MUBI: Curated Cinema Hack 34.0 + Redeem Codes

Let’s be real. You’re not going to love every film you ever watch and you won’t love every film mubi puts up on the platform. I can count on one hand the amount of five star films I’ve viewed on mubi among the many I’ve seen so far. I’ve used the service off and on for about a year and I have to say my most recent subscription is likely going to stick. I’ve started getting into more hidden gems and true independently made cinema and mubi is the one mainstream streaming service that is making a concerted effort to bring you movies you would never discover otherwise. On top of all that they are distributing some of the most mesmerizing contemporary cinema themselves (The Worst Person in the World, Drive my Car, Aftersun, Decision to Leave, etc.) and I adore everything they are doing. The only other service I would personally recommend is the Criterion Channel for quality programming but mubi is 100% making a play for that crown in my book!

Mubi is unlike any other platform, with movies you can’t find in any other platforms. It opened a whole new world of cinema for me and for that I’m grateful. However, Mubi has one undeniable problem. The subtitles are bad. There’s just no other way to say it. I speak more than one language and noticed the subtitles did not translate correctly what was spoken by the characters. I could also notice this problem while watching movies in languages I didn’t even speak. Some sentences were not translated at all. The character would deliver their line and no subtitles were there to indicate whatever was being said. All of this made me very insecure while watching foreign language movies. I was always wondering if the sentences in the subtitles were actually the sentences being spoken. Or had the meaning - the subtlety of the dialogue - been lost to me? Could I trust these subtitles or were they pointing me in the wrong direction? It was almost impossible for me to know during that armenian movie last week and I also had a hard time guessing during that one in mandarin. However, I keep signing Mubi every month, a bit skeptical of the subtitles, but hopeful nonetheless. Maybe this review will reach the eyes of someone who can fix this problem. Maybe just the eyes of a casual viewer who will now be as suspicious as me. Hope it was helpful either way.

I’m truly in love with this streaming service. The movies that I find on here are carefully and respectfully curated for me to watch. If I didn’t have MUBI, I’m sure I’d have a much harder time finding these movies. That being said there’s something about MUBI that kind of rubs me the wrong way. Every month, I have a system where I watch movies that are leaving streaming services that I’m subscribed to. Not every streaming service announces what titles they’re getting rid of, but MUBI is one that does. My problem is that they don’t tell you at the beginning of a particular month what movies they’re getting rid of. Instead, they tell you which movies they’re getting rid of in the next 12 - 13 days. This impedes my program a bit. I’m sure there’s a particular reason they do this, but nevertheless if they could tell you at the beginning of the month which of their titles they’re getting rid of, I wish they’d do that instead. And I would think the service better for doing so. Ultimately I have the utmost respect for the people working at MUBI. I will always be a loyal subscriber.

So I see talk of millennials and Gen Z and I think, geez I’m a Gen X and a white girl and this looks a lot like my time at Ohio State in the 80s. True, I don’t know what it’s like to be bi racial, but still I could feel Riley’s multi dimensional self hate, being rejected not only by a white boy but by an Asian boy too (and you want to scream at her: “So what if he’s cute? He’s a skater dude, dumb, he plays video games!”). The doofus white ex boyfriend w whom she fights outside (and I too love the female passerby tells him no one asked him to talk— something I’ve wanted to tell about 4,000 white guys in the last 40 years)— this scene is great, bc she’s so angry, properly, at him, but then sees the absurdity of their situation. Her anxiety attack at home? With her parents? So real.

Again, I understand the element of racism is something I’ll never understand, but this is still the female college senior’s Every[wo]man story, finding yourself humiliated over and over without understanding why. And when her sister says, “It must be boring being so sad all the time,” you realize she just doesn’t understand…. Yet.

I woke up feeling as if a big municipal machine had ran on me. I should preserve my energy more alertly I thought. I opened my eyes. Silence. Reached out to my screen. Searched for something to watch and to listen to. Sound and imagery helps me to redefine my dimensions. I have to do it every long morning I get to stay in bed. Alone and silent. After a long absence from the world while dreaming all night. This morning, however, I was craving for more dreams rather than sinking back into reality. I saw the first seconds of this film. I saw the stuffed animals on the boat, motionless. They suddenly turned their head to the camera, motionless again. I decided to continue this dream. Even though it didn’t make any sense. That’s how I wanted to feel, nonessential.

Between the website and the application there is no continuity. Two years ago I signed up for free trial. Of course, back then MUBI was having problems with Apple. I canceled subscription with Apple but, of course MUBI tells me that wasn’t enough I had to cancel through them. Fine, I took the package deal for one year. Again, no problem until year is up and they automatically renew subscription. Again, not happy about that I missed the single e-mail telling me about it because I now have a different e-mail service and the old contact e-mail is no longer applicable. I enjoy their programming and kept it even though now it was twice the original amount. My subscription ended this year because my credit card had expired and they couldn’t renew it. So, a week ago I see that they are having a sale and I provide a new account e-mail and credit card and sign up. Now what’s the problem you ask? I can’t watch their service on my tv because there isn’t a way to change the app on there. Now I’m stuck watching MUBI on my phone until customer service responds within their 3 day time frame. Very unhappy with service.

I love the movies they feature on this app.

I’m a writer/director, and the movies they have featured here are phenomenal. The app needs some fine-tuning but I don’t think its out of their wheelhouse so I’m hopeful they will be able to sort some of the following things out:

There is no search function on the app. Sometimes I’m in the mood for a drama. Sometimes I want a comedy. I don’t know all the titles off the top of my head, as much as I wish I did. If you are interested in making movies, producing, directing, or interested in filmmaking as an art, this app is fantastic at finding out what other people are doing, what works well. If you love going off somewhere else for 2 hours, be it sad or happy, scary or intense, the movies featured here will remind you what cinema is for many of us.

But when I have time, at the end of my day and my arthritis is acting up, I still have to fold the laundry, take a shower and catch up on work before 11pm and I was just asked the 974 question... I just need someone else to choose something for me. Please don’t make me do more work. I wanna see how Cannes winners from 2017 pair to 2021, and what people did different. I wanna search by country, or budget, or by narrative method.

Help me make decisions, don’t force me to.

Also they feature movies they don’t have available, but you cannot see that from the thumbnail.

MUBI is great. I’ll start there. It’s the rare service where you always find engaging, inspiring cinema.

But — and this is a big ‘but’ — the app is frustrating to use. It’s strangely glitchy. Things you’re downloading to watch later will show they’re downloaded, but when you go to watch them (and you’re off wifi or cellular), I can’t get things to play, as if it needs internet to verify that I can indeed watch what I want to watch. Not ideal when I’m away from home.

When I am at home, AirPlay does not work…but only in full screen. I’m sitting on my couch with my iPad wanting to watch a film, and I AirPlay the sound to my HomePods. The sound indeed plays, but the screen only shows a still of the movie. Strangely, if I put it in Picture-in-Picture, I can watch the movie no problem. It’s only in full screen that the movie won’t display on my iPad.

Again, I can’t complain. This is a great service. But at this point, you expect a streaming app to have basic functionality. HBOMax recently got their act together and worked out these issues… if they can fix things, anyone can.

Mubi makes an incredible variety of films available, and their curated series are particularly impressive — easy introductions to new filmmakers, movements, or topics. That said, the download option is so hit-and-miss that it’s nearly useless. I’ve tried uninstalling and reinstalling the app, as well as tried many different wi-fi sources, but the result is always the same: more often than not, films get stuck at about 9% for weeks, or try for a while, and then fail. Given that one of the great things about an app like Mubi is being able to watch things offline, this is a huge flaw in an otherwise excellent service.

Update on my second subscription after giving them a year to get it together: still a terrible, user hostile app giving, or sometimes denying, subscribers access to some real cinematic gems. Downloading for offline viewing fails more often than not, and usually at over 80% to add insult to injury. Also, when I resubscribed they started spamming me in German, so it’s a good bet this is not GDPR compliant in any way.

It’s still the only place to find some of these weirder art films, but if you have any need for offline viewing, or you care a lot about subtitles, or you’re picky about UX in general — it will drive you mad.

Original: Curated and mostly serious videos but the user experience leaves much to be desired. For instance subtitle choices are often absurd, which for a cinephile offering is a problem.