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

Heathers - One of the best films ever made

On the occasion of my twenty-fourth birthday, back in 1988, I read a review of a movie called Heathers in the Cincinnati Enquirer newspaper. I remember the phrase "dark comedy about teenage suicide" which immediately intrigued me. I have always preferred satire to the typical "rom com" or utterly unbelievable "action film" rot that is usually produced by Hollywood.  I shared the review with my husband, and we made plans to go to the movies that night.

The movie was clever, funny, dark, and (best of all) set in Ohio (our home at the time). We were the only people in the theater laughing when Christian Slater as (J.D.) holds up a bottle of Perrier water explains to Our Winona (asVeronica) that it is a "perfecto homosexual artifact". When Veronica protests he goes on to say "this is Ohio. I mean, if you don't have a brewski in your hand you might as well be wearing a dress." 

I don't know how many times we've seen this film - more than ten but less than twenty. We never get tired of it. It is fresh and funny every time. The writers did a great job of creating something that is so intrinsically '80s without becoming dated.

The original and best, "Mean Girls" film, a timeless classic. 

Final verdict - 5 croquet balls

Lagniappe -- Global Pandemic Update

See  our WWND post for a 2020 update.