Paper Moon (1973)
Jamal's Rating: 5 stars
Netflix Average Rating: 3.8 stars
Here's one I had to get my dad to see. Buddy/road trip movie stars father-daughter team Ryan O'neal and (youngest Oscar winner) Tatum O'neal as a couple of quick-witted grifters in America's depression era. Ryan O'neal is a more earthy, self-deprecating version of Harold Hill from The Music Man. The cheeky kid Tatum naturally stays one step ahead of him, getting the best of her counterpart even when she doesn't know the game, as apparent her reply when Ryan drills her, "Do you know what those are, scruples?" Madeline Kahn, a selfish rake with a penchant for men and clothing who her young African-American maidservant poignantly describes as "the white on top of chicken-shit", comes into the picture midway and gives a stunning monologue on top of a grassy hill. The setting of cars and towns and people in Peter Bogdanovich's film really does look 1930's, sometimes beautifully bleak and other times grand. And when the duo venture out onto a country road in Missouri it really does look like an old abandoned road in the heart of Missouri. This one was on the queue for a good while because I wasn't exactly thrilled to see a black and white with two people I'd never heard of, but the movie was filled with laughs (for dad too) and just whizzed by. Kids would love it too I'm sure, but parents be forewarned: these characters don't exactly set a good example.
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