113 - Homefront

Winona Ryder’s career in the 2000s is a lot more unpredictable than in the 90s. Case in point: her scene-stealing supporting turn in the action-thriller HOMEFRONT, playing James Franco’s trashy meth-slinging girlfriend! Listen to Alex and Julio marvel at Winona’s versatility while also wondering if Jason Statham is Sylvester Stallone’s true heir, why James Franco doesn’t play more villains, how likely is it that Clancy Brown’s Sheriff has never discharged his weapon and whether Kate Bosworth has finally broken out of the Lois Lane type-casting!

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Bonus! - The Crucible

Arthur Miller really knew how to lay it on thick. When he found himself smack dab in the middle of McCarthy’s Communist Witch Hunt, his answer was to write a play that simplified the situation to the dumbest level, made old-timey Puritans look like idiots and, casually, blamed women for everything. Listen to Alex and Julio try to make sense of Nicholas Hytner’s adaptation of THE CRUCIBLE, starring a cast of titans in addition to our beloved Winona! Why is it heroic for Daniel Day Lewis to leave his children fatherless? Why does Joan Allen feel the need to apologize for being cheated on? Why does everybody believe anything that follows the words “The Devil Says”? It’s the most devious Winona we’ve found so far and the one that leads to the heaviest Real Talk ever!

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112 - Edward Scissorhands

Behold the most underwhelming love story of The 90s: a girl with a penchant for bad boyfriends is suddenly attracted to a man-child with giant scissors for hands. Just another day in Tim Burton’s head! Listen to Alex and Julio try to figure out what EDWARD SCISSORHANDS is trying to say about love, community, Karens, bullies, outcasts… and the worst fairy tale you could share with a kid!

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111 - The Dilemma

When you see Vince Vaughnn and Kevin James on a movie poster, you don’t instantly think you are in for a complex analysis of the harsh realities of romantic relationships and faithfulness. You also don’t expect James to be married to Winona Ryder. Listen to Alex and Julio discuss THE DILEMMA and celebrate the way Ron Howard blindsided critics and audiences that were expecting just another dumb comedy!

Also: a brief tribute to Joel Schumacher after our usual Real Talk segment.

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Bonus! - Bram Stoker's Dracula

It’s common knowledge that Dracula equals Sex. We don’t need to talk about it because it’s so apparent to begin with. Enter Francis Ford Coppola, who didn’t just decide to turn subtext into Obvious Text and make the most sex-driven vampire movie ever, but also stain the reputations of Keanu Reeves, Anthony Hopkins and, of course, Winona Ryder, in the process. Listen to Alex and Julio discuss excess (Coppola’s and Gary Oldman’s) as The Summer of Winona continues with its most libidinous entry yet!

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110 - Reality Bites

The Summer of Winona continues… with the purest Winona vehicle of them all! Listen to Alex and Julio clash on the latest gray area episode as they discuss REALITY BITES, Ben Stiller’s attempt at capturing what it was like to be a GenXer fresh out of college. Is it relatable and charming or pretentious and overly quirky? Does Ethan Hawke’s band suck? Are we Team Troy or Team Michael? And why can’t Winona do better? It’s the discussion we’ve been promising since Year One!

Also: a recap of our LIVESTREAM 4 THE CURE experience and the results of the raffle from our segment!

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109 - Lost Souls

The Summer of Winona continues… in church! Well, sort of. Janusz Kaminski got tired of setting up lights for Spielberg and went off on his own to make the ultimate Exorcism/Antichrist movie, starring Ben Chaplin and our beloved Winona Ryder. The result? Way too intense for film critics, landing this masterpiece a rotten 8% Tomatometer score. Listen to Alex and Julio grapple with the sad fact that most people aren’t even aware of LOST SOULS’ existence, let alone the existence of a sequence where W. Earl Brown snaps a dude’s neck like it’s no big deal!

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Bonus! - Alien: Resurrection

The Summer of Winona continues… in space! Listen to Alex and Julio as they return to the Alien Universe and celebrate all the barriers broken down by Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s ALIEN: RESURRECTION! Aggressively sexual Ripley? Check. Sensitive self-hating droid? Check. Intensely emotive baby alien? Check. How is this not considered the best movie in the franchise???

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108 - Beetlejuice

The Summer of Winona continues as we go back to Winona’s first commercial success and her first collaboration with Tim Burton, who even back then had way too many ideas and not enough interest in executing them properly. Listen as Alex and Julio try to make sense of BEETLEJUICE and its morbid fascination with death! Is Michael Keaton’s performance to blame for the eventual epidemic of comedians gone wild with the riffing? Why was Winona so bad at charades? And what are the logistics of staging an impromptu supernatural song and dance?

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107 - Mr. Deeds

The Summer of Winona begins! And what better place to start than that crucial moment when her career collided with that of one Adam Sandler? Listen to Alex and Julio ease themselves into this Summer-long exploration of Winona Ryder’s career by analyzing how her naturalistic style of comedy meshed with the Happy Madison crew! It was a turning point for everyone involved!

(If you aren’t using a podcatcher and can’t play M4As, scroll down to the bottom of the page for a downloadable MP3!)

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