About a decade ago, when we had to watch a movie, the first thing me and my friends used to do was to check tickets online and then either pay a convenience fee so that we could book our favourite seats in the hall if it was a movie which was in demand or we used to take a risk by looking at the number of empty seats and reach the theatre in time hoping those favourite seats were not booked by someone else. Either way, the internet helped us in this small little mission.
A decade later a lot has changed with internet data prices at very low prices, OTT applications are the talk of the town. These applications are now fighting for a space on our mobile phones. When we would hear about a movie most of us would check on either Netflix or Amazon Prime if it is English, Disney+ Hotstar, SonyLiv, Zee5, ALTBalaji, ErosNow, SunNXT if it is in a regional language. So when I was searching about these applications, I came across an advertisement on YouTube for MUBI.
MUBI is a Subscription-based Video-on-Demand service that professes to be a curated selection of hand-picked movies. It was offering a free 30-day trial period when I created an account. It asks for your Card Details at the start and then allows you to proceed. By default, it is on Auto-Renewal and unless you cancel the subscription, you are billed again for the same period you chose initially. There are no reminder emails and hence, you should cancel it before your trial period expires. For a monthly subscription, it is Rs.499 and for a yearly plan, it is Rs.4788.
This first tab “Now Showing” has 30 movies with one movie that has been here for 30 days being removed at midnight and a new movie being added at the same time. The new movie added today would be there for 30 days and all the other movies would be on the platform for a duration depending on the day it was added.
The second tab is Library which allows viewers to choose a movie under various headings like “Documentaries”, ”Shorts”, “Film Festival Favourites” and some Indian Movies under various headings.
The third tab “Feed” is all the Social Media Activity of MUBI in one place.
The fourth tab is “Notebook”. They call it “Our Daily International Film Publication”.
The fifth tab ”MUBI GO” is currently paused due to COVID-19. This service allows you to watch one hand-picked cinema every week at a theatre near you. Now I don’t exactly know how this works and how much you are charged given the current situation.
Coming back to playing movies on the platform, if you want to change the video quality or the subtitle size, you will have to go to select “Settings” and go to “Video Playback”. If you want to change your subscription from monthly to yearly or vice-versa, update your Payment Details or Cancel your Subscription, you need to click on “Subscription”. Everything else is pretty much self-explanatory.
Now as far as the content is concerned, I came across a few foreign-language films from Germany, Italy, France, Portugal, Belgium and Brazil (The content varies every day). When you click on a movie, it gives you a brief synopsis and everything else from the “Run time” to the “Cast”. When you scroll down, you come across articles from “The Notebook” that have referenced this movie. When you scroll down further you see reviews from top critics and all of this is without ever leaving the website. When you scroll down further, you can read reviews from other fellow users, “The lists” (top 100 movies/ best movie of the year, etc.) and in the end, you see a section named related films.
On the whole, this website is solely for people who like movies that belong to tags like Art-House, Avant-Garde, and World Cinema. If you like movies that are offbeat and less known you can give this website a go.
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