Beetlejuice - A film for the (October) holiday

In honor of Our Winona's almost-Halloween birthday (October 29) we watched this almost-spooky movie which also stars Geena Davis, Alec Baldwin, and Michael Keaton (as the title character).

NOTE: We watched the film over the weekend, but delayed posting until today, as Noni begins a very special year. On October 28, she attained the age of 42, which we know is the answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything. And now she begins her year of 43, the delicious vanilla liqueur from Spain.

In this classic film from director Tim Burton, young couple Adam and Barbara Maitland (Baldwin and Davis) are tragically killed in a freak car accident in the midst of renovating their lovely old New England home. They return to their house as ghosts and attempt to scare out the Deetz family, who has moved in and made some truly horrifying changes to the charming abode. After a failed attempt to scare the Deetz's by wearing some designer sheets with holes cut out for their eyes, the Maitlands recruit renegade ghost and "bio-exterminator" Betelgeuse to help them haunt the house. They are aided and abetted by the Deetz's teenage-goth daughter Lydia, convincingly played by Ryder.

This is a fun-for-the-whole family movie - really not scary, with some good sight gags, and a bit of satire. Made during Ryder's heyday this is a truly classic 80s film, with a definite "Laura Ashley" vibe throughout and Our Noni in a quintessentially brooding role.

Final Verdict: Four Croquet Balls

Girl, Interrupted

Based on Susanna Kaysen's memoir of her time spent as a patient in a mental institution, this film stars Our Winona in the title role. She plays well with co-stars Angelina Jolie (as fellow patient Lisa Rowe); Whoopi Goldberg (as-to-good-to-be-true nurse Valerie Owens); and a very young Elizabeth Moss - of Mad Men Fame - as Polly "Torch" Clark.

After combining a bottle of aspirin with a bottle of vodka Kasen reluctantly commits herself to Claymoore Hospital. Questions about her medications go unanswered, and the patients begin their own black market for trading drugs they want for those they don't. Each of the patients on the women's ward battles her own demons, and they can sometimes be cruel to each other. However, their fierce protection of each other is also evident. In one sadly funny scene the patients all go in to town for ice cream as a good-bye send off to one of their own. There they encounter Barbara Gilcrest (Mary Kay Place) the wife of a professor Susanna slept with. When Gilcrest confronts Kasen her cohorts go all out in playing up their mental illnesses in order to scare Gilcrest off.

The tumult inside of Claymoore Hospital parallels what is going on historically during the late 1960s as Susanna's boyfriend, Toby, flees to Canada after getting his draft notice and news of Civil Rights  struggles continue. Sex, drugs, and rock and roll are all part of the backdrop.

Final Verdict: Four Croquet Balls

Night on Earth - Quirky Corky

Throughout the opening credits, viewers are treated to a slowly spinning classroom globe, as the camera pans north and south, reviewing the state of the 1991 world, and setting the stage for a film that could only take place between the fall of the Berlin Wall and the fall of the Twin Towers. The East was beginning to reunite with the West, but air travel was still convenient, and cell phones were still a symbol of the extremely well-connected.

The journey will reveal the joys, sorrows, anger and joy of the (nocturnal) quotidian of five very different drivers in five northern-hemisphere cities, all in a single night.

The globe first settles on Los Angeles, where in the first vignette, Our Winona plays Corky, a chain-smoking, street-smart young woman who is dropping off some musicians at LAX. Her first fare is a casting agent (Victoria Snelling, played by Gena Rowlands), who is barely thinking about catching a cab as she walks from baggage claim, her status as a Very Important Person reinforced by her devotion to her phone. As she steps outside, she barely notices the cab, or Corky, who is using a vintage payphone to argue with her manager, and barely notices her customer.

At first, the class divide between the two is vast, neither one really understanding much of what the other says. But during the long ide to Beverly Hills, we know when a small connection is made. Each woman finds a cigarette -- in an envelope and in an elegant case, respectively -- and as the casting agent looks for her lighter, Corky reaches out to her fellow smoker, presaging the importance of cigarettes in most of the remaining stories.

SPOILER ALERT BELOW

Continuing to be absorbed in her phone, Victoria complains that all of the actresses she has been screening are too affected, not authentic enough. Then she realizes that Corky is exactly what she wants, and since she usually gets what she wants, she thinks her problem is solved. For Corky, the aspiration to be a mechanic someday is a dream that she will not let slip away, even when tempted with movie-stardom. Even though we have spoiled the ending of this first act, it is worth watching, to see Noni in a quintessential role that exemplifies her anti-starlet persona.

The film is a bit of a time-zone lesson, as this vignette ends, and a clock on a wall rolls back to its starting time, but forward to the time that would be in New York, then Paris and Rome (same time zone), ending at the same time -- but near dawn -- in Helsinki. Each of these cities is a different character, as is each driver and fare. Complex stories play out in the confines of each cab as it cruises each darkened, nearly empty city.

Writer and director Jim Jarmusch (known to us mainly for his vignette-a-thon Coffee and Cigarettes) tells each story so differently that this really looks like one of those projects in which several writers were each given a  prompt and set on their own course. The stories are all facets of the same mind, though, and well worth watching.

Final Verdict: Four Croquet Balls

Edward Scissorhands - Surrealism at its best

Edward Scissorhands is the 1990 vehicle that introduced Johnny Depp (as Edward), Our Winona, and the enigmatic director Tim Burton to many mainstream audiences, while putting Vincent Price and several other established actors in quirky roles that they appeared to relish.

Edward is Price's Frankenstein-like creation, almost complete except for the hands, which are improvised from a series of rather imposing sets of scissors. As with Mary Shelley's original, he looks menacing, but is gentle, as revealed by his demeanor, his Marcel-Marceau facial expressions, and a Wizard-of-Oz, Tin-Man-with-a-heart allusion). As with Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein, this is a monster with considerable sexual appeal.

Our Winona plays his love-interest, Kim. Edward lives in a big black mansion atop a mountain that rises inexplicably from the cul-de-sac neighborhood lost in both space and time. Those who dwell at the bottom of the hill live in monochromatic, prim little pastel houses with perfect lawns and shrubberies. Devises such as CD players, big screen television sets, and rotary dial phones proliferate, making it difficult to discern which decade the residents occupy. The timelessness and faux perfection presage the Wisteria Lane sets of Desperate Housewives, and blogger charismagick argues that the film is Tim Burton's answer to The Stepford Wives.

When the Avon lady (Dianne Wiest) comes calling to Edward's home he is introduced for the first time into suburban life. At first his novelty is a big hit with the housewives -- particularly Kathy Baker, who steps way outside the type she established in Picket Fences. His sex appeal eventually becomes too big of a burden for him, isolating him from all of his potential supporters.

All except for Our (lovely) Noni, of course. The final showdown in this film is reminiscent of Heathers with Our Winona in a fight-to-the-finish with her bully boyfriend, played but not overplayed by Anthony Michael Hall as an obligatory trope in the mainstream-girl-rescues-misunderstood-outcast film that this is.

The contrast with Her Greatest Work is in the nature of the heroine she plays -- the long auburn hair makes her a more classic high-school beauty than the brooding, close-cropped Veronica.

Director Tim Burton created a wonderfully believable make-believe world, with some scenes reminiscent of Latin American magic realism. He gave the make-up artists an additional challenge in the scenes that bookend the film, presenting Our Winona as an elderly grandmother for the opening and closing storytelling scenes.

April 10, 2026 update -- James could not help but notice this allusion in the daily post of the (unofficial) National Park Service LEGO Vignette page. 

Final Verdict: Four Croquet Balls



Lagniappe

Watching this movie we could not help but think about our own loveable, yet lacerating, monster.

Perry Scissorhands

House of the Spirits - Getting rich through hard work

“When a man tells you that he got rich through hard work, ask him: 'Whose?'”

Don Marquis

Esteban (Jeremy Irons) tells Rosa's parents that he plans to work hard every day in order to earn money, so he can be rich enough to marry their daughter. True to his word, he works hard in a diamond mine until he strikes a lode. Two years later he returns with the money he earned from his diamonds, to find his true love has died. He takes the money and buys a ranch (Tres Marias) where he tells the peasants who live there that he will take care of them if they work hard. "We have nowhere else to go" he is told by one of the workers, Pedro "Segundo". Through the exploitation of those who work his farm, he becomes an extremely rich and powerful man and eventually marries Rosa's silent, clairvoyant (and aptly named) sister, Clara (Meryl Streep). Their daughter (Blanca, played by Our Winona) falls in love with Pedro "Tercero" (Antonio Banderas), the son of "Segundo" one of Esteban's most loyal workers.

However loyal his father is, however, Pedro Tercero is quite undesirable to Esteban, not only for his status as a farm worker, but also because he is an instigator of union activity on the ranch - telling the other workers that they have a right to decent pay, shorter hours, and Sundays off. He becomes so much a target of Esteban's wrath that his life is endangered, especially after Blanca becomes pregnant.

Although ultimately a story of redemption, this film is hardly a "feel good" movie. Set in an unnamed South American country (Chile) during a military dictatorship Our Winona shows a true range of emotion, and portrays a character of strength and bravery throughout.

James adds: As a geographer, I find this film to be not only a compelling family story, but also an illustration of destructive dynamics that have been all too common in Latin America. As patron of the titular hacienda, Esteban really believes that he earns his wealth and status through his own effort. He further believes that his laborers benefit from their association with him. 

He is a local strongman who supports an increasingly conservative regime at the national regime, which in turn maintains the social order that concentrates land -- and power -- in the hands of a very few. The pattern known as minifundio / latifundio originated with colonial-era land grants, and continue to persist in many countries of the region. By restricting access to land, the system binds workers to a single local employer. Small favors from the patron may help to reinforce loyalty, but eventually resentment may lead to resistance. 

To protect their privileged status -- and in their own minds, for the good of society as a whole -- from resistance movements, latifundistas such as Esteban would form alliances with conservative regimes. Where these regimes have been threatened by broad social movements, military leaders have often -- as they did in Allende's Chile -- stepped in to "restore order." As Esteban learns in this story, totalitarian regimes are not reliable allies.

In Chile -- which Allende could not name in the original novel -- the displacement of the elected government by the military regime of Augusto Pinochet played out a bit differently than in her novel. The United States orchestrated the assassination of President Salvador Allende (the novelist's cousin) on September 11, 1973, because resistance movements in the region were seen as communist. Pinochet still ruled Chile when she wrote the novel from exile in Venezuela.

Final verdict: Four croquet balls

Mermaids: Noni Makes a Splash

The lemon meringue at
Bayside is
sensuous!

Yesterday was a perfect day to stream  Mermaids, which had been in our queue for re-viewing for some while. We had been to the Bayside Restaurant in Westport. It is one of our favorite restaurants, not only for the great food, the seaside location, and the connections to local sustainable agriculture, but also because of the prevalence of nautical beauties in its graphics and decor. (The related matter of mermaid connections to coffee is covered on James' Environmental Geography blog.)

Set in the early 1960s, this movie is a true gem from Our Winona's golden age of teen angst. Jewish Charlotte Flax (Ryder) is a wanna-be self-flagellating Catholic who must figure out how to live with her eccentric, single mother (Cher), to whom she affectionately refers as Mrs. Flax. A young Christina Ricci plays her precocious little sister, Kate. Pam used the word "precocious" for Ricci's character; James found that her IMDb biography starts with the same word. This was Ricci's first film, and nearly her last as a "little" girl.

Mrs. Flax has a habit of uprooting her family every time she breaks up with a boyfriend. As the film begins she is leaving the boyfriend/boss/creep de jure, and she puts the old random-finger-on-a-map trick to dramatic use in finding the family's next refuge. It is from this scene that we learn Charlotte and Kate will find themselves starting over in the fictitious town of Eastport, Massachusetts, and that this town seems to be near our adopted hometown of Bridgewater. See our Bridgewaters Project blog post for more on the geography of this film.

It is in this little town that Charlotte falls in love for the first time, finds out that she can't get pregnant from kissing, and learns an important lesson in what it means to be a grown up. In many ways this is a predictable coming-of-age film, but the three mermaids of the home -- one a woman, one a girl, and one caught in between -- are played with unusual depth. Their many foibles -- and even the tension between mother and eldest daughter -- make them both sympathetic characters and a joy to spend time with. The viewer can really get the feeling of sitting on the edge of the kitchen, hoping that this small family will find its way.

A note about the fourth-wheel character: Just as Christian Slater was channeling Jack Nicholson as he played opposite Our Noni in the Greatest Film of All Time, so did Bob Hoskins tend to have studied Danny DeVito a little too closely for his role as Mrs. Flax's first non-cretin beau. In Hoskin's case, though, he did not overdo it, and his performance serves to round out the film.

This was a fun film with a great sound track of some of the period's most enjoyable music. Listen through the credits to hear Cher herself cover a Betty Everett track played during the film itself.

Final verdict: four croquet balls.
And yes: 15,000 IMDb users can be wrong. Their equivalent of a three-ball rating, but they just do not understand what Our Noni has done here.

Lucas - Winona was robbed!

In honor of the 17-year cicadas who recently became one (each) with the windshield of our 2004 Saturn Wagon during a drive through Pennsylvania on route 84, we re-watched the only film we know of that features said insects. Iconic '80s child stars Corey Haim stars as Lucas along with Our Winona, Kerri Green, Courtney Thorne-Smith and Charlie Sheen (who plays a sensitive guy - go figure). Although Our Winona gets some top billing, her role in this film isn't all that great. She plays a girl with a pathetic puppy-love crush on a geek who has an even bigger puppy-love crush on someone else, who in turn likes someone else. Ah, high school.

This appears to be her first film; she performed ably, and it seemed she could have taken on a bigger part. She did have one scene with a bit of screen time, but clearly was not used to her full advantage.

Final Verdict: 3 croquet balls