Review of Paper Moon (1973) by Mary H — 09 Dec 2007

DAMMIT! I was on this streak of make Peter Bogdanovich jokes but now I have to temper those. I loved this movie! I can almost say that I loved this movie too much.

Now, quick backstory. This is one of those movies that I've lied about seeing in the past because it would have negated my argument. That's right. I'm what they call "a turd". Really, I can find nothing wrong with this movie whatsoever. In fact, at the end of the of year, I'm going to have to re-evaluate my top ten movies of all time and decide whether or not this movie fits in the list. It's that good.

See, it's really hard to write about a good movie. I don't want to raise everyone's expectations to an unreasonable level, but this is safely an enjoyable movie. I have to say this. While watching it, I kept going back to Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird. Bogdanovich knows his cinema history and this movie really calls back to a completely different age of filmmaking. It's light-hearted without being campy but hits some very serious tones occasionally without being melodramatic. Now, I can't ever say there are truly dark moments in the film, but Bogdanovich manages to bring to attention when it is time to be serious. This is a very mature (not content wise, but philosophically) movie. I guess I'm going to have to add this one to my collection.