Catfish

Catfish (2010)

81% on Rotten Tomatoes (out of 126 reviews)

Runtime: 87 minutes

Directed by: Henry Joost/Ariel Schulman

Starring: Ariel Schulman, Yaniv Schulman, Angela Weselman-Pierce

From: Universal/Rogue/Relativity

Here’s a documentary movie that I’ve heard about for awhile now, and if I would have seen it last year, I would have included it in the list I just posted.

By the way, my apologies for posting this so late, but things got in the way.

Anyhow, I just saw it on DVD this week and while it’s controversial, I’d still include it on the list of the best movies I saw that were released in 2010. Problem is, I can’t say too much about the movie itself without giving out major spoilers, and in the case of this film, major spoilers would REALLY ruin everything.

To try and explain it the best I can in vague terms, the movie is about a photographer who lives in New York City (Yaniv Schulman) who one day receives word that a photo he took was painted by an 8 year old girl who lives in the upper peninsula of Michigan. At this same time, his brother Ariel and Henry Joost are filming him for some sort of documentary. They end up following him as he gets to know the family of the 8 year old girl, and he actually becomes online friends with the 19 year old girl in the family, Megan… only it was more than just friends when they talked to each other.

Things happen and… I’ll stop there. The big appeal is that you aren’t supposed to know too much about the movie or how it turns out. Let’s just say that you may have an idea, but it isn’t truly what you expected.

What I can say is that the controversy is over how much of the movie is legit. Some thing that it’s all staged; others think that it’s all real, and others think that part of it was recreated later on in order to fit into an exciting narrative but the last half of the movie or so is totally legit. I fall into that latter category. I usually am a hater when it comes to “reality” TV as almost all of it is totally staged/manipulated and it’s a total waste of time dealing with garbage where producers fan the flames to cause drama. Don’t even get me started on Jersey Shore and how just hearing that it’s return Thursday night had over EIGHT MILLION viewers… it makes me want to inject cyanide!

However, in this case, due to reasons I can’t really get into, I can’t complain about part of it being recreated. It had to be done in that way in order to make the movie so engrossing and mysterious at times.

The theme of the movie was technology (the Internet plays a big role, with Google Maps, YouTube, iTunes, and other stalwarts) and how it’s pervasive today and yet for some people, it’s really needed in their lives, but used in the wrong way/you go overboard with it and yikes, people can get really wrapped up in that whole scene.

Two last things… ignore the theatrical trailer that was created for the film. It’s totally misleading. Sure, it’s hard to market this sort of documentary, but still… misleading. Also, the title of the movie actually is explained by the end. It’s rather wacky but it actually makes sense given what the movie ends up being about; but again I can’t reveal more than that as it would give away something major. As you can see, this is a unique movie but if you’re willing to give a chance and fully believe that everyone is on the up and up, you’ll never forget it, even if replay value may not be the highest.

I’ll be back Wednesday night with a new review.