1993’s Hocus Pocus: pretty much the only thing in which I have ever seen Sarah Jessica Parker and actually found her to be attractive.
I have never seen Sex and the City. Not even one episode. As near as I can tell it doesn’t star her so much as her remains. Have some cheesecake, Skippy.
Anyway, back in 1993 she still had a little something going on in the upper decks, and she brought a kind of abandoned, childlike sylph-style ebullience to this role that was a surprisingly genuine and fresh take on such a stock role, and could have been played vampy and bimbo-tatstic in other hands.
Plus, you slap a blonde wig and some red lipstick on almost anybody and they are automatically going to be looking pretty good and I’m going to warm to them; I cite Bugs Bunny as evidence. I already liked him for that busted grill, so I was all about Lady Bugs.
I like Sarah Jessica Parker lookswise in this movie for all her blondeness, slightly immodest bosomness, and for-once-not-coated-in-makeup sharp-witch-chin-moledness. (I do like flaws!)
We tried to rent this last night down at Paolo and Miss D’s, but the ondemand was having none of it. Total folklore to pay for a movie that old and often-watched. Screw ABCFamily! We rented Monster House instead. In your face, Disney Corp.
Winifred Sanderson: Don’t get your knickers in a twist! We’re just three kindly old spinster ladies.
Mary Sanderson: Spending a quiet evening at home.
Sarah: Sucking the lives out of little children!
But I’ve been thinking about it since we considered renting it, and I drew some conclusions about the characters of the witches and what fears they represented; like what were their real crimes (I mean, other than being honest-to-god witches who were morally in bed with Satan).
It seemed to me that each witch had a central character trait around which the rest of her personality was constructed, and the actresses played those up in their performances. These traits were the unpardonable sins. The ones that got them burnt at the stake with no voice to defend them. So here’s a little list, from me to you. You’re welcome. Think nothing of it!
Things that’ll get your burnt at the stake in a rural Puritan village at the turn of the eighteenth century:
Being too smart. Very threatening. Don’t be calculating and gathering power to yourself when there are crops to bring in. People ain’t got time for your political and intellectual shit: they are trying to survive. You leave the power balance alone.
Being a bit of a “slow coach.” You make people uncomfortable, and Martin Luther advocated euthanizing you. You’re a danger to the entire community because you’re an unknown factor, and you’re lucky you’re even alive. Now go gnaw a chicken bone in the corner, inbred.
Being a bubbly, nymphomaniacal boy-stealer with nice boobs. That’s gonna get you burnt at the stake in any century, Cupcake.
Good luck out there!
The Thought Experiment 