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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106 - Boyhood

Richard Linklater shot BOYHOOD over the span of 12 years and that was enough to get on the critics’ good side, regardless of how it also takes you 12 years to watch the whole thing. Listen to Alex and Julio as they contrast Patricia Arquette and Ethan Hawke’s parenting styles, discuss the evolution of Ellar Coltrane into one of those ever-punchable teenagers and lose track of how many pop culture references are thrown around in the movie. And it all takes barely two hours!

(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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105 - The Hangover III

Todd Phillips was gearing up for JOKER much earlier than we could have suspected. The final installment of the groundbreaking Hangover Trilogy takes an unexpected turn into action and adventure in addition to bringing surprising depth to its most cartoonish character. Listen to Alex and Julio as they celebrate the Wolf Pack and the thrills that come with their farewell tour! Learn to appreciate how Bradley Cooper dimmed his inner light for the sake of his co-stars! Relive Ken Jeong’s greatest karaoke hits! All this plus: Blue Velvet feedback!

(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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Bonus! - No Holds Barred

Wrestlemania hasn’t been cancelled, so why would we cancel our Wrestlemania Bonus Episode? Especially when it’s about Hulk Hogan’s feature film debut! Listen to Alex and Julio discuss Hulkamania, Rip-amania, Vince-amania… even some David-Paymer-mania! If you think The Rock is a big deal, brother, you need to look further back to see where it all began! It’s NO HOLDS BARRED!!!

Also: a quick game of “Which Contagion character are you?” inspired by our quarantines.

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Bonus! - Street Fighter

Videogame movies peaked early. It feels like the last 25 years have simply been about trying to achieve what STREET FIGHTER accomplished back in 1994: the best adaptation of a fighting game ever made. Not that the Tomatometer and its critics would know anything about that. Listen to Alex and Julio welcome Billy and Topher from the WE WATCHED A THING podcast to discuss the only movie in film history that gives you the combined powers of Jean Claude Van Damme, Raul Julia and Kylie Minogue!

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