Paper Heart

I tend to not like artsy movies (read: I lose interest several minutes into the film). However, many Indie (independent) movies are very entertaining. Napoleon Dynamite being the most notable. How can I separate independent movies from artsy movies? My dilemma.

Paper Hearts, as I soon learned, is an artsy movie. And it was no Napoleon Dynamite. The movie stars Charlyne Yi in her quest to make a documentary about finding love. She's a skeptic of love having never been in love.

Along comes Michael Cera, who plays young awkward actor named Michael Cera. The two strike up conversation at a party and soon develop a quasi-friendship/relationship. I think Yi tries to avoid the relationship because she's annoying and she doesn't want to put Michael through the pain of dating someone who's timidly obnoxious.

Hark. They develop that relationship anyway. The movie is shot as a movie about making a documentary, so it seems difficult to distinguish between what is real and what is acting. Of course it's all acting, but it's supposed to be real. Confused?

Paper Hearts also stars Seth Rogen, Dimitri Martin (never heard of him), Paul Rust (who's also in Inglorious Basterds and I Love You, Beth Cooper, two movies I hope to see soon), and Martin Starr.

Directed by Nicholas Jasenovec, Paper Hearts is 88 minutes LONG and is rated PG-13 for language, though I didn't notice - probably because I wasn't paying attention to the movie after I lost interest about 35 seconds into it.

Labeled as a Romantic Comedy and a Romance movie, I found little comedy in it. I guess it was romantic because it's about two young people being awkward trying to hook up. If you have a choice between doing laundry and watching this movie, make sure you don't mix the colors with the whites. You want to avoid color bleeding as much as possible. And don't forget to use fabric softener.

I give this movie an inglorious 2 stars. Not for me. However, I'm probably not a big fan of movies that win the prestigous Grand Jury Prize awarded at the Sundance Film Festival.

Fanboys

The only thing better than a Star Wars movie is a spoof on the movie or the people that are obsessed with the series. Nothing I have ever seen was funnier than Triumph the Insult Dog interviewing fans at the premier of one of the movies. This movie is about those fans.

Fanboys stars Sam Huntington, Chris Marquette, Dan Fogler, Jay Baruchel, and Kristen Bell as the fans. Other than Dan Fogler (Balls of Fury, Horton Hears a Woo, and School for Scoundrels) you probably have not heard of these actors, but they fit the part. Guest staring in the movie is Seth Rogen, Kevin Smith, William Shatner, Carrie Fisher, and Billy Dee Williams.

The premise of the movie is that one of the friends is dying and his wish is to break into the Skywalker Ranch and steal the reel for the new movie, The Phantom Menace, before its public release. This will require them to drive across country in a van.

To make matters even more ridiculous, the gang intentionally crash several rival Star Trek events. Who's cooler? Star Wars or Star Trek? There will be a beat-down!

Eventually they make it to the ranch, but the guards from another movie try to stop them. And if you catch the reference to this older movie, you win a prize!

This movie is mostly a comic adventure, though I was practically rolling on the floor during an interogation to determine if they were truly Star Wars Fanboys. This is where Triumph comes in. Once you see this movie you will totally understand.

Fanboys was directed by relatively unknown director Kyle Newman. The movie is 90 minutes long and is rated PG-13 for crude behaviour, language, sexual references and some drug use.

If you hate Star Wars then this movie is not for you. Fanboys is fairly predictable and some of the sequences are dragged out a bit too long. However, the funny scenes more than make up for this criticism. I give this movie 4 stars.