Now this is dynamic reporting! Nine days ago (or on 9.10) Peter Bodganovich‘s Paper Moon (’73) was celebrated at a private event at WeHo’s San Vicente Bungalows. Bogdanovich and Paper Moon star Tatum O’Neal, now 55, attended a screening and then a q & a hosted by director David O. Russell.

The basic scheme of Paper Moon (and the basic appeal) is that Tatum’s Addie Pray is at least five times wiser, smarter and shrewder than her ostensible father, Moses Pray (Ryan O’Neal). In the facing of every situation, every challenge and every problem, Addie knows what to do and Moses…well, sometimes he has good instincts but other times she’s way ahead of him. He’s just not that bright and his junior partner is the opposite. You know Moses is a dumb-ass because it never dawns upon him that Addie is the real brains of the outfit, and that if he wanted to really clean up…aahh, forget it.

The Bible-selling clip with the widow and her five or six daughters is probably the best scene in the whole film.

Posted on 3.6.17: Logan co-screenwriter Scott Frank explains the genesis: “We made it an emotional, smaller personal story where it’s not the fate of the world. It’s his own kind of sanity and redemption at stake, instead of some sort of larger, apocalyptic scenario that these movies are always confronted by. I always believed you could locate a superhero in a really adult genre story. And I pitched it to Jim as, ‘Let’s do a super, ultra-violent version of Paper Moon.'”

“Love that analogy-description, and Frank’s acknowledgment of Logan‘s “ultra-violent” nature is respected for its candor. I loved the Paper Moon aspects (although Dafne Keen isn’t Tatum O’Neal as much as Natalie Portman in Leon The Professional) but the decision to assault the audience with relentless brutality is what put me off. I wish it had been turned down. I wouldn’t have minded sporadic violence.”