Sunday, November 7, 2010

Paper Moon

Along with casting real-life couples as lovers, another casting idea is to have real-life family members cast as family members in movies. There are a number of famous Hollywood families (the Coppolas, the Hustons, the Fondas), some of them still working today.

Con man Moses Pray (Ryan O'Neal) reluctantly agrees to bring recently orphaned Addie Loggins (Tatum O'Neal) to Missouri. He isn't fond of her at the start, but she manages to rake in more money. Problems arise when dancer Trixie Delight (Madeline Kahn) enters the picture.

One of the main issues with Tatum's Oscar win is that it's misleading; she won for Supporting Actress even though she's in almost the entire movie. My theory is she got placed in Supporting because she hadn't been in any other movies before Paper Moon. Anyway, moving on. The rest of Paper Moon is fun and light. But considering it was released the same year as The Sting (both movies focus on con artists from the Great Depression era), it feels like it has been done already.

My Rating: ****

2 comments:

  1. I haven't seen this in years but I absolutely loved it and immediately bought it after watching it initially.

    Maybe it was Supporting because she's was a kid at the time, and they didn't want to nominate a kid for Best Actress? I don't know...she's great in it, I do know that.

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  2. Hmmm, it doesn't sound like you liked it as much as I had hoped. This is one of my all time favorites and I would re-watch every time it came on TV growing up. With new actors and actresses, it's common to throw them into the supporting category where they think they'll have a better chance. I thought this was the best work from both of them. Tatum did do a good job later on in Little Darlings.

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