Drunk History (2 episodes: "Boston" and "Philadelphia")

I suppose I can't say I was disappointed in this absolutely sophomoric series. It was exactly what it purported to be - drunk people describing historical events while actors portray them. The actors actually lip sync to drunk narrator, so the only voice the audience ever hears is that of the soused storyteller. We only watched the two episodes that featured Our Winona. There was nothing to recommend watching the rest of them.

In "Boston" Ryder plays Mary Dyer a Quaker who was hanged for, well, being Quaker. In "Philadelphia" she is Peggy Shippen, wife of traitor Benedict Arnold.

We did not enjoy these and mostly just wanted them to end, but I will say these two positive things about them

1. I did learn some new historical facts by watching them
2. The actors did a smashing job of synchronizing their mouths to the slurred speech of the pickled raconteurs

Final Verdict: Two Croquet Balls

Celebrity

This was perhaps our third time around with this one, but we still only remembered bits and pieces of this black and white Woody Allen film. Kenneth Branagh plays Lee Simon a writer who is not only having trouble with both his novel and his screenplay, he has completely screwed up his personal life as well. After leaving his wife he goes through a succession of relationships, each time thinking that there is someone better just around the corner. Through it all he channels Woody Allen to a degree that is rather unnerving.

Our Winona has a smallish part as Nola, one of Lee's girlfriends. She flirts with him on several occasions, and then moves in with him, only to leave him again. Their relationship isn't explored deeply, and neither is her character. Her role appears to be simply that of flighty waitress/wanna-be-actress but she plays it as only Winona can.

Final Verdict: Three Croquet Balls

Turks & Caicos

Winona seems to have gotten back on top; she garners top billing in this 2014 film above such big names as Helena Bonham Carter and Christopher Walken. The complicated plot of the film is made slightly more complicated by the fact that Carter and Ryder are made up to look almost alike (not confusing for the Hayes-Bohs, but it could trip up most normal people), as are Christopher Walken and Bill Nighy.

We usually include a poster or DVD cover, but this work has none, as it is a movie-length episode of a new Masterpiece Theater series. Here Ryder is shown with Bill Nighy (no relation to Bill Nye).

A small detail that makes this film unusual is that -- at least for the first 15 minutes -- Christopher Walken does not play its creepiest character. That distinction is reserved for Zach Grenier as Dido (no relation to the real Dido), the sort of capitalist who thinks he is self-made and is brimming with contempt for public servants. Poetic justice for his churlish remarks makes him the shortest-lived member of the ensemble.

The film is set in -- and named for The Turks & Caicos. This is just one place -- a tropical dependency of the United Kingdom that has nothing to do with Turkey. In the film, as in real life, its main attribute is as a tax haven where unseemly corporate behavior can take place with little if any oversight of governments.

Much of the convoluted plot centers around schemes to construct prison facilities of dubious legal standing and to grossly overcharge for them in the process, but no mention is ever made of the geographic proximity of the characters to their main subject -- the camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. As much as I enjoy films with political implications, this script is in places a bit too obvious about its political goals. Most artless is a brief lecture by Walken -- directed more at the camera than at any particular character -- about the failure of "a president" to close Guantanamo.

Winona's own performance is rather good. As mentioned above, her place in the credits is really not justified by the centrality of her character's role. But through a series of complicated plots and subplots, she manages to rise above the writing and deliver a strong and interesting character with a variety of connections to those involved in the film's main conspiracies.

Final verdict: Three croquet balls, good enough for non-fans

Cafe Latte

Yes, I finally found a way to make this blog about coffee. Actually, when checking Noni's IMDb profile, I noticed an entire new (to us) page of other works, which threatens to blur the line between "completist" and "obsessive." If we just dip into the one readily available work on this list, however, we should be OK. (According to her main list of works, by the way, this blog is about 80 percent "compleat" at this point.

In this case, I can include the entire subject work in the blog, and it has taken me longer to post this than it will for viewers to watch. Enjoy:

This ad includes music in English by Maaja and Winona commenting about a canned latte. It is not clear whether her voice is being used. The product is a Japanese version of a Washington-state latte from Mt. Rainier Coffee. Coffee in Japan includes two ends of the spectrum -- highly convenient coffee in cans or from the kinds of vending machines that were once common in U.S. department stores, or exquisitely crafted coffees prepared by the cup in elegant glassware.

Noni was brought in to sell some of the former -- a canned latte. I am skeptical of the coffee, but this is a fun bit of early Winona charm, without any other actors to dilute the experience..

Final verdict: Four croquet balls

Autumn in New York

Autumn in New York is not a great movie. I was nominated to write this review because I think it rises to the level of mediocre movie, and Pam does not agree. I'll start with some of the things that are wrong with it.

It does not need Winona Ryder in the way that it needs Richard Gere. In this May-September romance, any number of women could have played the "May" role, though Our Noni did salvage some badly written scenes through sheer effort. (Some lines were beyond hope.)

But the September role requires an actor that almost every character can refer to as exceptionally good-looking for his age. And yes, those constant references and the ease with which Gere's character accepts them are part of what makes this not a great movie.

The other problem is predictability. (Insert half-hearted spoiler alert here, because everything you think it going to happen in this film is going to happen in this film.) IMDb called this a "romantic drama," which apparently means "romantic comedy with all of the usual plot points, except that someone dies."

The attraction between the main characters is, as Rod Stewart would say, purely physical. Because the pretext of their first date is a lie, it is no surprise that the inevitable break-up is also the result of a lie. The "boy gets girl back" moments -- I counted two - happen without even a moment's thought on the part of Noni's character or a hint of an apology. She is not even awake for the first reunion.

Moreover, this movie badly fails the Bechdel test, which required two named, female characters to discuss something other than a man. It would barely pass a modified Bechdel, in which two named, male characters discuss something other than Richard Gere's dimples.

So what, it is fair to ask, raises this film to the level of mediocre? First, it is simply not as bad as I remember it from our first viewing years ago, nor is it as painful to watch as some of the other films we have reviewed recently in the one- and two-croquet-ball category. Second, although many scenes were cringe-worthy, I managed to care just enough about the characters to get a little misty when the surgeon -- played very well by J.K. Simmons -- delivered the bad news we all knew was coming.

Finally, the whole film is easy on the eyes. Beautiful people, beautiful food (Gere plays a big-time chef with an implausibly lax work ethic), and most of all a beautiful autumn in New York. During a recent visit, our New Yorker friend Joe took us to this bridge, made famous by many movies, and clearly the strongest character in this one.

Final verdict: A scant three croquet balls -- good enough (barely) for non-fans

Homefront

Because Pam "hated each minute of this movie more than the one before," I am taking the lead on our review. I did not like the movie at all, and it is a testament to our Noni completist ambitions that either of us got past the opening sequence. Everything about IMDb synopsis would normally serve to keep this film far from Casa Hayes-Boh -- especially the words "meth" and the suggestion that Sly Stallone is now a writer.

A former DEA agent moves his family to a quiet town, where he soon tangles with a local meth druglord.

Director:

 Gary Fleder

Writers:

 Sylvester Stallone (screenplay), Chuck Logan(based on the novel by)

Stars:

 Jason Statham, James Franco, Winona Ryder 

Everything except the last two words, of course. Noni got through this, so we did, too.

We watch a lot of the old vampire-with-a-soul series Angel, so we are used to an implausibly flawless protagonist who simply cannot lose in hand-to-hand combat. But when that person and his assailants are mortals, it somehow becomes more difficult to watch the ever-increasing mayhem.

There is something of a plot -- a gothic Southern story -- involving levels of criminal conspiracies and shifting alliances among very bad people.

Where does Winona come into this? Very late, and in a relatively small role. She is James Franco's moll -- an archaic name for a gangster's girlfriend that I prefer to any of the meth-culture equivalents used in the film -- who is put in the position of intermediary between a ruthless, powerful drug lord (her boyfriend) and an even more ruthless, powerful drug lord bent on revenge against that former agent. It is Noni's character who has a flicker of conscience that does not exactly save the day, but that allows for our flawless hero to do so.

Skip this unless you like predictable action flicks with a lot of violence. Or you are a Noni nut.

Final verdict (for Noni's role, not the overall film): split decision, rounding up to two croquet balls.

Friends - The One with Rachel's Big Kiss

We were fans of the television series Friends in its early days, but stopped watching sometime around season five or six, so we missed the episode late in season seven that featured Our Winona, in which Ryder plays Melissa Warburton, former sorority sister to Rachel (Jennifer Aniston). Rachel confesses to the rest of the Friends gang that following a drunken luau during her senior year she and Melissa shared a kiss. The titillating tale also involved the banging together of coconut bras - thrilling Joey (Matt LeBlanc) while putting Phoebe (Lisa Kudrow) in true skeptic mode. Rachel invites Phoebe to have dinner with her and Melissa in order to set the record straight (so to speak) but Melissa completely denies the incident.

Ryder is at her best psycho-self here. She has a range of roles to play within the 21-minute time span from shallow and entitled, to nutty, to lovesick and does them all with aplomb.

Available streaming on Netflix and Amazon this is episode 166 (Season 7; Episode 20)

Final Verdict: Four Croquet Balls