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.

Reality Bites

Multiple Choice Test

You have a choice of two loser boyfriends - which one should you pick?
a. The one with no job and no prospects
b. The super rich one
c. Neither a nor b

The correct answer, of course is "c". However, if you are going to insist on picking one of the losers, then the correct answer is "b". Lelaina Piece (Ryder) of course picks "a", and apparently the audience is supposed to cheer for this.

Actually, despite the trite ending, we liked this one. It has a funny script, and Our Winona is on top of her acting game. This movie also stars Janene Garofolo (Ryder's roommate), Ethan Hawke (loser "a"). Ben Stiller (as loser "b") and Steve Zahn (random gay friend). Four friends try to make their way in love and life following their college graduation, with usual relationship fumbles, and demeaning first jobs.

Trivial though her choices are by comparison, Our Noni's oscillation between "a" and "b" recalls the dilemma faced by Sonia Braga in Dona Flor e Seus Dois Maridos and later reprised by Sally Field.

This movie always comes to mind when the subject of gasoline credit cards comes up, though we had forgotten there were two ways in which Our Noni's character used her card to defraud her father.


Final Verdict: Four Croquet Balls

Lost Souls

In celebration of Our Winona's close-to-Halloween birthday we watched one of her creepy movies. In this film Ryder plays Maya Larkin who is convinced that Satan is planning to possess author Peter Kelson (Ben Chaplin) as a special birthday present. As Kelson's 33rd birthday approaches he and Larkin try to figure out if there is any way to stop the demon.

As a psychological thriller, this was pretty good, and included some interesting twists. Worth watching, although not Our Winona's best work.

Final Verdict: Three Croquet Balls

The Private Lives of Pippa Lee

According to our Netfilx "Rental Activity" we first watched this movie about two and half years ago. We were surprised that we didn't remember much about it because it was quite a good film. Pippa Lee (Robin Wright) seems to be an ordinary housewife married to a much older man, Herb (Alan Arkin) but her "private" life (before marriage) was probably not something that her neighbors in the retirement community she lives in can possibly guess. Our Winona's role is small, yet pivitol. She spends most of her on-screen time crying and/or apologizing.

Final Verdict: Four croquet balls

The Age of Innocence

Although quite sure this was the third time we'd seen this film, neither of us remembered it very well. We had some sense of the mood, and the period, but could not remember the plot at all, much less that Daniel Day-Lewis and Michelle Pfeiffer also starred in this piece. Our Winona was nominated for an Oscar for her work in this critically-acclaimed film. The movie also received many other awards and nominations, including Oscar for Best Costume Design. It was a very good movie - a classic love triangle story in a beautiful setting, with a bit of comic relief.

To Pam's brief review I have only two additional comments. One is that the costumes impressed me very much, so I impressed myself by having noticed, along with the Academy! 

Second is that although this is a love triangle, and one of many years duration, a key question remains: does Our Noni's character know that there is a love triangle? Things are handled with such Victorian understatement that this is not clear to me ... so I'm not impressive at all in reading those clues!

Final Verdict: Four Croquet Balls