Thoughts on Paper Moon
-A conman (Ryan O'Neal) ends up taking the recently orphaned daughter of an old flame (Tatum O'Neal) with him on the road, to transport to her aunt's house. Great Depression-era shenanagins ensue when she blueballs him into returning 200 dollars he acquired through her.
-Tatum O'Neal, as far as I can tell (I've seen no other Oscar films of that year) deserved the Oscar. Petulant and stubborn without being annoying or precocious, she scowls down all patronizing eyes while still managing to turn it into feigning little girl innocence.
-Ryan O'Neal's fine too, but let's face it, all he has to do is look oily and let Tatum to the work.
-Shot is lovely black-and-white by Peter Bogdanovich and cinematographer László Kovács. Pleasant, thirties hit-heavy soundtrack.
-For the most part, engaging, tight, adorable episodic movie about, I don't know, overarching goodness or something.
Posts
.jpg)
6 comments:
Simon,
Surely you've seen The Exorcist? American Graffiti? Not that the nominees (Linda Blair or Candy Clark) did the substantial work that Tatum did. Really, she was a lead. Madeine Kahn was the support.
Trulyfool
Trulyfool: Those were the nominees that year? Of course I've seen those! And nobody said Madeline Kahn was lead, did they? She had, like, ten scenes.
I really do love this movie. And she did deserve the Oscar even if this was mad category fraud. Haha
You've got to love that poster, a classic, unforgettable image.
He is very good at looking oily.
Very good film. Tatum was fantastic.
Post a Comment