will we be MUBInized?
In defense of the new name:
THE AUTEURS is an English-language phrase, but this forum, in content and readership, is decidely multinational, multilingual…
MUBI is a much more open-ended receptacle, a kind of “Esperanto” word which makes about as much sense in any language. It is kind of a new “coinage”.
I resent the name change so much I will spend my remaining credit on Auteur Agnes Varda and not come back.
I hope Apichatpong Weerasethakul — http://mubi.com/cast_members/4553 — has his name changed to something easier to spell like COLA FRIEND so people who aren’t from Thailand can wats his mubis.
Not sure about “Cola Friend”, but I call Apichatpong Weerasethakul simply “Joe” like all his other good friends.
Name change or not, I am incredibly blessed I found this site.
You may remember my first post: “I’m Sick and Tired of Storytelling???!!!” LOL Rather than get bashed on by a bunch of mindless, one-track, mainstream thinkers, my sentiments were embraced while challenged at the same time. Needless to say, I found an online home.
Now I am an active writer in the Garage Production Notes and have two films in the Screening Room.
Thank you Efe and to all those behind the scenes for making this happen for me!
Mubian #223431: Christopher
nice name!!
@ EFE yeah I * know * people call him Joe but it’s not written on publicity or press releases or wall texts or DVDs or catalogue covers.
RETRACTING AND DENOUNCING IDIOCY ABOVE ^ after I actually read this:
http://blog.mubi.com/post/631427527/the-auteurs-mubi-roadmap
and auteurs.com is not disappearing, just merging with a larger organism that can grow and sustain it – HURRAH!
Efe knows what he is doing, and cares about it. I’m happy to be a part of it, and I will even swallow the man boobies, as long as I get to think about Chris Marker in a nice snobby area away from LOLs.
MUBI and EFE I salute you and I thank you.
“What about MUBI? Where the dynamism and content of The Auteurs comes from filmmakers, that of MUBI comes from the audience.”
I hope 4chan feels at home here.
double post
I can’t believe 4chan was just mentioned here. I feel violated.
Fuck. I still want ‘theauteurs.com’ back.
Let me say that I am only still a member here because I have gained such a respect for the community – right, the community, not the bullshit execs that pulled together this haphazard, so-called, metacritical outlet that in the end is just a heartless, culturally-apathetic business just like every other bullshit metacritical pseudo oasis found out there in the vast abyss of what we have come to call ‘internet-land’ – and yet, I still find myself pissed not only at the change but at the lack of vitality/determination amongst those who originally criticized the change.
We have gone from critique, to protest, to simply full on bending over backwards…
As far as the argument regarding the incomprehensibility of the word ‘auteur’ among foreign audiences… well, call me an elitist but I feel that if you are too ignorant and uneducated to be familiar with Hollywood (English speaking community of filmmakers) and you still call yourself a cinephile and/or avid fan of film in general, then you really have NO place in any metacritical community that really holds any weight in terms of importance amongst the vast number of other similar outlets that have emerged in this so called ‘Web 2.0’ revolution… Moreover, if you aren’t familiar with even the most common English cinema terminology – being that, English is the language spoken by the filmmakers of the most prominent cinema in the world: American cinema – then you shouldn’t be given credence in the first place in a serious community of critics and film fans.
The word auteur is fundamental in the greater scheme of things. It is truly elementary. If it is the masses that you aim to appeal to then so be it, but be aware that those who are more educated and perhaps even, expect more out of people to begin with, might be turned away from your site due to the recent executive decisions made by the MUBI corporation… or shall I say, the actions made completely without the consultation nor the consent of the community formerly known as ‘The Auteurs’…
I still think that among all of the amazing responses made by community to the sometimes unfathomable statements made by some of the ‘MUBI’ staff (I won’t name names but we all know who I am talking about), perhaps RÜDIGER TOMCZAK’s response is most telling:
“It is pure nonsense to compare MUBI with APPLE, GOOGLE or Yahoo. Or in other words these comparison tells probably more about the intentions of the Mubi staff than intended.”
(refer to p. 16 of the comments thread to see the context)
In Film Studies, the words “auteur” and “genre” film are often presented as two distinct filmic traditions….
So really, by creating a “neutral” name like MUBI, the implication is that we are free here to discuss “auteur” driven films or “genre” films….
Calling us MUBI is actually a healthy step away from what some might consider “film snobbery”.
That’s probably a good thing.
@David Lincoln Brooks and others: I guess that there’s no point in trying to reverse this name change since Efe & Co. appear to be adamant about MUBI.
However, semantics is still a worthwhile topic of discussion and I would not call MUBI a “neutral” term. Instead, I’d refer to it as an IRRELEVANT word for a site devoted to film. Perhaps, as Effe mentioned, all the truly neutral names — titles that included “film,” “cinema,” or “movies” — were already taken or too expensive. IF that’s the case (and I’m not sure it is), then ANY series of letters would have been just as irrelevant.
Why not XYZ, AFKM, IBUM (MUBI backwards), or DUJB? Those titles would have eliminated film snobbery too.
Joan Crawford— née Lucille LeSueur—— despised the name “Crawford” that the studios gave her… she thought it sounded like “crawfish”.
I’m sure the name “Coca-Cola” sounded foreign and bizarre when it was first presented to the public, most of whom had never heard of a “coca” or a “kola”. It probably came across as an intriguing kind of gibberish…
Good grief Mr PH.D. – you’ve expressed your dissatisfaction with the name of MUBI more than plenty. The site is what you make of it. In my opinion, folks who continue to rant about the name MUBI should foster their energy towards something else.
@Thievery: Perhaps I HAVE expressed my dissatisfaction with the name MUBI “more than plenty.” However, others continue to extol the virtues of the name, so I feel obliged to respond.
Since you take such a strong interest in how I direct my energies, what would YOU have me do with the rest of my life? I’m more than willing to follow YOUR plan for how I should spend my time. :-)
why not be positive Frank for instance you could extol the virtues of Richard Fleischer (since I am representing him in the cup). That’ll give you something to do.
I think Frank has the right to express his sissatisfaction as much as he feel likes and there is nothing to comment about.
Exactly, I have no problem keeping threads that express permanent dissatisfaction with the Mubi trademark alive. Can we make this a sticky?
I am not surprised it was thought up by a Japanese marketing firm. The new name is the typical cutesy-wootsie gibberish that the powerful Japanese anime and marketing people think is the height of chic. Grown people in Japan (an many American pre-teen girls) just L O V E baby talk. It is every where there.
I understand the sentiment behind a name change that will appeal to an international film community but I think Mubi is just to infantile for a serious community of film aficionados. The word FILM is more serious and is correct in most languages, it even is spelled almost the same everywhere. Film.com is taken, but something along that line would have had the right feel.
if they were gonna change it from the auteurs, they could have let an auteur come up with the name
maybe Varda since she is in cahoots with the site.
If it were only the change of the name into a quite dull term it would have been only irritating. If you see the level of a lot of the threads and a data bank which still lacks a lot of important film and directors I have to say that the level goes down.
We should demand our money back.
Recall the message!
Nonsensical English words written, because it looks cool, and the person who owns it has no idea what it means? Like a English pupil backpack in far away land, this name is exactly the same. Congrats, you are back home, fellows.
A mercurial investor, community leader, or both? I can imagine situation while passing US border control.
Neutral: … down with this sort of thing!
Border Control: I beg your pardon Sir, with what?
Neutrino: Yes! Down! (Mobilizing crowd behind)
Border Control: Sir, may I see your passport?
Neutral: (feeling intimidated, while Neutrino is still mobilizing the crowd) Bourgeoisie! Bourgeoisie! (French, they are eating cheese at the end, well, they are eating everything at the end Z.M)
Soon, we should expect quotas at the forum, for a gender and a race, to be neutral of course.
What you call film snobbery, I call enlightened discussion which differentiates itself from the ubiquitous mindless drab found in the millions of other similar film critique/discussion outlets available on the internet.
Hypothetically, just because the site is called ‘The Auteurs’ doesn’t mean that the site would have to be barred down to only hosting auteur-driven cinema… it wasn’t restricted like that before in all the time that ‘The Auteurs’ existed before the infamous name change so what makes you think things will be different now? Furthermore, do you think the name of a company, literally, always denotes the type of product or service that they provide? Do you think because ‘Apple’ is named ‘Apple’ that they are forced to sell apples? Didn’t think so. Ok. Moving on.
As a previous poster has mentioned (and I have alluded to in my various posts on this thread), by appealing to the masses, you – as a corollary – forego your position as an enlightened, distinguishable outlet of film discussion. You, therefore, attempt to put yourself amongst the likes of an, ‘IMDB’, sort of corporation; and, I don’t think I am alone in coming coming to the conclusion that when ‘The Auteurs’ changed its name to ‘MUBI’, it also chose to forego its exclusive position as a community marked by its general filmic aptitude/knowledge and more specifically, its unique ability to not only point out but recognize, artistic quality in works that often go unrecognized by the masses.When the site formerly known as ‘The Auteurs’ decided to change its name without the consultation of the community, (yes, the community, the ‘life blood’ upon which this website thrives) it made an active/apparent decision in changing the business model from one that is focused towards a more exclusive, artistically aware community to one that is concerned solely with the larger financial scheme of things, aka. the bigger picture…
As I, and various others, have mentioned in previous posts: Efe’s explanation for the name change may be vague and unsatisfactory but it is certainly rich in suggestion and allusion. In one of Efe’s various responses he compares the name ‘Mubi’ to that of ‘Yahoo’ or ‘Google’. Getting past the initial ridiculousness of that statement, one must notice that he has shot himself in the foot in proposing such an argument. In an attempt to rationalize the executive decision of making the name change, Efe has compared the language-less, baby talk-esque, esperanto-esque ‘Mubi’ to other well-known successful companies with which he to claims have meaningless names as well. These are companies such as ‘Google’, ‘Yahoo’ or ’Apple’… Regardless, he has done this in order to portray the executive decision that led to the ‘MUBI’ name change with a sort of feigned validity. The only problem is that he has failed…
The names that he has suggested are in English. Therefore, any argument to be suggested which makes a comparison to such corporations on the basis that they utilize names that are ‘language-less’ and ‘understandable worldwide’ is inherently faulted. ‘MUBI’ means nothing. ‘Google’ at least has to do with numbers, ‘Apple’ if I remember is inspired by Newton and ‘Yahoo’, well, we all know what that means… Just because the words have meanings doesn’t mean that their names are reflective of the function of the business but that still doesn’t take away from the fact that the argument was over the problem of the use of the word ‘auteur’ as it is an English/French term and therefore, would not be understood worldwide… yet, how can you make that argument when your proposed solution is to replace ‘The Auterus’ with a name that means nothing?! Therefore putting the foreigners and the Americans/French in the same boat to begin with… It is like saying, instead of having some knowledge, we’ll take all knowledge away from everybody because some people can’t understand it…
‘Google’, ‘Yahoo’ and ‘Apple’ are all names that can be argued to have significance within the business’s function… BUT, what the fuck does ‘MUBI’ mean? I don’t know. You don’t know. It kind of sounds like ‘movie’ but using that logic then leaves us once again relying on English and isn’t that the thing this site is ‘oh, so afraid’ of doing? Well, we don’t know what ‘MUBI’ means… I can be sure sure some random piece of shit on google search won’t know either.
The whole thing is stupid. Truly, an epic fail of a marketing ploy. I initially found ‘The Auteurs’ community on a search engine largely because of its name. It drew me in. It was compelling, unique, it had something new to offer…
Now, this corporation is just throwing it all away.
If this is just another site on the road to becoming another corporate sell-out, then why not just go visit the other, more established, corporate sell outs in the first place?!? Why not just post in the ‘IMDB’ forums to begin with?
The Auteurs was focused on the art. MUBI is focused on the money. It is as simple as that.
double post :/
I’m sure they’ll give you a refund if you ask.
tomislavp
As much as I could try to explain to myself, I could not come to … anything. I tried to be polite as well, but it just doesn’t work.
I think the new name has some sort of attraction to Movie United Brain Insulted, or as OKI said ‘man boobies’, a pedophile cartoon figure, Movie B….es?
The person or group who agreed to change the name from theauteurs (targeted group is cin·e·phile),
to MUBI — (targeted group, should have cerebral cortex).
1. This must be some funny PR experiment!
2. A corporate takeover ? Our data would be used in some future Dr. Moreau experiment?
And at the end, how about, to facilitate name change with community, a quote from EFE:" … meaning a social network, meaning the latest and criticism and news, meaning a grassroots filmmaking community."
I really liked the site and everything around it, recommended to many friends, active cinephiles and movie fans. Maybe I am wrong, but most likely I will deactivate my membership.
cheers,
tomislav