When we started watching Season 4 of Stranger Things at the end of May, we did not think we needed to restart the series. However, we spent much of June scratching our heads as we watched the plot twist and turn, with Winona's scenes appearing increasingly disconnected from the rest of the action.
When we got to the "end" and realized that we weren't really at the end, we decided to reboot. In other words, we took a running start so that we could get caught up to whatever Netflix would dropping later this summer, with some of our Upside Down wits about us.
Our Noni had a front-row seat to all the action. Since friends had gifted us two sets of the Winona-as-Joyce-Byers Lego kit we were able to set her up in front of the television at both of our houses without having to worry about transporting.
Now that we have seen all of season 4 (nine episodes) we are finally able to post about this season of many facets. A recap:
Joyce and Murray are in Russia trying to rescue Hopper. Nobody else knows where they are. Nancy, Robin, Steve, Dustin, Max, and Lucas are tracking down a demon in Hawkins. Nobody else knows where they are.
Eleven returns to Dr. Owens and "Papa". Nobody else knows where she is.
Natalia Dyer
Mike, Will, Jonathan, and Argyle search for Eleven in the desert. Nobody else knows where they are.
Really, in most of these cases not only do the other characters not know where anyone is, they don't actually know the others are missing.
Our Noni as Joyce Byers demonstrates a range of emotions with aplomb.
And, finally, honorable mention to Natalia Dyer and the makeup crew. Her headshot on IMDb gives no hint that in her role as Nancy Wheeler, she wins the prize for "most like Our Noni as a teenager," hands down.
When an Ivy-League bound senior in Missouri discovers that she is pregnant and that the nearest place she can get an abortion without parental consent is almost 1000 miles away, she wastes no time in figuring how to get the money and how to manage the trip without her parents finding out.
With the help of her former best friend, she heads to Albuquerque to become Unpregnant. Along the way she is confronted by her immature, irresponsible boyfriend; and kidnapped by some pro-life zealots. Ultimately she is able to make her way to the abortion clinic in style.
This is a good movie. The best part was the nod to Heathersin one of the early scenes. Our heroine, Veronica, is confronted by her friend, Heather. There are in fact a few allusions to Heathers making it a special treat for us. Also it passes the Bechdel test with flying colors!
The model is out of stock at Lego and available only after-market. It is an impressive model kit -- symmetric along its X-axis and with workable lights. Even as completists, though, we will not be seeking out this kit -- we have no upside down in which to store it.
May 2022 Update
First update -- our friend and fellow geographer Brian deserves credit not only for finding us the image above, but for procuring a Noni figure for each of us. It is great to have a friend support this strange project.
Second update -- we briefly discussed rewatching the first three seasons as we get ready to watch Season 4. But we are ready now, so instead, Pam just read the posts aloud to me. We are now ready, and our readers can get ready, too. For your convenience, here are those links:
A friend who follows music much more closely than we do reluctantly shared this video by a band he saw recently:
He was reluctant in a tongue-in-cheek way (I think) because he studies film professionally and like a lot of our friends, he finds our Winona obsession a bit daft. (Pausing to remind folks we are not obsessed; this blog is merely an incongruous diversion.)
Anyway, our friend rightly surmised that we had not got wind of this song yet, and that even though Winona is not in it and the song is not truly about her, the song has a place here.
And its place is one of enjoyment. Congolese-American Bobbie Kabeya is delightful, the tune is catchy (as nearly all of the YouTube comments mention), and the Winona reference is appropriately enigmatic.
Every time I watch this -- and it has been several already -- I cannot help but think that the expansive lawn across which Kabeya is running in the final few frames calls out for another Winona homage. It could really do with some croquet balls.
Lagniappe
The title of this post refers to a sub-genre of indie music of which we had never heard and to which some writers assign this work, though the aforementioned Miloe fan assures us that most of their music is too edgy to merit that dream-pop label.
This post is not about library movies, though Winona has made two: Staying Cool and The Ten.
Rather, this post references the exclamation "Library Movie!" -- which has become part of the Hayes-Bohanan lexicon, along with "Coffee Movie!" What began as a quick way to recognize our favorite topics when they appeared in film, we have come to interject these phrases whenever libraries or coffee, respectively, unexpectedly emerges in any unexpected context.
(See the Coffee & Tea Films page for a partial list of coffee movies. But I digress.)
We both blurted out "Library Movie!" in the course of doing some low-key research as part of our Winona Ryder 50th birthday weekend festivities. Timothy Leary had been on my mind recently, as I watched the documentary Fantastic Fungi, first with Pamela and then with students in my land protection class. The film is about many aspects of that ubiquitous kingdom of living things that are neither plant nor animal. It is full of critical insights about soil, climate, pollution, food, and of course, psychedelics.
Winona and her godfather; no image details available
Such a film, of course, must mention Dr. Timothy Leary, in his day a famous (or infamous) academic voice favoring the use of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), a synthetic derived from the wheat-mold known ergot. Several things come to mind whenever he is mentioned: my undergraduate psychology class, in which I learned about the psychoactive properties of ergot and of nutmeg; the Salem witch hysteria, which may have been ergot-induced; and the 1970s Moody Blues ballad that will close out this post.
Above all, of course: Timothy Leary is the godfather of Our Noni. Why this is, we did not really know, so we did just a little bit of reading on the topic. Winona's Wikipedia entry mentions that her father "worked for" Timothy Leary. (It also mentions how she came by all three parts of her professional name.)
The real insights came from items about each of her parents. Writing for Vice.com, Gabby Bess "interviewed" Cynthia Palmer for an article entitled "Winona Ryder’s Mom Explains the History of Women, Drugs, and Literature" in which she does exactly that. (I put the word "interviewed" in quotes because I have never enjoyed being the subject of an email interview, which I take as a euphemism for asking the subject to write the first draft of an article about themselves.)
Palmer and her husband Michael Horowitz (aka Noni's parents) are revealed as leading literary lights of the counterculture that was national in scope but ultimately centered on Haight-Ashbury. The interview centers on an anthology the pair have published -- through several editions -- on what Bess describes as "tripping while female." They were not the first to write about women and the use of drugs, but they positioned themselves to do so by first creating an entire library about drugs and drug culture.
Equally fascinating is a catalog entry in the archives of the New York Public Library. "Michael Horowitz collection on Timothy Leary" describes a 24-box collection of letters, manuscripts, and ephemera related to the late professor. It also describes collection contents that relate to the collection itself and to the relationship between the two men. Much more than "working for" Leary, Michael Horowitz devoted himself to collecting his papers and safeguarding them from law enforcement during critical moments in the professor's complicated life. Even the catalog entry is a fascinating read, best captured by that trending word: meta.
Taken together, these articles point to a childhood full of artistic and cultural foment. The child of two creative librarians has grown into an actor with incredibly eclectic range.
Moody Music
"The report of my death was an exaggeration," wrote Mark Twain in 1897, thirteen years before his demise. This quip comes to mind when I listen to the Moody Blues repeating -- in 1970 -- that Timothy Leary is dead, though he was merely enigmatic and would live another 26 years.
While rewatching Edward Scissorhands in honor of Winona's 50th birthday, Pamela noticed that it had passed the Bechdel Test in the first five minutes. This is especially noteworthy given that it is a 1990 film with male title character.
To review, the Bechdel test started as a bit of a joke on the part of cartoonist Alison Bechdel.
Noticing the dominance of male perspectives in film, she devised what she thought would be a de minimis test of female presence in a film. The low bar has three requirements that are not met by an amazing number of films -- even today, and sometimes even by films with female title characters.
A film passes if it:
Includes two named female characters
Those characters have at least one conversation
That conversation is not about a man
Some very good movies fail this test and some very bad ones pass it. Still, we cannot help but view films through this lens. Sometimes we finish a film without noticing, we are not certain whether a certain conversation qualifies, or we simply have not seen a film in a long time. For these occasions, we can consult the Bechdel list for another opinion, as we are doing for this blog post.
Herewith, a smattering of Our Noni's works, according to their Bechdel status. Each includes a link to our review and its croquet-ball score.
* = films we re-watched as part of the 50th birthday celebration; a spooky subset of the Winona oeuvre
Grand Finale
In the process of looking these up, Pamela found this gem from 2014: How to Make an American Quilt - Does it pass the Bechdel Test? Well, does it? Read our review to see our rating and commentary from each of us about whether it might or might not. Also see the Bechdel list entry for the semi-official ruling.
We will have more to say as a rainy weekend provides a perfect opportunity to watch more of our favorite works by Our Noni. We revisited Edward Scissorhands. This turned out to be an excellent choice, as it is also National Frankenstein Day and National Hermit Day. The film is also the final major work of another household favorite: Vincent Price.
