I saw Catfish Monday night, I want to talk about it. But, as it is a film shrouded in mystery and I'm not one to burst shrouds, I'm posting my comments on the movie in the comments. So if you'd like to see what I think of it, click on the Comments below. My thoughts were too big for one comment so I split them into two. You'll see that when you get there.
This is what I ate during the movie. Can you tell what it is?
It's a white chocolate Twix. We don't have these in America. Cher brought me one from over the sea.
But this isn't a post about food, it's a post about Catfish. Which I've ranted about in the comments. So click on Comments to see what I've said. If you're interested.
And I brought myself a McDonalds cheeseburger from nextdoor. It was so delicious. Every now and then a McDonalds cheeseburger during a movie is just so delicious.
Also, one more thing: This is a post about Catfish, and I talk about it in the comments so as to not spoil. Right down there, where it says Comments. Click that.
2 comments:
So here’s the thing about Catfish: Never, not for half a second, did I think it was real. Not for a single moment. Had I not been told it was a documentary I would have never even suspected it was supposed to be a true story. And I don’t say this because I think it was too farfetched to have been true. I’m sure something like what happened in this movie could happen in real life. But what I saw in that movie, that wasn’t real life.
Let me give you my reasons. And honestly, I should have written these down a week ago when I was more worked up about this thing.
First of all, there was my Malcom Gladwell reaction: First frame of the movie comes up and I’m like “Oh, this is fake.” And all I know about Blink, or the Tipping Point, or maybe Outliers is that those instantaneous judgments, they’re the ones you stick with.
Second of all, dude’s photo from the NY Sun inspires these paintings, right? How in the world did some lady in Michigan see is photo that was in the NY Sun? I mean, who even reads the Sun?
Third of all, the quality of the paintings. Not good. And I can believe being impressed that a 7 or 8 year old painted them, but to believe a 7 or 8 year old was getting thousands of dollars for these paintings? Come on. In real life you’d have googled this right away and solved the mystery in that instant.
AND we’re to believe this little artist has donated possibly tens of thousands of dollars worth of her art to this fellow she admires?
Fourth of all, the Facebook profiles. Did those really even look like real people? Especially Megan? And these dudes allegedly believe the guy with the goatee in the picture by Megan is her dad? Come on.
And now, an interjection. The dudes that made Catfish have said something like “Well, if this isn’t a documentary then Nev is the greatest actor since Marlon Brando and we’re the best screenwriters ever.” Eh, nope. It’s a decent screenplay and congratulations, Nev, you can act like you like you’re talking to someone you like on the phone.
I’m going to jump ahead to some specific things now:
I hope I remember this right . . .When the dudes are driving to the horsefarm in the middle of the night they show the GPS unit, it says it’s 2:30 in the morning. A little while later, they say it’s 1:30 in the morning. Driving away, the GPS shows 1am. Something like that.
AND when they check the mailbox at the horesefarm, oh! There’s the two postcards from Nev and an AT&T bill? So no one lives here, no one checks the mail? But the lights are on outside? And in the months since Nev sent the postcards to this address the horsefarm got one other piece of mail, and it was an AT&T bill?
Everything always looks good, or looks like it’s supposed to look bad, and everything always sounds good. And the filmmakers seemed to get every shot they needed, pretty lucky little documentarians.
When they hug to see if they can feel the microphone on Nev it’s like they put that there just so people can’t say “Why didn’t she feel the mic when she hugged him?” AND also, so these dudes were sure they were going to get hugs? With all those steamy texts why wasn’t he worried his shirt was going to be taken off?
When did they have time or think to videotape the one handicapped kid’s empty wheelchair so they could later tell us he had died?
I DO believe those kids were handicapped. That I was sure of.
Also, Angela’s husband’s little story about the catfish, you know, the moment we learn how the movie got its name. Why was he even telling that story out on the porch? Especially if he had “no idea” about what his wife had been up to (because you know, he never answers the phone). So he was just out on the porch, freestylin’ and he thought to tell his catfish story that coincidentally sums up Nev and Angela’s relationship to the kids with the camera? That’s a real get for the filmmakers right there.
At the end of the film, in the wrap up, we can see that time has passed and people have moved on because Nev has a haircut. That is a good way to help us understand that it is later. And that people have changed. Because their hair did.
And another thing that was odd to me: the dialogue. These dudes almost never swear. Even when they’re all scared or being blown away there’s no swearing. Which is nice but, hate to say it, unrealistic.
Do I believe there are people who lie like Angela? Absolutely. I believe in compulsive liars.
The kids blowing the lid on the whole thing at the beach house, seemed very staged, the friend on the stairs. AND if Abby was at her friend’s dad’s beach house, uhh, where was the dad?
In the credits they thank JJ Abrams and JJ Abrams is always linked to tricky, deceptive, mysterious things.
Okay, those are just some of my reasons that I thought this fake documentary was fake.
And you know what, if it turns out that this movie was real then I can only say “Dudes, your real life documentary looks mad fake, why didn’t you do a better job of being real?”
Because it shouldn’t be so hard to make real things look real.
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