mubi

“pronounced “moo-bee” or “moo-bye” the latter sounds like Dubai, which sounds worldly I guess…”

Well, when I first saw this thread title a few days back, I pronouced it to rhyme with ‘Dubai’ – like that place Michael Jackson hid out after the trial. Sort of conjured up that image of a place where disturbed individuals could hang out: “I’m gonna to hide out in Mub-eye, where they understand my type.”

I was brought here because I thought this was the type of place one could hide out with other film lovers, where our lonely passion for film could be shared. When I told my friends I hung out at a place called ‘the auteurs’, I was surprised how many didn’t know the origin of the term. Well, I thought that was a good thing, as it provided the site with an exclusiveness that fitted my image of a special place one could inhabit, away from the usual inanity/insanity of the internet.

Perhaps those of us that can’t really fathom the need for a name change are a bunch of anal-rententive stick-in-the-muds who are hung-up on a name. But, it was a cool place to gather just because it implied we who inhabited here knew something others did not. At least we knew what ‘auteur’ meant and who would qualify to be called one. Helps to keep the riff-raff out.

Now, many possible meanings of the acronym ‘Mubi’ have already been mentioned above. Here is mine: Most Unthinkable Basterdization Imaginable of what was a great name. Basterd purposefully misspelled. You all know why.

But it looks like this is a done deal, according to the article above that mentions the site has bought this new domain name. Moral of story: What’s in a name? A whole concept in ‘the auteurs’, a somewhat shaggy-shaggy dog in ‘Mubi’. I sigh for Mubi(eye).

Hey, I am now a shaggy dog, but I am still the same pup underneath.

Allan, don’t go, if members start leaving, all the hard work of new film treasures being added all this time on the site by us older members will go to waste :(

_All that matters to me is that this site keeps:

A) it’s incredible design – this is one of the most thoughtfully well-designed websites I’ve ever seen
B) a reasonably high intellectual standard for what films are put online and for what is discussed in the forums.

The actual name in the end doesn’t matter much to me._

yes

if someone wants to leave this site because its now called Mubi then…

Sy Fy

What’s funny is that MUBI doesn’t sound very marketable to me. Nine months for that! hah!

Anyway this site is great.

Does nobody else get cognitive dissonance over the fact that serious film theorists often align themselves with socialist politics, yet half the complaining I’ve seen here is:

‘oh my god, no! – keep those proles out!, we don’t want ‘the wrong type of people coming here!’

Hi everyone! Thanks for all your brilliant feedback.

Efe has a message to our community on our name change over yonder: http://mubi.com/topics/9211. Check it out!

I was worried that you wouldn’t let me leave for a minute there, thanks for clarifying. Obviously me saying I want to leave is an over-exaggeration – but I do seriously think if the wizards that control this site call it a stupid name like mubi out of the blue, then what else are they going to change. The fact is as others have said, mubi has nothing to do with Film, nothing whatsoever, if someone is joining Auteurs.com, chances are they have a clue about film. Mubi is a sound babies make when they can’t speak properly, it’s anti-intellectual and it’s going to facilitate the watering down of the content of this website. Just think about it, how can one not laugh after saying Mubi aloud, go and tell one of your friends to join a cool site about film, called mubi and watch their reactions, if someone said it to me before I joined I would laugh at them. This is really stupid. Twitter annoys the hell out of me still, can we not speak properly in this day and age?

I love me some MUBI.

Remember ‘Consignia’?

Is there any hope in getting “The Auteurs” back or perhaps giving another name a shot? Something user generated?

@SANDWICHES that’s what I’m wondering

“so much so that I think anyone who’s not a major film enthusiast would just tune out as soon as they hear it’s called ‘the auteurs’”

I understand that, but I also wonder why anyone who’s not a major film enthusiast would even want to join this site to begin with.

As I see it, the problem isn’t changing the name to something else. The problem is changing it to Mubi. If the new name was just as good as the old one I don’t think as many people would have a problem with the change. But if the choice comes down to just either The Auteurs or Mubi, I don’t blame the majority of the members loathing the change.

“mubi has nothing to do with Film, nothing whatsoever”
But from now on it will!

The hilarious thing is that while everyone loves auteur-driven cinema, nobody loves auteur-driven government systems (fascism).

They should have called it Den.
It is warm, inviting, the place where some of us watch films and get ideas.

Yes Den would have been a fantastic name.

I am a Socialist, and I don’t see anything wrong with maintaining this site as a place for serious film discussion. That you’d suggest we are all snobs I find ridiculous, the wizards at this website are the ones being offensive here – implying people are to stupid to find a website called auteurs so coming up with a stupid name that sounds like countless other websites instead – I find it insulting.

“auteur-driven government systems (fascism).”
That is the single silliest phrase I have ever heard – did you come up with the name mubi ;)

Den, I completely agree. That would have been a million times better!

@Salem

Right on.

Does anyone else think it ironic that this ‘Mubi’ thing appeared when we had threads called ‘Bad Spelling’ and ‘Are You Mad as Hell?’ on the boards???

Can anyone possibly think that if people couldn’t spell auteurs how in the hell is a so-called movie site (notice the lack of distinction in the very fact this is now a ‘movie’ site) that calls itself ‘mubi’ be an improvement? Mis-direct, mis-direct. Well, it should now help all the spelling-challenged types who don’t know a movie from a nubi. Perhaps if we call the site ‘mubi-le’ to rhyme with nubile and cine-phile, that would help.

Think of all the possibilities for spellings in the what the term cinephile could have provided had the site decided to play around with that term instead: Cin-o-file, sin-a-file…Now we’re a bunch of ‘mubis’. Very dubious – er – mubi-us. How about mubi-us strips?

Mubi-us strip! It keeps going ’round and ’round, but ends up in the same place.

What an incredibly stupid name.

You know what makes this site great. We do. And we joined it because of the idea that was embodied in the name of The Auteurs. Something that was about the artistic films we loved and respected and not the childish meaningless movies that are the lowest form of common denominator blockbusters. Modern Auteurs still exist and make films to love. The concept of the Auteur will never be old or dead. Not to me. But maybe to ‘MUBI’ it will be. MUBI has no meaning or values. And those who start to frequent it, won’t either. Driving the rest of us away.

Oooh—press coverage

@ Allan – not meant as an insult, just something I’ve been pondering recently in the larger picture.

Den would be a great name. In the context of the new concept, however, Den would now be Duh – just so those who can’t spell Den (or spell it Din or Dan or whatever) could be redirected to ‘Duh’ – the film site for those too dumb to know the difference.

I’ll stop now…

Out of the millions of different thing they could have renamed it…. MUBI??? Sure, the site needed a name change the day MADAGASCAR was added to the database…. but MUBI?!!!!

Jean-Luc Godard is now a MUBI !!! :|

WTF people?

Mubi? de que chingados seran siglas esto? parece como decir “pelìcula” en “inglish”, pero escrito en Mazahuaskatopunk, ja!, pero eso si, ya quiero ver quien sera el primer pinche mamoncito que se va a salir por culpa del nuevo nombrecito.