The Movie
I ain't buyin' it.
The movie Catfish purports to be a documentary about a New York City photographer and his online friendship with an eight-year-old painter in a small Michigan town. This soon grows into cordial dealings with the girl's mom, and eventually a possible romantic relationship with the mom's oldest daughter. It's all rather mundane actually, until some innocent investigation soon catches the would-be flame in a lie, inspiring a road trip to confront the clan.
From there, it's a lot of "Hmm, that's odd!" mugging for the camera, and in so many ways it just doesn't ring true. Instead, Catfish seems to want to do for internet fraud what The Blair Witch Project did for Wiccan curses, walking and talking like a minimalist, factual film but covertly scripted so as to leave audiences uncomfortable with the conclusion. But was it uneasiness or just boredom that made me eye the fast forward button on the remote? Catfish (a sort of nickname for someone who keeps you on your toes) is more curious than suspenseful, and not nearly as provocative as the filmmakers hope it is.
Then again, maybe you'll believe David Kempler's review of Catfish.
The Picture
It's trying to come off as a low-budget hipster documentary and so Catfish is obviously captured on high-def video, framed at 1.78:1 with even the cameras themselves appearing on camera. There are a lot of shots of computer screens, and that same pixelated digital look is applied to other images as well, to interesting effect. There is occasional slight video noise, as well as occasional heavy video noise in darker scenes. The look is better than expected but not really exemplary.
The Sound
Because the movie was shot so simply, often guerilla-style, the live audio is very basic as well, often muffled to the point that subtitles are necessary. Catfish usually swims in the front channels only, although Mark Mothersbaugh's (late of Devo) musical score is more generously mixed, noticeably filling the rears at one point.
The Extras
The only video extra is a 25-minute segment (in HD) where the star and directors interview one another (afraid what might come out if someone else interviewed them...?), wherein they rely heavily upon pre-printed notes. The trio tries so hard to charm and convince viewers, seemingly eager to further the broader discussion of online identities, a hot-button topic.
The disc is also BD-Live-enabled, with Universal's "Ticker" newsfeed. It supports pocket BLU content and control as well.
Final Thoughts
At this point in the evolution of Facebook, Google and YouTube--all of which figure prominently in Catfish--who doesn't know that the internet can be misused for purposes of deception, sometimes maliciously so? Do we need a slight little faux documentary to make that point? A bigger, undeniably genuine documentary I'd welcome, but I have serious doubts about this one. Rent it and decide for yourself.
Product Details
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