Trailer Review: CATFISH

Before you read, just know that this review has a spoiler for the movie District 9.

"Just True"

In recent years the docu-style of filmmaking has returned with movies like Cloverfield, Paranormal Activity, District 9, and in theaters now, The Last Exorcism. Catfish is the next installment in that style of filmmaking. The trailer does a good job at establishing this hapless guy that we are following who is having an online relationship with a girl whose voice, we think we hear and pictures from her Facebook, that we hope are also her.

After the swooning and dirty text messages, his friends who are documenting this series of events, and him decide to drive up to her farm in Michigan and once they get out of the car, the trailer shifts and I'm happy and kinda annoyed at the same time.

Annoyed

"The Final Forty Minutes of this Film will take you on an emotional roller-coaster ride that you won't be able to shake for days". - Chris BumBray Joblo.com

While this quote excited me when I first saw this trailer, it soon made me begin ask; are the last forty minutes of this film all I'm really going to be waiting for? Well... Yes! I think by adding quotes like these to trailers, the advertisement is literally telling me when things will get interesting in the movie! I think it sabotages the film in that your not letting the audience go on this journey and be surprised. I just wish the trailer did something with its already uneasy images to give it that same shift in tone. Instead it lazily relies on a quote.

Take a look at the trailer for District 9. Everyone I talked to said to me that it looked like another variation of a run-of-the-mill "alien invasion" movie; i.e. Independence Day. When in fact, sitting in the theater, you were rudely awakened. Discovering that the movie was more about a man who on the day of his promotion is infected in a way that would change his life forever and question his own treatment of the aliens.

Of course punch words like; "AMAZING", "OUT OF THIS WORLD", and "POWERFUL", were thrown around, as well they should be. But no where did it say in the trailer; "Just fucking wait till you see a scene where (SPOILER WARNING) they unwrap his hand and its an alien hand!, CRAZY!"

I just think for the sake of promotion, quotes like these should be chosen more carefully.

Also, while it won't deter my enjoyment of the movie, I highly question this film's validity in being "Just True". I don't know if any of you have seen the movie The Strangers, but that film was also based on a true story. However, it was later revealed that using that tagline, and I do think its more of a tagline now, was purely for advertisement. Although events depicted in the movie unfortunately do happen. The movie was just a look into those happenings. Which I think is what is happening in Catfish.

Happy

Aside from all that I will be definitely going to see Catfish. From the trailer alone I'm hooked. Get it? YucK YucK! It starts off as one thing, then shifts gears very quickly into something that we know is just bad. I like to see movies like this where the images are not all that clear, there is grain, you see people holding the camera; I just think it gives the movie more of a sense of realism and It will help establish the situation and actions more so.

Also with David Fincher's The Social Network coming to theaters a few weeks later, this movie I hope will crack open some interesting debate about social networking sites and meeting people over the internet.

As always my final review will be when the credits roll and the house lights go up!

Dueces!
StuntmanBob

Why I liked the Ending of THE LAST EXORCISM

DISCLAIMER: Spoiler-filled!!!!! If you plan on seeing the movie, I'd advise not to read, cause I pretty much give away everything.

So last night my sister and I went to go see The Last Exorcism. I wasn't thinking this movie was going to be anything special so I went in with an open mind to see what I could get out of it. If I had any drive to see this movie at all it was because of the article sticky'd to the front of my Yahoo homepage about people being upset at the ending of this movie. You could say, whether or not I saw it in theaters, my interest was peaked.

The movie is a horror mockumentary about a pastor in Baton Rogue, by the name of Cotton Marcus. Cotton is having problems with his faith and has for a long time since his son was born. Cotton has performed over some 50 odd exorcisms, yet, he believes that demons do not exist and that possession is all in the head. So when Cotton has gone to perform an exorcism he actual rigs the room with effects that are controlled by him to create this elaborate ruse and make it seem like its something out of the movie THE EXORCIST. He does not consider himself a fraud, but that he's still doing a service to people to make them feel better.

For being a man of God. Cotton is kind of an asshole. At one point he bets the head of the doc crew ten bucks that he can preach about anything; that even includes his mothers delicious banana nut bread. And he does so amazingly! I gotta admit, I kinda like Cotton. I like him because even though he looks like Matthew McConaughey, he seems to generally be convinced that possessions and exorcisms are bullshit and he's completely out to debunked these events. He's real and he's willing to fuck with peoples beliefs.

This leads him to Ivanwood, Louisiana, where a young girl named Nell is being terrorized. Cotton does his thing, performs a fake exorcism and collects his money and then goes on his way. This is when the real shit starts happening. Nell has always done drawings which says she dreams about, well she has a drawing of a dead cat, a man with a cross going into the fire, a cameraman with his head cut off and a woman chopped into pieces. One night as they are watching over Nell, Cotton and the film crew that is, she awakens and walks around with a camera and proceeds to beat a cat to death with it. You see where this is going?

During the course of the movie its revealed that Nell is pregnant which leads Cotton to still believe that what is happening to her is still physiological, because she lies about a boy who supposedly is the one who got her pregnant. But then turns out to be gay. The local priest from that area is brought in and lends his help with everything. While leaving the house Cotton is pulled by a sense of curiosity to find out why Nell lied. Upon his return they discover that the local priest is the head of a devil worshiping cult, Nell is on an alter and a some sort of creature is being pulled from her body and then is thrown into the fire that is crackling near them. The fire erupts into the night sky.

The doc crew urges Cotton that they should leave. Cotton hold his cross firmly and really begins to start praying for the first time in the entire movie. Did he get his faith back? He walks out with his cross held high, towards the flame. Pic #1, check. The woman and camera man run into the forrest and then the other two pictures are fulfilled. As soon as the cameraman's neck is sliced the camera falls to the ground, we get a static image of a rock and then SCENE!!!!! BLACK. OVER. CREDITS. FINITO.

Really? Your upset at this Ending? I was fucking relieved when it went black. For a movie like this that looks like every other exorcism movie out there, expect for the Paul Greengrass effect, I think it was really ballsy and a breath of fresh air to end it without knowing what happens next. It ended on a high. And in a movie like this that's the real fear; what happens next. The act of not knowing has always beem more terrifying that actually knowing.

For those of you who have seen the movie, the fire erupting is a little CGI-ish and having the movie end literally minutes from that point is a sign of not being put through another half hour where they could have possibly shown a very horrible looking CGI looking demon. I mean c'mon, you people woulda been fine with that? I know I wouldn't. Now I'm not saying that the movie is great, its a small simply film that you will most likely forget once you've had a post movie talk about it in the car with your friends. But I will say that the ending was something I wasn't really expecting and for that I appreciated what I saw a lot more than I would have, had the movie given me some sort of finite ending.


Dueces!
StuntmanBob