Lucas - Winona was robbed!

In honor of the 17-year cicadas who recently became one (each) with the windshield of our 2004 Saturn Wagon during a drive through Pennsylvania on route 84, we re-watched the only film we know of that features said insects. Iconic '80s child stars Corey Haim stars as Lucas along with Our Winona, Kerri Green, Courtney Thorne-Smith and Charlie Sheen (who plays a sensitive guy - go figure). Although Our Winona gets some top billing, her role in this film isn't all that great. She plays a girl with a pathetic puppy-love crush on a geek who has an even bigger puppy-love crush on someone else, who in turn likes someone else. Ah, high school.

This appears to be her first film; she performed ably, and it seemed she could have taken on a bigger part. She did have one scene with a bit of screen time, but clearly was not used to her full advantage.

Final Verdict: 3 croquet balls

Winona Sucks, and That's a Good Thing

At Casa Hayes-Boh, the perfect family fare for the beginning of summer was Dracula (1992) with Gary Oldman in the title role. Oldman is a good aptonym for an actor whose most memorable line is "I have crossed oceans of time to see you."

Our Winona is stunning in a dual role as Elisabeta (love of Count Dracula) and Mina Harker (Elisabeta's look-alike born four hundred years later). This version followed Stoker's book pretty closely, so viewers should not be surprised to see the Count walking about in broad daylight. (The myth that sunlight kills vampires was started with the 1922 film Nosferatu). Some of the nudity was a bit gratuitous, but overall a good, sexy, horror film, truly spanning oceans (the Altantic and the Mediterranean Sea) and time (four centuries).

As the map above suggests, this film was both nautical and naughty, though mostly the latter. Over her career, the sexual tension in Noni's work has ebbed and flowed, never coming closer to the long-established boundaries of her on-screen modesty than in this film. This is Noni at her most voluptuous and libidinous, and though she tears at her clothes in several scenes and in two characters, she manages to remain the only woman to keep all of her clothes on through the entire film. Well played.

The Hayes-Bohs concur -- Final verdict: four croquet balls.