Paper Heart Blu-ray offers solid video and audio in this enjoyable Blu-ray release
In 'Paper Heart', Yi does not believe in love. Or so she says. At the very least, she doesn’t
believe in fairy-tale love or the Hollywood mythology of love, and her own experiences have
turned her into a modern-day skeptic. 'Paper Heart' follows Yi as she embarks on a quest
across the U.S. to make a documentary about the one subject she doesn’t fully understand:
Love. Combining elements of documentary and traditional storytelling, reality and fantasy,
Paper Heart brings a fresh perspective to the modern romance and redefines the classic love
story.
The universal search for love -- and all that implies -- is the subject of a "Mockumentary," or
fictional Documentary, from the creative tandem of Writer/Director Nicholas Jasenovec and
Writer/Actress Charlyne Yi. Though Yi appears in front of the camera herself, Actor Jake M.
Johnson stands in for Director Jasenovec in scenes in which his "character" appears. Confused?
Don't be. Paper Heart makes sense, and it does such an excellent job of selling Johnson as
the director that most viewers won't even realize they've been duped. Nevertheless, being "duped"
is what Paper Heart is all about; though a work of fiction, the film attempts to sell itself as a
true Documentary that gives the necessary leeway and financial wherewithal for Yi to set out across
the country and around the world to answer that one question that she simply cannot grasp. With
the help of real people who willingly inject their two cents through a series of honest and sometimes
touching stories of loves won, sustained, and lost, Paper Heart takes a good idea and
cobbles together a cute little film that aims to entertain its audience through charming characters
and a unique little trek through the hearts of everyday people.
Is this true love?
Charlyne Yi isn't looking for love, but rather she's looking for what love really is. Her idea of love
was formed by movies and fairy tales, but her sojourn into adulthood has taught her that such
too-good-to-be-true notions are false, unrealistic, and unattainable. With the assistance of friend
and aspiring Director Nicholas Jasenovec, Charlyne heads out from sea to shining sea to try and
find
an answer from a broad array of individuals, each with a unique perspective on love. She speaks
with a divorcé, science professors, wedding chapel hosts, bikers, high school sweethearts, a
romance
novelist, musicians, a man in a long-distance relationship, a couple whose marriage has withstood
the test of time, and many others. Partway through her journey, Charlyne meets Actor Michael
Cera (himself, Year One), and a
tepid
friendship slowly builds towards something more. With the camera gazing into every intimate
moment and Charlyne being bombarded with advice about what love is and is not, can she foster
a
relationship with a movie star and learn the true meaning of love?
Paper Heart is a film of strengths and weaknesses, each countering the other and
resulting in a somewhat uneven picture that's neither all it could have been nor a rampant
disappointment. The film's greatest asset is its ability to often fool the audience into believing
that
everything that plays out in front of the camera is real. The aforementioned seamless
switch between behind-the-camera Director Nicholas Jasenovec and in-front-of-the-camera
Director Jake M. Johnson makes for the film's most seamless performance. Charlyne Yi brings an
infectious innocence to her performance that, at
times, seems to try and capture the same soft-spoken and slightly off-kilter style that co-star
Michael
Cera employs both here and in all of his pictures. Her effort comes off as genuine and mostly
original, even if she does on several occasions border on the stiff and excessively shy, in a few
shots even
looking like she doesn't want to be on-camera, not counting those more intimate moments with
co-star Cera where the camera is understandably not welcome yet required as part of the plot.
At several points both Yi and Cera seem to be working too hard to act like they're not acting, and
the result is two slightly jumbled performances that occasionally yet unintentionally sacrifice
some of the movie's inherent charm.
Nevertheless, Paper Heart more often than not works thanks not to its acting or
structure but from secondary players that share their thoughts on love, and the best stories are
intercut with crude puppet work that aids in lending to the stories visual pizzazz while breaking
up
the
monotony of static on-camera interviews. Yi hears from a divorcé who survived a deadly Arctic
accident when an image of his ex-wife spurred him on to continue the struggle for survival; she
hears from scientists that try and explain the body's reaction to the stimuli brought about by
feelings of love and pleasure; she contemplates the difference between true love and a crush;
and she attempts to absorb most of it in the context of her burgeoning relationship with Cera.
Though that relationship serves as the film's focal point, the movie never loses touch of its true
purpose,
even in the midst of the Cera-Yi relationship where both the crew and the actors struggle with
the need to capture Yi's shifting emotions and developing romantic interest in Cera while at the
same time taking into consideration the couple's need for privacy to truly allow the relationship to
bloom. It's a solid premise all around but it can't escape falling into several sluggish sequences in
the midst of
the aforementioned charming but slightly forced performances and a few dubious and contrived
moments that sacrifice a sense of reality in favor of dramatic effect.
Paper Heart's Blu-ray release isn't exactly the sort that will become the go-to
demonstration-quality disc to dazzle friends and newcomers to Blu-ray, but considering the film's
roots as a pseudo-Docuemntary and shot in HD video, the results are acceptably good. This is
something of a raw film that doesn't set out to capture each image in just the right lighting
conditions or field-of-view, and the result is an uneven picture quality that never dazzles and more
often than not takes on a rough and visually uninteresting appearance. Colors are not particularly
well rendered; Michael Cera's red sweatshirt dominates each frame and often appears as an
undefined glob of bright red rather than a more natural and well-delineated shade. Fine detail is
adequate, but the consistently flat appearance keeps things like tree trunks, leaves, clothing, and
even faces from taking on a more natural, deep, and textured appearance. Though the image is
never crisp and perfectly sharp, it only goes distractingly soft in a few places. Blacks are sometimes
hindered by blatant blocking, and banding creeps into the frame in several scenes. Paper
Heart's Blu-ray release won't wow longtime high definition viewers, but this transfer seems
generally faithful to the source.
Much like its video transfer, Paper Heart's Dolby TrueHD 5.1 lossless soundtrack isn't
inherently stunning, but it gets the job done and even sneaks in a few nice audible perks along the
way. The opening musical piece enjoys strong clarity and a slight back channel presence, though
the
surround channels aren't always employed when the track could use a dollop of atmospheric
support. Gentle rain and distant rolling thunder as heard in chapter 13 make for a wonderfully
detailed and solidly immersive sequence, though other scattered segments -- a diner setting for a
date between Michael and Charlyne, for instance -- feature the general din of varied locations but
only across the front. Bass is generally a non-factor, though a rumbling motorcycle and, later, an
explosion (as odd as that may sound in a movie like this) both deliver a pleasant but not memorable
low
end kick that adds a bit of spice to what is otherwise a routine soundtrack. Supported by strong
dialogue reproduction, Paper Heart won't blow out speakers or send the pets scrambling for
cover, but it's just fine within the confines of the movie it supports.
Paper Heart arrives on Blu-ray with a handful of extras. First up are two featurettes.
'Paper Heart' Uncut (1080p, 7:27) features Actress Charlyne Yi struggling through some
of her lines and some additional outtakes from the making of the movie. The Making of
'Paper Heart' (1080i, 10:44) takes viewers behind-the-scenes of the challenge of making a
fictional Documentary. Next up is Live Musical Performances by Charlyne Yi (1080p,
6:27), a piece that features the actress singing and playing various instruments. 'Heaven'
Music Video by Charlyne Yi & Michael Cera (1080p, 1:42) shows the stars performing a short
musical number together. Love Interviews with the Comedians (1080i, 26:00) features
Paul Rust, Jason Ritter, Bill Hader, Bobcat Goldthwait, David Krumholtz, Demetri Martin, Paul
Scheer, and Rob Huebel sharing their thoughts on love with Charlyne Yi. Rounding out this
collection of extras are 17 deleted scenes (1080p, 31:05), the Paper
Heart theatrical trailer (1080p, 2:02), and additional 1080p trailers for Law Abiding
Citizen, The Men Who Stare at Goats, Pandorum,
Capitalism: A Love
Story, and Party Town. Disc two of this set contains a
Windows-only digital copy of Paper Heart.
A cute, innocent, and original piece of filmmaking, Paper Heart is a nice if not slightly flawed
diversion from the tidal wave of repetitive and unimaginative filmmaking that more often than not
dominates the box office. Though it enjoyed only a limited release and, in all honesty, is the sort of
film that general audiences probably wouldn't fall in love with anyway, Paper Heart is worth
checking out for its unique twist on pseudo-Documentary filmmaking, even in spite of a few
problems that really keep it from being one of the better of its kind. The film's Documentary
approach and finite resources don't translate to a pristine high definition transfer, but this Starz
Blu-ray release delivers acceptably good-in-context picture and sound quality in addition to a few
extras. Paper Heart is worth watching, but newcomers will be best served by a rental to
gauge interest for a potential future purchase.
Anchor Bay Home Entertainment has announced that they will bring the Micheal Cera (Superbad) and Charlyne Yi (Knocked Up) film 'Paper Heart' to Blu-ray on December 1st, day-and-date with the DVD release. For this release, video will be presented in 1.78:1 1080p ...
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