[wwader]

open -a is nice, i use it with alias, ex:

  alias qt='open -a "quicktime player"'
  alias vlc='open -a "vlc"'

[FabHK]

At least for me (I've installed vlc via homebrew), there is a vlc binary in the PATH, and I can just vlc <filename>

[qrios]

The point here is to open a document with an app not assigned as default for the given mime-type by file name extension.