I tried, I really did. After hearing many things about Charlene Yi’s twee, Sundance-minted, is-she-really-going-out-with-him? valentine to costar Michael Cera (and not all of them good), I dove in with an open heart and mind. Alas, part documentary, part mockumentary, part traditional romantic comedy and part grad student research project, Paper Heart tilts over into insufferable cuteness fairly early on, and never really regains its footing.

In the movie, deadpan comedienne/actress/emo pin-up 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; her own experiences have turned her into a modern day skeptic, so she sets out on a road trip to make a documentary about America’s attitudes toward affection, sex, romance and all that stuff. Melding together different elements of storytelling, reality and fantasy, Paper Heart is partially that project, and partially its own cheeky commentary on cinematic romantic virtue.

Co-written by Yi and director Nicholas Jasenovec (portrayed in the movie by Jake Johnson… are you following?), Paper Heart has an inquisitive spirit, that’s for sure. So: points there. But it gets so up inside its own head, and is so gratified with its own cheeky inventiveness, that it smothers what sense of burgeoning discovery and sunny identification one might have with it. There is a reason that the tritest expressions can soar when sung, just as there is a reason that people locate satisfaction and emotional catharsis in hokey cinematic expressions of love. Paper Heart isn’t interested in exploring this dichotomy, however; it just wants to cleverly spitball and slag, from a distance. So it becomes tedious (even at 88 minutes), and a slave to its own winsome arthouse instincts.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case in turn stored in a cardboard slipcover, Paper Heart comes to DVD presented in 1.78:1 widescreen, with an English language Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound audio track and optional English SDH and Spanish subtitles. DVD bonus features include a making-of featurette, live musical performances by Yi, a music video of “Heaven” featuring Yi and Cera, plus a clutch of interviews and deleted scenes. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. D (Movie) B- (Disc)

The name may scream down-market drivel, but Evilution stands as a credible low-budget, mixed-genre DVD entry, a horror-infused tale of mutant military engineering that metes out appropriate levels of gore and thrill while also rooting its story in actual characters.

The plot? On the battlefields of Iraq, a microscopic alien life form has been discovered that has the ability to both possess the living and resurrect the dead. The drawback? Rampaging, zombie-type rage. With visions of practical battlefield application dancing in their minds, however, the military works to genetically alter the creature. But the alien fights back, turning soldier against soldier. Back Stateside, scientist Darren Hall (Eric Peter-Kaiser) goes AWOL with the last pure specimen of the alien, holing up in an old hospital turned rundown apartment complex to continue his off-the-book experiments and try to learn the secrets of life.

There, Darren crosses paths with a group of thinly sketched Latino gang-bangers, led by Curtis, aka Random (Noel Gugliemi, showing rich evidence of his Masters Degree in Scowling), but also potential love interest Maddie Gilbert (Sandra Ramirez), who’s thankfully much easier on the eyes. The military is slowly closing in on Darren. But when Curtis gets shot and Darren treats his wound, it sets in motion a chain of events in which infected tenants attack their unsuspecting peers, imperiling Darren and a small group of survivors.

Evilution is the directorial debut of Chris Conlee, an industry veteran with a hearty list of editing credits. His steady sense of story order generally serves this narrative well, whether in the brisk effectiveness of the movie’s square-jawed military sequences, or in intercutting an otherwise somewhat out-of-place love scene with a desperate junkie unknowingly shooting up with Darren’s alien-infected virus (sex and death, don’tcha know). In the military-science-run-amok department, there’s a bit of thematic
overlap with fellow (albeit higher-profile) straight-to-video flick The Devil’s Tomb, which is ironic considering that Conlee served as editor on that picture. This isn’t reinventing the wheel, by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s rendered with more attention to detail than many like-minded flicks.

A fairly inauspicious opening (your stock Biblical quote, a sequence ending with an even more familiar bloody handprint smear across a glass windowpane) thankfully soon gives way to a bit more nuance and shading. It’s obvious that the available space which serves as much of the film’s setting (an abandoned hospital) is tweaked and dressed at times to fairly awkward degrees. But in addition to fairly well modulated lead performances, what most helps elevate and separate Evilution from much of its genre brethren is its snatches of superlative cinematography. While true that the film is shot in generic close-up to a dispiriting degree, cinematographer Mathew Rudenberg’s work is certainly a nice upgrade over typical horror-thriller fare, with a smartly chosen color palette and nice capture of streaming sunlight.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, Evilution comes to DVD presented in anamorphic widescreen, split into 16 chapters, with a 5.1 surround sound audio mix. A two-minute theatrical trailer is included, but the main bonus features consist of a feature-length audio commentary track with Conlee, Peter-Kaiser and Ramirez, as well as a surprisingly comprehensive 27-minute making-of featurette, in which Conlee talks of his professional relationship with writer-producer Brian Patrick O’Toole, and how he came to be drafted into the movie. Interview snippets with a wide variety of cast and crew also provide a nice behind-the-scenes snapshot of budget filmmaking. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. C+ (Movie) B (Disc)