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TheOneTrueJeff
Reviews
Don't F**k with Cats: Hunting an Internet Killer (2019)
Save three hours, read the Wikipedia article
This three hour documentary could have been a 25 minute episode of Forensics Files. The documentary is hyped by the claim that a group of internet sleuths somehow broke the case, but it doesn't take much critical analysis to realize that the internet "sleuths" contributed pretty much nothing to the case.
Oh -- except they did help an innocent but troubled guy in Africa decide to kill himself. Well done, internet detectives.
Most of the focus on the amateur detectives shows you everything they did that did NOT turn out to generate usable information. Because the killer desires an audience, he quite simply reveals himself to the group trying to track him down.
Seriously, it's that easy. The guy's a narcissistic attention seeker who craves an audience so badly that he just joins the Facebook detective group and says, "I did, here's my real name, and pictures of me everywhere."
The rest of the internet team's focus is to whine about how they tried to warn the Toronto police that a guy they can't locate killed cats in a video, and they're sure he'll kill a human later. That's it. That's what they had to pass on to the cops. Somehow the Toronto police were supposed to use this information to Minority Report a guy who would kill someone else three years later in Montreal.
Once the killer does escalate to killing a person, the case wraps up in about three weeks. He murders someone at the end of May, leaving his driver's license and pharmacy receipts in the garbage bags with the body. Within three weeks his cell phone pings in Europe, and he's captured in Berlin.
The documentary tries very hard to make the internet amateurs seem relevant. For example, once the Montreal police identify the murderer (driver's license, hey!) they quickly find that he has tickets to Paris. They miss him there, but track him by cell phone and arrest him in Berlin.
Pretty routine police work, but the documentary makes it sound like our Scooby Doo Facebook detectives performed some analytical miracle. They claim that after seeing the Casablanca poster in the murder video, they watched the opening map scene of the movie and deduced that the killer would flee to Paris. Whatever.
If watching three hours of spurious claims of internet greatness is your thing, by all means waste three hours on this. Otherwise, just get the story with two minutes of online reading, and go enjoy The New Detectives.
Girlfriend (2010)
Worth seeing and well done
First, I'm not part of the cast or crew. I'm not "affiliated" with the film in any manner. I watched it at the 2011 Down Syndrome Congress National Convention, and I thought it was well worth the time.
Interestingly enough, I wouldn't classify it as a "Down Syndrome" film. I believe it will be just as entertaining and worthwhile to people who have no affiliation with Down as it is to those who do. It's a solid story that highlights some very believable situations.
The situations related to Down are very poignant, despite not being the focus of the movie -- Evan's ability to care for himself barely scrapes "minimal." He doesn't have the acumen to deal with an antagonistic boss, he makes some very poor financial choices, and at times he simply wanders off in a child-like manner. However, when his mother dies, he's left without any kind of caretaker. Unfortunately, his situation is anything but a flight of movie fancy; it happens every day.
Still, Evan, Down Syndrome, and Evan's uncertain future aren't the focus of the film. Candy brings in another very realistic element: a single mother struggling financially, stuck in an abusive relationship after making some poor relationship choices.
I thought the acting was quite good. In particular, Candy's reaction to Evan's infatuation (and the depth of his infatuation) was superb. Jackson Rathbone did well as Russ, too -- with Russ being such a jerk, it would have been easy to make him a caricature "bad guy." Real people are never that one-dimensional, though, and Rathbone added to the realism of the movie by showing some real internal conflict. Yes, Russ is a jerk, but part of that personality is the result of some internal vulnerability and real world events.
And Evan Sneider was excellent. Another reviewer complained that Evan was "obviously coached." Well, yes, that's what director do. They coached Katherine Hepburn, they coach Tom Cruise, they coach William H. Macy, and I'm sure Justin Lerner coached Evan. Both Justin and Evan did a fine job.
The filming itself was great. I was really impressed by how well the choice of shots emphasized the characters' personalities or relationship with the world.
I'm pretty surprised at the snide comments from some of the other reviewers, particularly intimations that this subject matter is somehow "overdone." One reviewer mentions "Life Goes On" -- news flash, folks, that series wrapped up 17 years ago. And the idea that "Girlfriends" is exploitive is ludicrous. The fact that Evan's character is mentally challenged is essential to the plot.
Overall, this was an excellent film and certainly worth taking the time to watch.