Catfish: Fresh or Half-Baked?

I just finished watching the documentary, Catfish. I had first heard about it months ago when Kelly Ripa...or maybe someone who was way to perky before noon was raving about it. I was intrigued. When I saw it on Netflix last week, I not only immediately put it in my queue, but also zoomed it right up to the top of the list ahead of all the other thousands of titles I would like to see sometime in my lifetime. Okay...maybe not thousands, but it zipped right past a whole lotta movies.

Anyway, it came in the mail yesterday and I just finished watching it this afternoon. Hmmm...where to begin.

Well, first off, if you have not seen Catfish, but plan on it...please stop here. Visit this post another day. I really want you to watch this movie with an open mind, because there really is so much to debate. If you have not seen it, and don't plan on it...or if you have seen it...then welcome to my Rambling thoughts on this documentary.

I went in with an open mind. It started out great. It held my interest. I was hoping this was going to do to me what District 9 did to me last summer. Awe me. Surprise me. I thought this was going to be what District 9 was to Avatar...this was going to be to The Social Network.

A New Yorker named Nev begins an online relationship with a talented 8 year old artist, Abby, and the rest of her family. Abby's older sister, takes an interest in Nev and he responds, beginning an online romance with her. Meanwhile, Nev's film maker brother and friend decide to document Nev's relationship with Abby, her paintings, her mother, and her sister. It sounds weird...maybe even "huh?", but it's actually not bad.

Eventually, they follow Nev to Bubbabuck, Michigan to meet Abby, her mother, and of course Nev's "girlfriend", whom he never met before. Their entire relationship was based on Facebook and phone calls. And of course...maybe things just ain't quite right in Bubbabuck, Michigan.

After the movie, I sat down here, at my old desktop, and began to google Catfish, because I wasn't sure it was all real. I wanted to know if the movie was like Blair Witch Project or The Fourth Kind...movies that claimed they were real to start up a hype, then admit they are not after they get the following and the dough rolling in.

Apparently, from what I've read, there are people who claim the movie is a fake and there are people who claim it is real. And some claim it is semi-real. Lots of debates going on. Is it real? Isn't it real? Do we care?

As much as I would LOVE for this documentary to be 100% real, I have to say that warning signs went off for me right from the start. It's really easy. There's one major clue. A dead giveaway.

Right from the start, they pretty much establish that Nev and his counterparts are from New York. They even show you the Googlemap of the street where their office is in the Big Apple.

I'm a New Yorker. As a New Yorker...I...don't...trust...ANYBODY!!! Most New Yorkers have their guard up. Most New Yorkers need proof.

And yet, I'm to believe that Nev, a grown man who lives in New York, and his co-stars/co-directers/co-whatevers believes that an 8 year old girl from Bubbabuck, Michigan is sending him these amazing paintings, owns her own art gallery, has sold paintings all over the place, is very much in demand in her area...yada, yada, yada...???? If a child prodigy lived in Smalltown USA, you KNOW there would be write-ups about her in the Smalltown Newspaper.

And then her sister. The one Nev is falling in love with. A New Yorker is falling in love with...she's beautiful, talented, owns a horse farm, is a vet, plays the cello, the guitar, the piano, sings, paints, has Sunday breakfast with her family every week at 8 am, and so on and so on and so on...and she's only 19. You know where I was when I was 19? In some park or hanging on a stoop, drinking beers with my friends and listening to Metallica. So were the rest of us New Yorkers.

No red flags there, Nev? New Yorker Nev? No desire to scour the Internet for articles on this talented family...advertisements for the horse farm...the name of Abby's Gallery...anything? No? Nothing?

I guess what I'm trying to say is...I just find it so hard to find a New Yorker so gullible. I mean to the point of investing your heart into a relationship.

But, if Nev truly did believe all this, then I sincerely apologize. And I also have a bridge I would LOVE to sell him!!!