That's not your real mouse clicker hovering over this picture Einstein.

 

“Don’t let anyone tell you what it is.”  So sayeth the tagline to Catfish a Docu/Mockumentary starring Yaniv Schulman (or Nev.)  I’m here today to tell you what it is.  One big fat filmmaking fail.

The story revolves around Yaniv Schulman, a 24 year old hipster, complete with nerd glasses, cutoff jorts (jean shorts) and a tramp stamp above his ass.

 

Nev's tramp stamp is very similar to this. Once again I am NOT kidding although Nev prefers red tighty-whities to the much less teste constricting boxers.

 

He is a photographer and when one of his photos makes it into a magazine, an 8 year old girl paints it and starts a facebook friendship with him.  He has regular conversations with the girls mom Angela, and 19 y/o daughter Megan.  The relationship blossoms and he falls for Megan.

SPOILER.  Turns out Megan, Angela and everyone else supporting the story is all the creation of the creepy mom Angela who paints the pictures herself and pretends to be a smoking hot 19 year old.  Ahh the wonders of Facebook!

Yaniv and his filmmaking brother decide to get to the bottom of the story and travel to Michigan to uncover the truth when holes start to pop up in the family’s story.

 

The first of the holes in Angela's story! It's a big un'!!!

 

PROBLEMS.  According to IMDB the filmmakers claim this is a real story.  FALSE.  It is staged and a big ole fat hoax.  If you go to IMDB here you can even see that the film is classified as a “thriller” instead of a documentary.

I’ve been disappointed a few times this year but wowsers this one really pissed me off.  If the story were true I would say the film was “mildly interesting.”  Now knowing that it’s staged I feel the film is “anger inducing ca-ca.”  The only thing that kept me from completely flying off the handle was the fact that Angela had to take care of her husbands two mentally handicapped step children.  That tugs at my heart strings but still makes me Hulkishly angry knowing that the filmmakers took advantage of this to humanize Angela.

 

I Can Has Toof Brush?

 

I would urge NOBODY to see this movie.  I gave it a 1 in my 2010 film rankings bringing it neck and neck with M. Night’s Ultra turd The Last Airbender.

 

THIS is a catfish.

 

 

THIS is a catfish (or part of one...or probably several heavily processed bits of hundreds of catfish.)

 

 

THIS is a catfish. This is also a man with 1/2 a brain but yes, still a catfish.

 

 

THIS is NOT a catfish. This is 3 New York Hipsters out to steal the money in your wallet in exchange for watching them Hip around for 105 minutes.

 

I’ll leave you with a few thoughts.

1.  45 minutes into the movie I looked at my watch.  I thought I’d been there for over an hour.  I knew then that something was amiss…

2.  When the movie got over a middle aged man and his wife got up the INSTANT the credits started rolling.  He tartly told his wife, “LET’S GO.”  Outside the theater I heard him say “It shouldn’t have been called Catfish, it should have been called Suckfish.  It sucked.”  She gently tried to stand up for the movie she’d very obviously dragged her unwilling husband to.  He only replied:  “It sucked.”

3.  These filmmakers have cast their lines, fishing for an audience for a falsely advertised and poorly concepted movie.  A word of caution.  DON’T BITE.