Strangers with Candy 3:10

Our Noni' stars in the final episode, entitled The Last Temptation of Blank.

Noni with Virginia Williams and Amy Sedaris

We have had all three seasons of Comedy Central's Strangers with Candy on DVD for some time, mainly because we are huge fans of the star's brother. We watched the first season and part of the second years ago, but eventually it surpassed even our low threshold of offensiveness, and we never finished the series.

Pam recently discovered, however, that Our Winona appears in the final episode, so we pulled it out of the back of the DVD cabinet and watched the last show.

Ryder plays super-cool Fran and takes on loser Jerri Blank (Amy Sedaris) as a project (wasn't there an episode of the Brady Bunch with the same plot?). Ryder plays more of a mean-girl "Heather" and less of a "Veronica" though.

Like any good sitcom, this story had three unrelated threads: the main one, another one about overly animated Dungeon's & Dragons players, and a third one about closing the school. A corrupt administration turning the school into a shopping center is mainly a device for killing off the series. But since the process begins while school is still open, with various classrooms becoming Sunglass Huts or other retail spaces, it also serves as a metaphor for the creeping marketization of education in America.

For the sake of project completeness we watched this episode, but actually ended up using this opportunity to purge our DVD (and VHS) collection. The entire series is now in the donation box waiting for next month's pick up.

Final Verdict: Three Croquet Balls

Zoolander - Noni as Anonymous Groupie

I doubt we would have ever watched this very funny movie if we hadn't discovered that Our Winona has an un-credited role in it. We're not sure why she didn't even get billing as "herself" as so many other cameos did. She actually had a small speaking part, where so many others who did get credit did not. (James offers this guess: this was apparently filmed before her shoplifting arrest and released after. Of course, plenty of people with much more serious rap sheets appear in film credits all the time.)

"so courageous"

This cult film features Ben Stiller as Derek Zoolander, an empty-headed male model who discovers that he has been brainwashed into killing the Prime Minister of Malaysia. With the help of a reporter from Time magazine -- Marcia Brady look-alike Matilda Jeffries (Christine Taylor) -- and his rival Hansel (Owen Wilson), Zoolander tries to thwart the assassination attempt instead. Will Farrell has a relatively small but delicious role, leading us to have our annual viewing of Elf right after this show.

This is a pretty goofy movie - very funny at a sophomoric level, but not to be taken for anything else, aside from a very light brush with social justice in the very beginning of the film. A red-carpet emcee dismisses concerns about "ugly protesters bothering beautiful people" over slave labor in the fashion industry, but this is not a major theme of the film.

Final Verdict: Four Croquet Balls

Here With Me - the Music Video

Super creepy music video from Tim Burton starring Our Winona
The Killers -- Here with Me (2012)

 For more Burton/Ryder fun watch Beetlejuice Frankenweenie and Edward Scissorhands

A very Winona Christmas

A couple of cynical takes on Our Winona's holiday.

From the album Sleighed by Fake Shark Real Zombie "Winona Ryder Hates Christmas"



Grinch Parody "How Winona Stole Christmas"


Read this article to find out more about Ryder's 2001 shoplifting spree.

For some good Christmas movies starring Our Winona we recommend
 Little Women and Edward Scissorhands

The Darwin Awards

Our Hero falls hard for Our Noni

Our Winona costars with Joseph Fiennes as investigators helping an insurance company to identify patterns that might lead their customers to untimely and highly unusual deaths in The Darwin Awards. This is the relatively weak plot device that frames what is essentially a marathon of urban-legend vignettes. Nonetheless, it works as light entertainment and is probably Noni's most successful romantic comedy.

Viewers can enjoy the ride, as it were, and then explore Snopes to see which of the film's strange-but-plausible stories is actually true.

We rate films for this blog strictly on the basis of Winona Ryder's performance. We both found this one to be successful.

Final verdict: Four croquet balls

Lagniappe

The film brings to mind Dumb Ways to Die, public-service announcement with a catchy tune and a morbid sense of humor that has been viewed over 90,000,000 times on YouTube.