony BD player had a MUBI app pre-loaded, so the tv option is clearly out there...

Funny how the Apple OS “corrected” MUBI to all caps - do they have a deal?

 

My Blu-ray player has it too. I'd heard of it before but wouldn't have remembered to look for it if not for that.

Exactly! In addition to older films, they pull from recent film festivals as well.

 

Found it on Roku! And I have just reactivated my account.

 

I watched "Viola" last night. Not an extraordinary film, and frankly it didn't even keep me awake (though that says more about my condition last night than the movie), but I found it a perfect match for me at 10 p.m.: it's an Argentinian film in Spanish (I like watching films in Spanish as it helps me with my rudimentary Spanish); it's about characters studying for roles in Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night," and I had seen "Twelfth Night" this summer, so I could figure out the references (the princess falls in love not with the lovesick duke but his messenger); and it was only 65' long, and I did not want to stay up late!

I'm so happy to have seen this thread, and to see that MUBI is thriving! I would not have predicted it 7 years ago.

MUBI apparently has a production and distribution arm, according to its Web site, and they've backed some good films. One of them is "Leto," about a group of young punk and rock stars of the underground scene in Leningrad in the early 80s. (The director, Kirill Serebrennikov, completed the film while under house arrest on financial fraud charges widely seen as political; he has been released but still faces a 10-year sentence.) This was my favorite film at last year's Philadelphia Film Festival, and I think it's the kind of thing SHTV members ought to really like. Image and description here: Leto. It's not showing on MUBI now, but well worth tracking down.

 

I had it for a while and while the concept is great I just didn't find myself keeping up with it.

 

I will go a week or two without watching anything because I’m too busy with life and work, but the daily email updates from them help remind me that it’s there.

 

At one point MUBI was The Auteurs and had some nice film discussions. Monthly price is the same as The Criterion Channel. I think MUBI used to have a relationship with Criterion in the past - not sure how the two services stack up, but the current MUBI seems to focus on more modern foreign films, which is an interesting niche.

 

I signed up for MUBI from the outset. No, I am not a hipster.

They eventually worked out the bugs in the browser player, which was its biggest problem IMO. The member ratings and reviews can be very useful sometimes. Films provided traverse the spectrum: Some are old black-and-white classics, others modern duds. I have seen some truly amazing films over the years but also went for weeks without finding a thing that I liked.

I stopped my subscription last year because the price kept escalating and I was not using it much. It is a wonderful alternative site, but if you do not regularly watch films online (like me), it is a hit-or-miss affair.

Nice concept, though.

 

MUBI members, fans, and persons interested, check out "The Vampires of Poverty" tonight (it's the last night it's available) -- it's only 29 minutes (so easy to make time for!) and a real landmark in Latin American cinema. A scathing satire.

I'm so grateful to @Solaris for starting this thread and reintroducing me to MUBI. It's like a constantly turning, linear kaleidoscope of film.

 

For anybody who's a MUBI member/subscriber, be sure to check out "Time to Die" (dir. Arturo Ripstein, 1966), a Mexican Western and an early film by one of the country's greatest directors, which among a number of notable features includes a screenplay produced by what has got to be the greatest pairing of literary giants in cinema history, Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Carlos Fuentes. It's on the site for only four more days. There is a Blu-ray version, in case you miss it. While one Amazon customer condemns the transfer, blu-ray.com gives it 4.5 stars. I suspect it's a transfer of the same restoration I saw a couple years ago at the cinema and it looked very good there. So, either way, give it a go.

 

A funny note: I used the search function to find this thread, and when I did, up popped this thread, which I actually started, in 2013: MUBI (mubi.com) This was back when the site had a much smaller presence and the conversation never got going. Anyway, glad to be back!

 

I meant to write something about The Crimson Rivers when I watched it a couple of weeks ago, but it's an absorbing detective story with parallel plots that merge in the middle. Vincent Cassel and Jean Reno play well off each other, and the location is very effective. I didn't find the ending completely satisfying, but there's a lot to enjoy along the way.

I also recently watched Never Ever, an adaptation of Don Delilo's novel The Body Artist (which is a much better title). Atmospheric, meditatively paced and enigmatic, it unfortunately never convinced me to care about the main character. The cinematography is often beautiful, though.

 

It's a bit confusing that the films on offer are somewhat different depending on which country you are in, even within the EU. When I use Netflix in another EU country, I still am tied to its Finnish selection because that's where my subscription is. But MUBI seems to be different. I noticed this because I happened to be abroad when I started using the service, and I ended up watching French films with German subtitles, the only option. It's fine by me but I was surprised. Now, with a VPN this perhaps widens one's selection of films if you can cope with the available subtitles etc. But it still is confusing, and it means that whatever someone else on this forum is watching, may not be available in your region, at that time, at least.

 

As a native Spanish I can tell you BEWARE of trying to learn ACTUAL SPANISH watching Latin American movies.
My father is also a native Spanish but he moved with his family to Argentina when he was 4 years old. Out of four brothers he was the only one who returned to Spain in 1960 and he speaks plain Spanish. His three remaining brothers stood in Argentina. When the Corralito Financiero happened in Argentina back in 2002 one of my Aunts, her husband, four sons and two grandsons returned to Spain and they've been here since then.
I spent New Years Eve at their place, I said over twenty times "what?" and "what does this mean?" because of the Argentinian Latin Spanish they speak. Sometimes I just DON'T/CAN'T understand them. And languaje is only one of the many differences there are between them and us. I don't want by any mean to sound superior but we are Europeans, they're far from it.
Please do yourself a favor and learn a proper Spanish, learn Castillian Spanish, the one and real Spanish. Don't accept fakes...

 

Rainer Werner Fassbiner's final performance, Kamikaze 89, is currently on MUBI, and being an RWF fan I had to watch it. The art direction is the real draw here: colorful, dramatic, wild. The print they're streaming has annoying spots in the frame, and many of the scenes lack clarity, even though this seems to be the new 4K scan of the negative. This is especially troubling since the prints of Lola and Veronika Voss I just watched on the Criterion Channel are beautiful, but if you're a Fassbinder fan, it's worth seeing.

 

I am a member for more than 10 years. I loved the concept from the start and I have been watching and discovering great films via Mubi. In general most of the films I am still watching on DVD on an older television at home so like you I don't have a subscription but I think I will when I finally get a new TV (whenever that may be).
I also like their Notebook section with a lot of interesting reports and festival coverage.

Mubi is really great for discovering movies and checking out lists of other users. In the past I used the imdb a lot for checking out recommendations but that changed a lot when they not only shut down the boards but deleted all comments. What a stupid thing to do.

 

One From The Heart, Francis Ford Coppola's disastrous bomb from 1982, is leaving tonight at midnight, so I watched it yesterday. It's got a lot of problems, like FFC spent all his time on the visual aspects of the film and very little time on an interesting story. Frederick Forrest and Teri Garr are miscast, even though she gets a few good lines here and there, but they are poorly directed. Raul Julia and Nastassja Kinksi look the parts but don't fare much better. However, it is an INCREDIBLE looking film. Just gorgeous to look at, innovative direction and staging, beautifully photographed. I'm perplexed by the aspect ratio of 1.37:1, which makes it feel boxed in -- 1.78 would have made more sense, but they obviously had their reasons, and it's the least of this movie's problems. Definitely not a good film, but too well made to ignore completely. Worth seeing once just for the visual splendor on display.

 

I've been wanting to watch William Peter Blatty's The Ninth Configuration (1980) and I see this MUBI site has it.

I'm thinking of signing up for a month to watch it, is MUBI worth the money? I do enjoy quirky underground-type movies, especially ones from the 70's-80's.