Tatum O’Neal – Cinema Sips

If your summer plans include a road trip on a budget, then I’ve got just the movie for you. Paper Moon (Disc/Download) travels a long, hilarious path through the small towns of the American Midwest, fueled by hot dogs, whiskey, and get-rich-quick schemes. Forget baseball; grifting may as well be the national pastime of the good ole’ US-of-A.

Starring real-life father and daughter Ryan and Tatum O’Neal, Paper Moon is yet another Peter Bogdanovich classic that wouldn’t be nearly as special without the input of his ex-wife Polly Platt. Thanks to her, we have the precocious, stunningly good Tatum in the role of newly orphaned Addie, and it’s because of her performance the movie succeeds as well as it does. The way this little girl spars with her off-screen (and maybe onscreen??) dad is electric, and it’s a shame only Tatum won the Academy Award for this because Ryan turned in some amazing work too. If you like road movies set in 1930s rural America, such as O’ Brother Where Art Thou?, Sullivan’s Travels, and It Happened One Night, you’ll find a lot to love about Paper Moon. It’s a portrait of Americana, of people doing whatever they had to do to survive, yet not losing their heart along the way. In fact, I’d go as far as to say that Addie and Moses Pray (that name!!!) find their hearts, and it’s the big payoff neither of them expected.

Tatum O’Neal’s record of being the youngest competitive Oscar winner in history still stands, and if you haven’t seen pictures of this little girl in a mini tuxedo, I urge you to look it up. It’s even more remarkable that she was only eight years old when the movie began filming, especially considering she’d never acted before. She smokes cigarettes and spars with prostitutes like she’d been doing it her whole life (maybe she had… I still need to read her memoir). Anyway, let’s toast young Tatum with this Prohibition-era cocktail, the Ward 8.

Ward 8

2 oz Rye Whiskey

1/2 oz fresh-squeezed Orange Juice

1/2 oz fresh-squeezed Lemon Juice

2 tsp Grenadine

Maraschino cherries (garnish)

Shake whiskey, orange juice, lemon juice, and grenadine in a shaker with ice until chilled. Strain into a coupe or Nick & Nora glass. Garnish with cherries.

The production design, locations, and costumes of the film are all stunning, but of course they were with Polly Platt in charge. The movie is timeless because she made it so, placing it in a very specific era and place that would never show its age. To watch Paper Moon is to feel like you’re watching a movie made in the 1930s, when the scripts were sparkling, the stars were dazzling, and the road of cinema seemed to stretch on forever. Cheers!

I have absolutely no idea what’s happening in the world of professional sports right now, but I’m guessing things are not normal. If you’re missing your peanuts and CrackerJack, and starting to wonder if you’ll ever get back, then allow Cinema Sips to tide you over with a classic baseball flick, The Bad News Bears (Disc/Download). Featuring an alcoholic coach, a feminist pitcher, and a ton of salty language, this 1976 ode to Little League and Southern California will have you experiencing all the flavors of summer.

In this perfect time capsule of a movie, Walter Matthau plays Buttermaker, a retired Minor League pitcher and current pool cleaner of the San Fernando Valley. He accepts a gig coaching a team of all the kids who weren’t good enough to play on the existing Little League teams, thinking it’ll be an easy day in the dugout with a cooler full of beer. As the misfits and all their schoolyard problems start to get under his skin, he realizes he has an opportunity to give these kids a badly needed confidence boost. He recruits the talented Amanda (Tatum O’Neal) for her golden arm, motorcycle-riding delinquent Kelly Leak (Jackie Earle Haley) for his stellar batting average, and brainy Ogilvie (Alfred Lutter) to help him Moneyball the heck out of this league. Buttermaker’s strategy works, and eventually the Bears start winning games. The script is genius, but it’s the realistic performances that make me come back to this film year after year. I feel like I get to journey back to an era where people went inside a Pizza Hut to have dinner without irony, and a towheaded kid named Lupus could mix you the perfect martini.

Speaking of alcohol, it’s kind of amazing that Coach Buttermaker could hand out brewskies to a group of eleven-year-olds after the game and it wasn’t all over social media the next morning. I’m sure he still got to keep his job, and I bet those kids didn’t even care that they lost. While watching The Bad News Bears, join in the fun with this Honey-Bear Shandy.

Honey-Bear Shandy

1 oz Vodka

1 oz Orange Juice

½ oz Lemon Juice

½ oz Honey Syrup (2 parts Honey to 1 part Water, boiled and cooled)

5 oz Hefeweizen Beer

Orange Slice for garnish

Combine vodka, honey syrup, orange juice, and lemon juice in a shaker filled with ice. Shake well until chilled, then strain into a glass filled with crushed ice. Add beer, stirring to combine. Garnish with an orange slice.

If you’ve ever known what it is to get picked last in gym class, if you’ve ever been underestimated because you’re a girl, or if you’ve ever felt like you’ll never live up to the expectations someone has for you, then you’ll probably relate to this film. I always say, I love baseball movies not because of the sport, but because of the sportsmanship. This year may be full of bad news, but we’ll always have the Bears. Cheers!

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