First reaction was a shriek. What the hell had happened to my TheAuteurs.com account? Well, it had just turned into a MUBI account instead.
From indieWIRE;
It had to happen. The cinephile site The Auteurs has changed its name.
…
Cakarel wants to grow members into the millions. So he went on a quest for a new name. He called on ad agencies all over the world to find a simple, easily-typed name. “Find me my global brand, my Sony,” he told them. It took nine months, but finally an agency in Tokyo knew they had found the name. Mubi.
The word “movie” is mispronounced in many cultures that have trouble with the letter V. It isn’t a word in any language. It is a city in Nigeria. And Cakarel plans to make that city the movie-lover capital of the world.
Even if finding out about the change of names through indieWIRE and not TheAuteurs itself is just a little offensive, I could understand a change in branding. However, the change in brand seems to be a complete move towards the mainstream market to attract more members, who aren’t necessarily interested in auteur-driven films, and hence wouldn’t know how to type “auteur” in the first place… than a re-brand to actually make the product better for its core audience. It’s like Inca Kola trying to be hip and cool, when it doesn’t taste the same.
With this “strategic” branding idea, they have stirred up their community by having many users complaining about the change of name, and those who aren’t complaining? Well, they are indifferent to the change. Overall feedback seems to be quite negative so it has prompted forum boards by now-MUBI Efe (Cakarel) titled “Why did we change our name to MUBI”
The most interesting part of it all, is their deals with the Sao Paulo Film Fest to stream their films — and possible future deals with the likes of Tribeca — and deals with Cannes.
Let’s just hope they continue to focus on Silents, Foreign Films, Classic Films and other hard to watch films, and/or other hard to find for people to share with, than mainstream Hollywood films.
[
][
]… and the original Swedish title, Luftslottet som Sprängdes which is The Air Castle that Blew Up. *sighs* translations… translations.
(wtf?) from the original Swedish title Solstorm… which is literally 
like the actual English title. *sighs* anyway…
, aka Nejimaki-dori KURONIKURU) by Haruki Murakami, but really can’t blame me for taking so long. It’s 900 pages long, and I know Harry Potter 5 is as long and it only took me 3 days to finish that one. But Cronica began really slow, and I left it there for a long long time until about 3 days ago, when I picked it up again. xD
(
, aka SUPU-TONIKU no Koibito), and El Fin del Mundo y un Despiadado Pais de las Maravillas (Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, aka Sekai no Owari to HA-DOBOIRUDO WANDA-RANDO).
, which I saw at a bookstore’s listing, but when they checked… it was gone. Highly suspicious… I never believe things like books, cds or dvds ever get sold out here.
[literally, Men Who Didn’t Love Women for those of you non-Spanish readers] – I guess Odiar/Hate is too-strong a word? At least it beats “
” [
][
[literally, The Girl who Dreamed with a Match and an Oil Drum] but the Swedish title means 
[
][
], right Julz? Which is exactly like the English title. Wonder who picks the titles…
