Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

We did something we normally don't do and went to the theater to see this on opening weekend as part of a Saturday date-night -- which also included haircuts for both of us, and dinner at a Mexican restaurant.

Neither fans of the orginal Beetlejuice nor Noni fans will be disappointed in this long-awaited sequel. A lot of laughs and allusions to the first film, but also a few surprises. 

Jenna Ortega as Astrid (the now adult Lydia Deetz's daughter) is perfectly cast and plays the part with a superb blend of teenage angst, sarcasm, and vulnerability.

Our Noni brings back all of the goth from her original role, mixed with humor and genuine parental concern.

(James adds): this sequel is remarkable for the number of actors returning after so much time has passed, a couple of them taking the same role 36 years later and making it look easy!

Final Verdict: Four Croquet Balls:

Pregaming Beetlejuice

This afternoon is Date Night at HCP (Hair Cut Place, known to most as Salon Esprit, where we have gone to get coifed, chat with the stylists, and set out for a date every 5-6 weeks for close to a quarter century). 

Usually we head out from HCP to a special dinner, but today we are going to eat at the pizza shop next door (the local one, not the national chain place named for game tiles) so that we can walk right over to the local (and tiny) multiplex for the latest Winona project.

What better title for a redux of Beetlejuice than a simple double-tap of the title: Beetlejuice Beetlejuice?

Even though we have seen the original at least twice, it has been a minute, as they say. So we watched again on Max (formerly HBO Max) last night.

Mostly it was just a refresher of the plot and a reminder of what the actors looked like in the dying days of the Reagan Administration. Some plot points are likely to be picked up in the new film and many of the key actors -- including Our Noni -- will be back. 

We did however, notice one gem. When her character Lydia's father suggests installing a darkroom in the basement for her, Lydia replies,  "My whole life is a darkroom."

These half-dozen words -- perfectly delivered -- are the perfect distillation of the first decade or more of Winona's career.

Fellow Completists

Today we learned about another cinematic completist project, this one based on a director rather than an actor. That director is the Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar, whose absurd works we first discovered through a screening of Dark Habits (Entre Tinieblas) at a theater in Cincinnati of all places.* We have enjoyed quite a few of his works, but are unlikely to match this achievement.

Fernanda Echavarrí, Pedro Almodóvar and Antonia Cereijido

As originally broadcast on Latino USA in 2017 and repeated today, this quest finds two of that radio program's producers watching every one of Almodóvar's films together, recording their reactions to a couple of basic questions about each one. 

The central questions that Fernanda Echavarrí and Antonia Cereijido explore have to do with the tendency of these films to center around strong and neurotic female characters that are both absurd but also tied to common Latina stereotypes. 

The half-hour interview includes highlights of their findings, including a conversation they had with the director himself. The result is thought-provoking, heart-warming, and a bit hilarious.

* The negative qualifier "of all places" has to do with the fact that this was around the same time we had rushed to a museum exhibit in the same city to see it before it got arrested. Cincinnati was notorious for its puritanical approach to the arts back then.

The Plot Against America

Freedom is Never Completely Won. But It Can Be Lost.

This 2020 limited series is based on Philip Roth's 2004 novel of the same name. Although it had been written a little earlier and was set a lot earlier, this production by David Simon and Ed Burns was perfectly timed.

This historic fiction, a genre that always has us curious -- what parts of this are real and what parts are not? Some details are clearly meant to be thought-provoking and clearly never happened. But this is speculative fiction that is rooted in which much of what is speculated is closer to the truth than we might have understood.

The story imagines an alternate history, in which Charles Lindbergh defeated Franklin Roosevelt in the 1940 race for he U.S. presidency, on an anti-war platform. Lindbergh was not, in fact, a candidate in that race, which Roosevelt won by a large margin. Both Roosevelt and his real-world opponent Wendell Willkie declared opposition to U.S. involvement in what was to become World War II. Wilkie did maintain that Roosevelt was not serious and that he had secret war plans.

The famous pilot Lindbergh did not run for the president, but real-life Lindbergh did express many of the antisemitic views that are central to the campaign of the Lindbergh in this story. The series follows the unfolding of these fictional events from the campaign of 1940 through the first two years of the Lindbergh presidency -- almost to the point of U.S. involvement on the parallel, real time line in which Roosevelt was president.

This period is told on two important levels. The global events and national politics are conveyed through newsreels shown at cinema in Newark, New Jersey. These are seen through the lens of Newark's Jewish community, one extended family in particular. 

And this is where Our Noni comes in. She plays Evelyn Finkel, a character who gradually becomes the link between the local and global, the personal and political in this complex tale. Over the course of six episodes, a schism emerges between Evie and the rest of her family as their local rabbi aligns himself with Lindbergh, and she with the rabbi. They have their reasons, which they come to regret far too late. 

This dystopian story is as important as it is timely. It is not possible to watch this post-2020 without recognizing the ways in which racism and xenophobia were employed in political rhetoric, how the violence of independent mobs and individuals was fomented by that same rhetoric, and how the instigators of that violence managed to insulate themselves from culpability. 

Final Verdict: Five Croquet Balls

Noni Pulls a Caper

This phrase popped out of my mouth about halfway through our viewing of Gone in the Night, and I decided to use it for this post. I am staying with that choice, though "caper" captures only one of several distinct moods and genres that Noni's latest work takes in the course of just 90 minutes.

My first thought when noticing that the writer and director is named Eli Horowitz was that Winona herself might have created this, since her birth name was Winona Laura Horowitz. My second thought was that she might have agreed to the project as a favor to a close family member. I could not find any mention of the author's family, however, and in an interview with Grant Hermanns of Screen Rant, he describes their first meeting, which came only after he had sent her the script. 

I recommend reading the Screen Rant interview after watching the film, but I will share one insight from the interview that sheds light on the film's impact without giving away any spoilers. The film, he says, makes sense only in the Airbnb era, which has given us an entire new set of relationships with people and places.

Final Verdict

Four Croquet Balls

This is an imperfect script, but perfectly executed. Winona's character Kath is more like Veronica than any of the roles she has played since Heathers, and for this reason fans will enjoy the performance, even if we find ourselves saying "What?" when the final credits roll.

Sarah Cooper: Everything's Fine

In this one-hour special directed by Natasha Lyonne, comedienne Sarah Cooper spoofs morning news shows. An all-cast (some of whom play themselves) make this a fun who's who. Our Winona plays Lacey Groin - a long-missing television personality who is "found" by Cooper. Ryder's part is short, and very funny. 

This is worth watching, even if you aren't a Noni Complete-ist.

Final Verdict: Four Croquet Balls

Revisiting the Upside Down

  

See our National Lego Day, Belated post for the
the story of this Winona action figure.

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.

Natalia Dyer as Nancy Wheeler