Welcome!

Hello there! I am so happy to be embarking on a new adventure in my life...Cannes, France and a blog! It's like a new diary. How exciting...but now everyone on the internet can see! They can even check out how I feel about some movies. I am anxious, excited, ready to be done with finals, and I cannot wait to get to know all of my fellow travelers. This is going to be interesting to say the least. Hope you're ready!
Anyways, I chose Paper Heart for my first review because I am an avid comedy fan and I thought I would check out a Sundance film from last year. I am a huge movie buff so I cannot wait to hear what people have to say about movies they have seen or even this one. So, check it out. Explore my site...complex, I know...And I will hear from you all so soon.

M. Stewart
Movie Review- Paper Heart 2009

Love hurts…Well you can’t be hurt by something that doesn’t exist right? The Sundance Film Festival of 2009 brought a new perspective to the table with Paper Heart. Paper Heart, directed by Nicholas Jasenovec, is a mockumentary that takes an interesting and comedic approach at exploring the topic of true love. Starring comedian Charlyne Yi as an awkwardly quirky skeptic, the movie takes the audience on an adventure around the country to uncover various definitions of true love. The use of both real and scripted scenario, combined with the profound subject of love, creates a work of film that provides light-hearted entertainment as well as genuine insight on the coveted element of love.
The film Paper Heart utilizes the sincere personalities of comedian/musician Charlyne Yi and actor Michael Cera to demonstrate the ups and downs of a relationship. The two meet at a party, where Yi explains the cameras as a part of her documentary. From the beginning, the cameras are acknowledged and eventually become a crucial factor in the relationship. As Yi and her camera crew journey around the United States, they conduct real interviews and illustrate stories using puppets. The story becomes somewhat confusing due to the fact that the interviews are real but the onscreen relationship between Yi and Cera is fictional. Yi’s camera crew includes actor Jake Johnson who plays director Nicholas Jasenovec. Their character development also adds another layer to the story in that their friendship grows into a loving relationship. For a minute, I almost thought they would end up together.
As the film progresses, Yi and Cera’s relationship grows as a couple, only to be hindered by the lack of privacy. The cameras for Yi’s project are serving a purpose to document her own experience of love, but there is the ever-present issue of the intimacy that can be experienced in the limelight. Cera ends things with Yi, to which she responds somewhat unemotionally until actor Johnson reveals to her that he knows how she feels. Yi eventually heads to Toronto to speak with Cera and the camera crew holds back when they would normally enter the home. The microphone that Yi wears is still on, but her friend, the director of the project, decides to cut the audio feed. The film ends with a puppet sequence that features Yi’s creativity in reenacting the “secret” scene between the two that is overwhelmingly exaggerated and untrue.
Throughout the film, it becomes quite difficult to differentiate between the reality and the fiction of every situation. There is a muddled line between professional acting and the true emotion of featured citizens. This brings about the question of whether or not one could even believe the documentary to be an accurate portrayal of varying perspectives.
Paper Heart is a spunky, creative film that uses comedy and some of the most artistic ideas and techniques to present a common subject. The acting and scenarios are at times overly awkward, but I can’t be sure that it wasn’t Yi’s purpose as a contributing writer to include such discomfort. Her maturity level is lacking, but if the film is taken as a simple look into several adventures of examining love, Yi’s becomes part of a larger picture. That picture captures, as a whole, the creative expression of the writers and their desire to make an enjoyable film.