Catfish and Expectations

Sometimes I find myself wondering if knowing as much about movies as I often do before I see them changes the way I feel about the movie. When I saw Kick-Ass, my favorite parts were the parts I did not see coming at all, most of which were different from what was in the comic. Knowing Darth Vader was Luke's father totally took away all the impact of that scene in Empire. When I knew Two Face was in the Dark Knight, the scene where Rachael dies almost lost all it's suspense for me. It was shocking, but I still knew she was going to die. In a way knowing so much sort of ruined my total enjoyment of these films. So when a friend asked on facebook if anyone wanted to go see Catfish, a movie I knew almost nothing about, I decided to go for it.

Now, to say I went into this with absolutely no expectations would be a lie. While googling the theater we were going to, I found out that it was listed under the genre of "Thriller". So Immediately my mind started making up possible scenarios. Is this a movie about a guy in a rubber catfish outfit chasing around a group of young teens and killing them? Is this about some crazed friend getting revenge on an old fishing buddy who betrayed him? What could the title "Catfish" have to do with any of this at all? Honestly, I've got to applaud Universal for doing this "don't let anyone tell you what it is" campaign because I was totally surprised with what the movie was about. And I enjoyed it. A lot. In fact, I want to see it again.

Now, I'm not going to tell anyone what this is about. I'm not doing it to "make the movie better", but because this is a movie that I think a lot of people should see. I want people to go into this with no expectations or perhaps with minimal expectations, since I've already mentioned the genre being "thriller". I'd have left that part out, but it was so integral to my experience. Still, go see it knowing as little as possible, because I think it's important for everyone to see at least one movie knowing as little as possible before hand.

Still, if you decide to go and spoil this movie for yourself, I won't blame you. Hell, it's not like knowing will ruin the movie. But whatever you do, go see this movie. I've seen a good chunk of movies in the theaters this year, but out of all of them I enjoyed this one most of all. Now I think I'll go into more movies with minimal expectations.