Catfish (2010)

Ironically I found this to be a very disingenuous and mean-spirited film from the start.Initially the film makers make the case for an adult man striking up an innocent online mutual appreciation with an 8 year old girl who also appears to be a talented painter. Very early on we are given several scenes where the main participant and his friends are filming their surprise at clues that all is not as it appears with the little girls story. But their body language and giggly, childish demeanour suggest to me that they have already done much of the "investigating" that would later come to pass in the narrative. Their big joyous grins and covering of stifled titters at the situation suggests a prior set-up of these early moments on film. This isn't a problem had they then continued their google detective work and simply exposed their stalker-slash-victim as just another online Baron Munchausen. But we are later treated to a cringe-worthy 'look through your fingers if you dare' scene where the central participant reads private texts between himself and the beautiful older sister of the girl whom he has struck up a sexting relationship with online. By now we know, that they know the whole thing is a fake, so why we are given this scene where he lays shirtless in bed reading aloud and mocking masturbatory texts between himself and the target, knowing all the long this online profile is a lie? It is very unsettling. Who is fooling who here? When they meet the target, we are given enough evidence to deduce that it is in fact not the youngest daughter who is the painter in the family, that would be the plain, unglamorous mother who is not a slim, ethereal beauty as imagined in her portrait. The older daughter and love interest is of course nowhere to be seen and can't be reached by telephone. We deduce she is entirely a romantic fantasy persona of the woman's creation.Her deception is of course deplorable, but the film crew go on to perpetuate this online fantasy as much as she has, and furthermore have hunted her down, attempting to confront her but afraid of the consequences. After several polite but awkward meetings, it isn't until an hour in to the film that we see any hint of humility from the film makers, where the truth about the her online fantasy life finally comes out in the "open", well - filmed from afar without her knowledge. Later she is interviewed on camera and pretty much bares her soul to these virtual strangers in a tearful full confessional. Yes, she was a foolish woman, but this took guts and at no point did she ever seem antagonistic or volatile after her lies had been exposed. Let me be very clear - The woman was a fraud. She seems to be leading a very hard life looking after a young daughter and two severely disabled step-sons. Finding a creative outlet in painting to relieve her daily grind, and taking an online flirtation WAY too far appears to be her biggest 'crime.' I feel like they catfished this woman as much as she catfished them. I sympathise with her as a struggling mother and carer of disabled relatives, and not with the three smug, smirking New York art student types who in the end exploited her as much as she initially fooled them. They knowingly perpetuated this fake relationship as much as she did. And early on in the film they make it pretty clear what is going on when they discover the songs the daughter character had passed off as her own work are simply ripped from youtube by other artists - they could have ended it there, but they were clearly too invested in making a global mockery of this unfortunate and foolish woman, when the sensible thing would've been to just gently cut communications with her online, or at least curtail them to simple passing pleasantries. Instead they continued a pseudo-romance and sexting relationship with her, all the time filming a condescending one-sided interaction just to for their own amusement and a juicier documentary.I felt a strength of character from her that I never picked up from the chattering, giggling immature film makers. To open up about her silly lies so candidly on camera is a very brave and honourable thing to do. Ironically, I never felt like we got to know the film makers as truthfully as we did her. Although the film makers put themselves in this unusual situation and took it way further than most would, they always had the security blanket of the camera, they were never laid bare like their subject was. I applaud her for allowing them to make this documentary.What I take away from this movie is that today, many people are out for themselves and whether you're posing as a pretty young singer/artist online or exploiting strangers for your student film career - you had better be on guard and be out for yourself because someone out there is looking to f*ck you over unless you do it to them first. Neither party gets my full sympathy, but if anything I side with the woman as the more innocent party since she was clearly already a very damaged person with immense responsibilities and chronic low self-esteem. A trio of young, single privileged Millenials in New York who perpetuated and inflamed this woman's fantasy deserve nothing from this, but I hope they at least learnt from the experience and put their talents to better use in the future.

Story goes fish mongers use to take cod from Alaska and ship it in a vat to china. They would turn mushy after all that time so a man had an idea to put catfish in with them to keep them agile and tasty. Going through life we meet people that keep us on our toes, keep us interesting, these people are the catfish in our life now as a reviewer I am going to tell you Nevs. Told through the eyes of Schluman and Joost's the classic story of a journey to the unknown into social media. This outstanding documentary describes the events of Nev as he develops an online relationship with an entire family hundreds of miles away. The story that unfolds as he drives to Michigan in a quest to find out who all these people really are. The open and closing scenes are both interviews of Nev and his feelings towards the Wesselman family, this depicts the change mentally of Nev from start to finish. Super imposed titles were used in this documentary to show information about Nevs journey. The documentary explores the theme of self discovery and deception to depict what can happen in social media as Facebook had just became popular, this shows the positives and negatives of instant messaging and the ways we use social media. Many people will feel "Catfish" by Schulman and Joost's is a sensitive documentary about Nev and the positives and negatives of social media and the deception of families and the people in lives that are our catfish.

"Catfish" is a really nice straight forward look into our new modern lives where we can create our own identities. Some, obviously, have more to run from than others. But NO ONE can claim they are innocent of complete and total truth.This movie left me with a very sad melancholy sense of how we identify ourselves. Without giving away much, I felt that there isn't a person in this world that wouldn't trade it for one they could control from scratch. To that, we see a lot of false hopes, broken dreams and reality that hits us too hard in the face. In essence, we feel more sympathy for the ones who would be deceptive over the ones that attempt to find deception since not one of us can deny we dream of others' lives. And sometimes, we believe it's better than our own. In this world...you can't blame the person for wanting a better life, if not even just imaginary.I really liked this movie. But I really don't like the people who made it. They seem to take joy in wanting to humiliate something they've already come to know. I do feel the redeeming value is when you do get the "real" story at the end. And it's heartbreaking and truthful. And you take all the supposed betrayal you feel and find that it is sometimes good that people will challenge your perception. The title doesn't give you an idea of what the movie is, but the explanation within the movie sure explains this idea.

With a name like 'Catfish" I wish the documentary was about good seafood cuisine, but it isn't. It's about the shiftiness of truth and lies on the Internet. It's seem like it would be a great documentary about the psychology of people who live through personas online and how the anonymity of the internet can allow them to make their persona life seem bigger than their real life, or say or do things that they couldn't do in public. The movie barely touches that; instead we get a documentary about a young man name Yaniv "Nev" Schulman who trying to meet a woman name Megan in real life, after a long affair with her, online. Filmed by his brother Ariel Schulman and business partner Henry Joost, the documentary crew guerrilla style filmmaking followed Schulman on the journey of falling in love with a girl he meets on the internet, but later finds out that she may not be exactly who she claimed to be online. The movie was market as if a thriller-like terminology. The trailer acts like it was an Alfred Hitchcock's type of suspense as if Megan end up being a serial killer or psychopath. It may have been a tad misleading. The story is extremely contemporary. Anybody who dealt with people online such as having a Facebook or Myspace account, knows that some of them might be lying on who they are. It's nothing new. Without spoiling the movie, in my opinion the ending wasn't really that shocking. It was pretty damn predictable. Still, there is questions how real the documentary is. Some viewers believe Catfish to be a fake documentary or a hoax. Even famous documentary director Morgan Spurlock thinks they knew beforehand who was Megan was, due to the obsessively documenting Nev's online relationship due to the release that there might be highly good chance that she might be a fake. Anyways the results of finding out who she is, isn't scary, but sadder and more melancholy about how one woman's life dreams dies and how hard her life is now. It just shows that some people are so lonely that they are willing to do anything to feel connect to somebody. Some people needed a fantasy world to get through their own misery. Anyways, the movie became such a success that Schulman teamed up with MTV to produce a reality television show similar to the idea of the documentary but which focuses on the lives of others who have been entangled in an online relationship with another person. His brother and his friend Henry Joost end up directing Paranormal Activity 3 and 4 after this. Even the word 'catfish' got famous- as it's now known as someone who pretends to be someone and create false identities on social media, particularly to pursue deceptive online romance. The title of the film comes from the story about how when fishes are caught and are transported in tanks, they would often die because they wouldn't swim around and keep themselves moving. So, people would put catfish in the tanks with the other fish to keep them stimulated and moving around. He says that catfish are people who keep you on your toes. Like people in your life who will keep you going in all situations. Overall: That's the best part of the movie. I didn't like how it was promoted as "A riveting suspense thriller with a jaw-dropping twist" with neither riveting nor suspenseful twist. I felt 'catfish' by this movie's marketing. Still, it's a pretty good movie worth watching so check it out if you want to.