CATFISH (2010) - no thread for this yet?

please make sure any and all Luna jokes are quality before posting

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJfaz_w7-f8

really stoked on this-- be courteous abt spoilers please

ooo that looks good

release date is next weekend!

I know if I wait to see it I'm not going to enjoy it as much

I've been told that it is a completely fictitious ripoff of this article, despite it being marketed as a documentary of sorts.

i'm ok with it being fake. not reading that article though.

oh, looking at the URL i think I might have before? was there a thread on it?

I saw it last night and can't imagine how any part of it could've been fake. There are details you just wouldn't add if it were a fictional story. And while the big reveal isn't that surprising once you know to expect a reveal, there are so many layers to it that the movie is still gripping as a suspense thriller and fascinating as a psychological portrait.

I imagine the fact that it unfolds narratively is a big part of why some people suspect it of being a hoax: the filmmakers started making the movie before they knew what the movie would end up being about. But that doesn't seem that weird to me, since the filming did begin with a semi-interesting kernel, and the filmmakers seem like the kind of guys who just sit around filming each other for kicks.

Btw, trailer makes it seem like a horror movie or something, which it isn't at all.

And even when I say that it's "gripping as a suspense thriller," there's probably only about 15 minutes of the movie that really feels like what you'd imagine that phrase to suggest. But you're also a bit on edge and curious for longer than that.

Now: having read some of the objections to the truth of the film, I can see that the issue is not with what the filmmakers find -- which is assuredly not fabricated -- but with how surprising the reveal actually is to them, when they actually began to suspect the truth, etc. And to be honest, that does give me pause. But I don't know that it invalidates the film.

I'd love for more people to see this so I can talk about it spoilerishly.

there's speculation that the filmmakers kinda "knew" what they had on their hands when they started filming and maybe played some of it up (possibly around PLOTPOINTdiscovering the recording were false). which would mean that's it's true, but maybe like all documentaries it's hard to get distance from the filmmaker (esp when they're part of the story)?

the guy's naivete seems so fake (whether or not it ACTUALLY HAPPENED) even from the trailer, can't imagine how it feels plausible on screen.

why are all the critics saying "you'll never believe the final forty minutes" or when the SPOILERS (SPOILERS!!!) I've seen suggest that the final forty minutes pretty much sync up with every internet-romance horror story ever.

then again a lotta people loved when Super Size Me revealed eating a ton of fast food every day makes you sick

someone is gonna write a killer book called Pathological Behavior in the Age of the Internet and it's gonna be frightening + bizarre + awesome

you'll never believe what happened when we finally went to Nigeria to meet Prince Abakaliki

lol

why are all the critics saying "you'll never believe the final forty minutes" or when the SPOILERS (SPOILERS!!!) I've seen suggest that the final forty minutes pretty much sync up with every internet-romance horror story ever.

The Luna movie probably would have been more entertaining.

I am absolutely stunned that people really think this is a documentary. This isn't even well-acted!

The veracity (or lack thereof) of the film is def a part of its appeal, so it makes sense people would want to discuss whether or to what extent it's really a documentary.

there were people who believed in the Blair Witch Project (or pretended like *maybe it's true!* for the fun of it) and that was clearly lol-bogus.

This isn't even well-acted!

I haven't seen this yet, but tbh, that sounds like more of an endorsement to it being true.

uhhh so

i saw this movie and thought it was really really wonderful. exciting and well-made and of-the-moment, and with a kind of unobvious empathy. really wonderful.

my own perspective: it's clearly a real documentary, just what it seems, no "acting".

really underwhelmed and a little creeped out by this, and not in the way it was intended.

i have not seen this, though i have seen the trailer and know ~what happens~ (like it's hard to guess) and

a) i can't believe, just going on the events described, that it's not fake. YOU WOULD GOOGLE. at the very least! whether what they find is real or not, i don't know, but that coming as a shocker is some bs
b) if what they find is real, doesn't that make them total douches for exploiting it in this way? whether or not their reactions were real?

=> why i won't be seeing the full thing, because whatever is actually true, i don't feel like i want to give my money to this project.

super talented filmmakers (NY EXPORT OPUS JAZZ is maybe the best new thing I've seen this year)this isn't perfect, but it's very compelling.

*sort of vague spoiler?*
while the craft is definitely there, i don't think i like that they structure it around 'twists' or whatever--the best part is definitely post-twist, when it turns into a p remarkable character study

lex, i'm guessing you don't know exactly what happens (it's actually pretty believable and google wouldn't have solved most of it)

"'This isn't even well-acted!'

"I haven't seen this yet, but tbh, that sounds like more of an endorsement to it being true."

I didn't mean "they seem like amateurs who aren't acting -- I mean that even in the trailer, they are throwing in "best in my class at acting school" realism signifiers. You know?

just a general fyi:

the film was made by very cool, very smart NYC arthouse film dudes.

the trailer was made by brett ratner.

The trailer is hugely misleading.

SPOILER SPOILER ETCCCCC:

Regardless, what really bothered me about Catfish was the extensive filming of a mentally ill woman and the use of her "character" as a "plot twist," which they try to make us feel less queasy about through unconvincing it's-all-good aftertitles. And I found the first half pretty draggy, especially since the main dude was a huge drag to spend much time watching. (By the umpteenth appearance of Google Earth, we got the point.) Beyond anything else though, the obviousness really bothered me - like, really, we cant believe everything we see on the 'net? SHOCKER.

NY Esport: Opus Jazz looks really cool, though.

^^^simon h otm w/r/t why the premise of this film leaves a REALLY sour taste in the mouth, beyond is it real/fake (which is just duhhh for me). didn't she try to block it, too?

"lex, i'm guessing you don't know exactly what happens (it's actually pretty believable and google wouldn't have solved most of it)"

I don't think anyone's saying that the filmmakers knew "most of it", just that they clearly knew and would have known enough that the entire way they set up the film defies logic.

And I think the fact that they are pretending "they never knew what they were going to find out there" is just a way of trying to avoiding the accusations of exploiting this woman/her family. "We were just as shocked as everyone else that some people make fake Facebook accounts, but we just let the camera's roll!"

Yeah the "ignorance" and some of the stagings set off my (admittedly sensitive) BS detector.

no sign in sight of this being released here any time soon. really tempted to read spoilers

especially since the main dude was a huge drag to spend much time watching.

Lots of reviews I've read after seeing it have commented on how Nev and the filmmakers are annoying smug privileged NYC hipsters. Maybe I'm a hipster myself, but I didn't have this reaction, and I thought Nev was pretty charming if a bit callow.

SPOILER: All of her photos were from the neck up and at a downward angle because she was kinda fat.

love how the guys immediately respond with that "oh so Nev's Marlon Brando and I'm the best writer ever!" when people ask if the film is fake. To be fair, it does suggest they may well be the kind of narcissistic idiots who would chronicle one side of a web romance on film for months before googling the other.

The fourfour review of this was perfect.

http://fourfour.typepad.com/fourfour/2010/09/catfishbullshit.html

Another thing I'd like to address: the first thing I heard about this movie was that it was a documentary produced by the guy who did Capturing the Friedmans and that it was best if you knew nothing about it before you saw it. Later, I happened to glance at a single-sentence synopsis: (POSSIBLE SPOILER) guy goes to Michigan to visit an 8-year-old girl he's met on MySpace. But I deliberately avoided reading anything else, and so that's all I knew about it going in. (Because of the inaccurate "MySpace" bit, I thought maybe it was a movie about a pedophile.)

While eagerly waiting for the movie to open, I wondered if I was a sucker for buying into the film's secretive marketing campaign. Because if I had decided to investigate the movie's background and reviews, there's a chance I wouldn't be as interested in it. Now that I've seen the movie, though, I'm really glad that I knew so little, since my opinions weren't colored by anyone else's. It bums me out that people are judging this movie on the trailer and their assumptions about what the movie is about. I'm not denying there may be ethical issues at play here, but I do think it's worth seeing first.

I read the fourfour review yesterday and thought Rich had some good points but was bummed out by his massive cynicism.

It's kinda fitting this movie would appeal most to the people who want to know the least coming in.

you might not end up enjoying Catfish, it's bullshit to pile on the movie before you've seen it.

as for whether or not it's "real" - felt real to me. sometimes that's enough.

SPOILERS

the extensive filming of a mentally ill woman and the use of her "character" as a "plot twist," which they try to make us feel less queasy about through unconvincing it's-all-good aftertitles.

maybe your viewing was coloured by the PR machine? i hadn't seen the trailer etc before going, and the "twist" didn't feel like a "twist" -- just like a corner turned in the film. certainly not the heart/essence of the movie; just what happened in it.

i think "mental illness" is a stretch and not material to the ethics of the film. i thought the film's last section was, at least in part, a sensitive, humane, partial character portrait of Angela. an honest, unusual view of this "kind" of person: the perspective of three dudes who stumble into her, and then negotiate that in two (or three) different ways.

I found the first half pretty draggy, especially since the main dude was a huge drag to spend much time watching. (By the umpteenth appearance of Google Earth, we got the point.)

Fair enough. I disagree!

Beyond anything else though, the obviousness really bothered me - like, really, we cant believe everything we see on the 'net? SHOCKER.

But the film really, really wasn't about this. It's like the filmmakers agreed with you, and so didn't dwell on the internet lies! angle. Instead, it just seemed like a film about the new kinds of relationships we have, mediated by the internet; and about the fact of strange people, who we encounter in new ways; and trying to deal with these strange situations in non-douchebag ways [and not necessarily succeeding]; and just about the fact of walking through the turns and corners that life sometimes gives you. in other words, durr, about life or something. not about "the internet". this sounds banal, but it gets to the heart of why i liked hte movie so much. like the best documentaries, its subject-matter seemed to gesture toward and extend past literal "topic".

for me the most important line of the film is when Henry says in the car, after they've arrived, "i don't want to hurt this family", and the conversation they have about that. this, besides the character judgments we all make with our own radar, is the biggest response to the cynical (wrong) AO Scott reading.

as for Fourfour's take - uh, i just don't see what he's seeing. Nev seems like a naive, pompous weirdo, that's all. one of the things i like about the film is that Nev sorta turns out looking the worst (dumb, self-absorbed, condescending) in the whole movie; and the filmmakers are ok with being an accessory to that.

"and trying to deal with these strange situations in non-douchebag ways"

Like filming them!

yes but: trying

it's hard shit to figure out, sometimes. and the film seems to accept they might not be making the right choices.

that all the subjects signed off on the film makes the ethics of the "filming" not v conflicted, to me.

Does the lady in the movie strike you as being mentally fit to sign a consent form, Sean?

Sure she does.

She does to me. Really, she mostly just seems lonely and depressed. She has an active fantasy life, but she's also very much aware that it's fantasy.

...and is also depicted as a pathological liar, even when confronted in person. Does that seem like average lonely-person behavior?

(IE cancer shit)

as for Fourfour's take - uh, i just don't see what he's seeing. Nev seems like a naive, pompous weirdo, that's all. one of the things i like about the film is that Nev sorta turns out looking the worst (dumb, self-absorbed, condescending) in the whole movie; and the filmmakers are ok with being an accessory to that.

First you say they had the best of intentions dealing with the family, then you say the filmmakers didn't mind being accessories to a "naive, pompous weirdo" as he engaged in a months-long internet relationship no one bothered to investigate. If the film crew were neither knowingly exploiting the internet abusers on the other side of the computer screen, or the filmmaker's idiot brother, then it really is amazing everyone involved hasn't lost their money to Prince Abakaliki yet.

hearing all the complaints about this movie dismissed as "cynical" is taking me back to the Lost finale.

http://www.vulture.com/2014/09/catfishs-nev-schulman-punched-a-girl-in-college.html

Ken Schneck, the former Sarah Lawrence administrator, added, "All I can say on the record, as the former Assistant Dean of Student Affairs, is that he was a condescending, entitled, reprehensible tool. :)"

Because he was in another student’s MFA dance project, Schulman was allowed to return to campus for the performance, but was not allowed back to complete his degree, according to three students.

angel haze shd be on this show permanently

there are too often like giant unasked questions of the person they're helping, like last ep the girl being "catfished" was like oh they were so supportive of me during my MISCARRIAGE……this internet person whom the girl had never met irl and considered herself to be in a real relationship w/??.……and it never was questioned at all

idk maybe i shd stop watching entertainment meant for tweens

you should not stop, catfish is unapologetically amazing

it is entertaining/infuriating for sure, just 20 yr olds making excuses for terrible decisions + behavior

"she said she was having an operation the same day as my midterms"

and she said she wanted you to come to the hospital?

"yes" (text shown on screen of I want u to be there im scared or w/e)

Q never asked in any form - did you just ask her which hospital

"so I called every hospital in the area & there was no one by that name, etc etc and I didn't take my midterms and had to drop out of school" O_O

you can't expect all people to have the same ability to navigate through life's challenges
that's why i feel so sad when i watch this show. people want to believe so badly.

Stopped watching when guests got to join nev on his umpteenth trip to ask someone clearly troubled why they were exploiting someone for emotional support and then goad the two into interacting for the cameras, just not the same without max

did max's EDM movie come out yet

in 2 weeks

i wonder if i ever would have gotten into this show if the first one i saw didn't involve the catfisher being a romantic nemesis throwing a single rose down at the catfished. that was a good doorway in.

my second favorite moment was probably when nev threw a catfisher's cellphone in the sea.

funny re-reading my posts about the first movie (which i'll probably never see). def seems now that nev is pretty clueless - from what i hear he's left out of a lot of the decision making and is almost like a willing participant in his own Truman Show, pushed along on adventures by producers. Max's motivations seem a little more ambiguous.

Max is a legit terrible person

speaking of people who really want to believe, i just watched the ep with Lauren (TX single mom) and Dylan (Maryland bro) and can't stop thinking about how desperately she wanted to believe and how she was not at all put off by the fact that her beloved was such a chicken

here is an update about them and The Mysterious LaVourne http://www.theashleysrealityroundup.com/2013/08/20/catfish-couple-lauren-derek-where-are-they-now/

reminds me, I wanted to post abt the one w the medium talking to the deceased father????

yeah that one was similar -- really impressionable young girl who lost her mom early (and wow, the circumstances)

the one with felipe was another standout

i've been binging on this since we got paid-hulu and i'm addicted. but there is some seriously dodgy shit going on

e.g. the tiana + james ep - they never have a friend come along with the victim to meet the catfisher, and this **one time** they do, the catfisher turns out to be the friend's baby-daddy??? what a coincidence!

e.g. the one with the wrestler dude and the hot girl wrestler he was into - turns out, SHE wrote in first to the show, but they told her it would make a better story if it was the other way round?!

e.g. the chicago dude who was into the CLEARLY a porn star girl who turned out to be a vigilante against cheaters - those two dudes are friends IRL!

and holy shit @ the cyberbully ep - i looked up that girl tracey armah and she's a lunatic. her fb page is revealing pics/vids with statuses like 'it feels amazing to be raped'. jesus christ.

really sad about the couple who died 2 yrs apart ;_;

lol @ this guy thinking hes talking to katy perry ep, & his still like "double-checking" @ the end

omg that guy
what a character
if i found out that the whole thing was acting, he would be the best actor ever
unfortunately, i don't think that's the case
esp when they brought his brother in? my god. i also liked how he went from 1000 on max's confidence in katy perry scale of 1-10 to a 1 ;-/

unfortunately for him, not for us -- how hard must it be to go through life as that guy? i felt for him.

yea i hope hes ok

omg the one last night about shelly -- haunting
the story left me wondering a lot about "the texas woman" -- are they done with this investigation? the last word as they drove down the desolate canadian road seemed like the end but i feel like there is a lot of info we are not getting (in spite of all the info we got)

i just can't stop thinking about shelly and her teeth and the whole thing

yea otm lord her teeth

def compelling but its p messy of the paris girl to raise this, I don't think shelly is gonna do anything ever again & absolutely not to paris or birdman

i read that paris recently married don mclean!??!
72 year old don "american pie" mclean!?!?
http://previously.tv/catfish/catfish-gets-in-way-over-its-head-by-moonlighting-in-ex-offender-re-entry/

shelly was way more sympathetic than they had made her out to be

and the mysterious "texas woman" has yet to have anything to say about this
i imagine her like the OG catfish lady

shelly dropped out of school in 6th grade (to take care of her mom delia) and had never seen a dentist or a doctor

sorry -- paris is merely ENGAGED to don mclean
shelly reminds me how much human misery is on the planet :(
a lot

it does seem odd to chase down a catfish that's already revealed. i'm not sure how i feel abt that.

paris said "I bet my life" she [shelly] would catfish again

nev and max obvs have a belief that they have investigative & psychological magic they can employ to persuade people to stop catfishing, but instead in this ep they just explained a situation (a complicated one, multiple times) and then showed us some extreme human misery.

paris didn't seem to fully understand shelly's perspective, which doesn't surprise me, but the story did seem to sympathize with her (esp since she was already featured as someone whose pictures were stolen for catfishing in another episode)

in general i think this show is more helpful than harmful, and that divide is not a b/w dichotomy, but this episode did leave me wondering what the point was other than to rehash this story that seems to have already reached its conclusion. they aren't usually into sensationalizing misery (even when it's really really obvious) and this time i can't help but think that kind of happened. it made me sad.

This episode was so so bleak. I really felt for Shelly even though what she did was clearly terrible.

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/10/hook-line-and-sinker/542748/

the one with the wrestler dude and the hot girl wrestler he was into - turns out, SHE wrote in first to the show, but they told her it would make a better story if it was the other way round?!

this is how every episode works, apparently. the producers/MTV puts out an ad saying "are you misrepresenting your identity in an online relationship? do you want to come clean?" etc. everyone is contact in advance and arranged by the producers. nev and max, however, are thrown in blind so all their sleuthing is genuine

this show is incredible

I think I’ve watched every episode — Catfish is my emotional reality junk entertainment of choice.

Did you know there are SIXTY (60!) EPISODES in S8???

I’m on 47.

I saw it last night and can't imagine how any part of it could've been fake. There are details you just wouldn't add if it were a fictional story. And while the big reveal isn't that surprising once you know to expect a reveal, there are so many layers to it that the movie is still gripping as a suspense thriller and fascinating as a psychological portrait.

I imagine the fact that it unfolds narratively is a big part of why some people suspect it of being a hoax: the filmmakers started making the movie before they knew what the movie would end up being about. But that doesn't seem that weird to me, since the filming did begin with a semi-interesting kernel, and the filmmakers seem like the kind of guys who just sit around filming each other for kicks.

― jaymc, Sunday, September 26, 2010 8:25 AM (eleven years ago) bookmarkflaglink

Oh, sweet summer child...

Ok I just discovered this week that there is a Catfish:Mexico (1 season 2018) and it’s on Hulu. If you check the boxes of being conversant in Spanish and a fan of Catfish (the program) like me, this is an exhilarating discovery. I’m on ep 2, super enjoying watching Catfish en español y host Chapu who looks like Nev and (acc to the internet) is gay. The sidekick (Badalt) is innocuous so far.

There is also a Catfish: Colombia! Two seasons!

i finally just watched this movie. unlike upthread when the movie was new, not casting aspersions on authenticity, but in all earnestness, were reverse photo searches not available yet? serious question because by the time I learned about them they had been a thing for a while.

usually first thing I do if I get any message from a stranger (besides decline the request), so I can alert whomever they're stealing from.

the stolen music thing was pretty hilarious.

"no, she can't be faking, how did she find a cover of that song so fast", knows Youtube exists....

Has anyone else listened to podcast SWEET BOBBY?? It’s like a 6 hour ep of Catfish and I gobbled it up. I was worried it would be overly familiar ground but as usual each story is both similar to others (via features of catfishing/emotional manipulation) and unique in its own way.

Im back! Has anyone listened to Beth’s Dead?? Some interesting things to talk about re podcasting, public personas, and cat fishing.

They speak to an expert from Australia who breaks down the various forms of Internet deception in a clear and coherent way. For that I’m grateful; the full arc of the story itself? Idk

I haven’t listened to the latest episode yet but: something just doesn’t quite feel right. Like, when they spoke to him, he sounded totally sincere, and all his reasons etc made sense… but idk the intensity of the initial catfishing, the thought that went into the writing, all the compounding of lies… it just didn’t match with the guy they spoke to??

He is a masterful manipulator. All he had to do was google Monica and see what her soft spot/s were and it worked! It worked for the other two as well. I was shocked at their credulity tbh. Throughout. I thought maybe the husband would stand up (given that the correspondence happened without his knowledge) but he dismissed his feelings as paranoia.or claimed to.

If you haven’t listened to ep 10 yet please note the parallels between the four pillars of online deception (namely Machiavellianism) and the ease with which they justify their own. Idk what’s going on w these people but emotionally astute they are not.

Im so glad someone else listened to this!!

I just finished the latest ep and…. Yeah. This is very weird. Considering how life changing the catfishing was for them, how badly it affected them, I’m pretty shocked at their complete turnaround and naïveté, and the whole sort of “kumbaya”-ism of how they wrapped it up. At one point, Monica says something about how you should IGNORE your instincts, because they were wrong about it being the dad etc, and I was gobsmacked. Like, first of all, never ignore your instincts, and second, that had nothing to do with instincts?!? It was an assumption made on facts.

Also: comparing their podcast to The Mystery Show?!? Wild.