His Movie Reviews

I’m not even sure where to begin telling you what went wrong with this film. From the minute it started, it was just awkward. The only accurate word I can find to explain this film is “awkward” so be warned, I say it a lot. The idea behind it is really cute: she interviews everyone on their ideas of love, what it feels like when you’re in it, how you know you’re in it, etc. Cute right?

The girl in the movie, Charlene Yi, is kind of awful. She’s awkward. It’s supposed to be a documentary, and she acts as the host, more or less. She also claims she doesn’t believe in love. Nonetheless the interviews she does (with the school kids and the older couples and a gay couple) are charming. The documentary portion is really clever. Some of the couples tell stories of how they met, and as a way of making it more interesting, she makes these paper cut out cartoons. I’m not accurately explaining this, but trust me they are funny.

For whatever reason, they decide to introduce Michael Cera as her potential love interest. Again with my keyword for this review: all together now, awkward! This is when it becomes blatantly obvious we’re not really watching a documentary (it’s pretty clear from the beginning, but just in case you had any doubts, you’d know by now). At least find two people with a little more chemistry. And why in the world would you try to have him as a love interest when she has gone on and on for an hour and half about not believing in love?! Was Leonardo DiCaprio busy or something? In case you haven’t read the review about “Year One” I am really not a fan of Michel Cera’s, and he doesn’t do anyone any favors by being in this film.

So let me reiterate, this movie is just awkward. I liked the interviews with the kids and the married folks and the gay men, but I’m still fuzzy why they gave her a fake on screen boyfriend. And for some reason the go to Paris at the end. Confused after all of that? Yeah, me too!

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So another Blockbuster run results in another small indie movie.  This time we ended up with, Paper Heart, a documentary / romantic comedy starring Michael Cera and Charlyne Yi. Actually, I am not even sure what this movie really is, a documentary, a romantic comedy, a drama?  It is definitely filmed documentary style, yet with half of the movie being a fictional story, for me it loses its documentary cred.  Basically the story of the film revolves around Charlyne Yi and her inability to fall in love.  So from this, they decide to film her life and go on adventures to figure out what love is and if she is in fact capable of it.  Interspersed throughout the film are small stories from people around the United States of how they fell in love or what they thought love was.  They are small anecdotes to how they first met or their favorite memories.   And for me, this is the real charm of the film, the real-life wonders that love creates for us – our memories and adventures through life. This should have been the film’s focus. But, they overshadow these bits with an awkward and fictional love story between Charlyne and Michael Cera.  I mean, come on, can’t they find an actual person Charlyne might be interested in, not some fake romance?  They play it off as this bit of trying to capture the protagonists first discovery of love, yet with no real chemistry between the two of them, it comes off cheap and stupid.  Granted, I know before going into the film that this ‘love story’ was fake and created only for the film…I would hate to find out out later and learn you were duped. This whole fake documentary part made me feel like this was the Blair Witch Project of romantic comedies.  They really want you to believe it’s real, yet it’s all a lie. The only good part of the fictional story and an important aspect of love that I think the film should have focused on is the love of friends and how this film crew really worked together as a family to accomplish this film.  There are some wonderful heartfelt moments between the director and Charlyne that made me believe they were truly good friends.  They cared about each other, and that in itself, is a great type of love. However, they stayed true to their story and follwed their fictional story to the end.  Overall, this movie was kind of a disappoint for me.  The goal of the movie was huge, and trying to get a grasp on what love really is seems insurmountable to me – doomed to fail from the beginning.

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Being sick this past week, has afforded me some time to sit back on the couch, throw in a DVD and enjoy.  But after getting through Year One, I can definitely say there was no enjoying going on. Year One stars Jack Black and Michael Cera as two cavemen that are kicked out of their village and then forced to travel to distant lands. The story follows their adventures while throwing in biblical references here and there as they make their way to the city of Sodom.  Now a movie starring Jack Black and Michael Cera seems like it would be funny, but the misguided plot and un-inventive comedy comes out as just plain stupid. No one could save this movie – though they did try.  They threw every semi-big named actor into this film and yet still nothing came out of it (Jack Black, Michael Cera, Vinnie Jones, The dude that played Mclovin, Oliver Platt, Hank Azaria, Olivia Wilde, Bill Hader, Paul Rudd, probably some more names that aren’t really that famous but you’ve heard of them). I mean seriously, when reading the script for this was anyone thinking this is crap. It seems like every time they would randomly get into a situation, the movie would cut to the next scene – never showing you how they escaped the previous dilemma.  Wait how did he get out of the entanglement of the snake?! The film is a haphazard mess of “how stupid can we make this scene and then move on to something else.” The funniest thing about this movie, isn’t even actually in the movie. There is a skit online with a lot of the people from the film parodying Leroy Jenkins.  I’ll save you the time, watch the skit here, and completely pass on Year One – don’t even bother renting it. Go watch Juno (if you like Michael Cera) or something that is actually a good movie.

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