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
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| See our National Lego Day, Belated post for the the story of this Winona action figure. |
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| Natalia Dyer |
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| Natalia Dyer as Nancy Wheeler |
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 Heathers in 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!
NOTE: WE UPDATED THIS POST ON MAY 31, 2022 AS WE START SEASON 4
(See below)
Thanks to our friend Brian for noticing something we had missed: the Winona Lego! Yesterday -- on National Lego Day -- he shared an image from the Lego buildable model of the Upside Down from Stranger Things.
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| Detail of The Upside Down |
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.
As podcaster Nancy Meyer explains, the reference to "my Winona Ryder" is to a girlfriend who bears some resemblance to the actress as she appeared in Stranger Things. I have not yet seen any mention of the fact that he lives about 120 miles northwest of her birthplace.
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.
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| 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.
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| Pamela meeting Alison Bechdel in 2019 |
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:
