Wind, Reel, & Print

EPISODE 068: CINEMA MINISERIES

Featuring: Treasure Island (1950); Muppet Treasure Island (1996); Treasure Planet (2002)

ARGH MATEY. Long John Silver may be one of the most interesting characters in all of media, and in this episode Ryan and Kevin speak about how him and many of the other themes and characters of Treasure Island have evolved over the decades. Plus our pitch for the next Treasure Island adaptation!

EPISODE 067: CINEMA SINGLES

Featuring: Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001)

Following the Disney Renaissance of the 20th century, things began to putter out, or more aptly, sink into the ocean. As children of the 90’s, Ryan and Kevin remember Atlantis fondly and discuss its place in animation history. Plus the “Fart Theory™.”

EPISODE 066: LESSONS IN FILM MOVEMENTS

Featuring: Reefer Madness (1936); Up in Smoke (1978); How High (2001); Pineapple Express (2008)

WR&P goes deep undercover to expose the true ills of society: Marijuana! Ganja! The Devil’s Lettuce! Listen in as Ryan and Kevin explore the history of the stoner film genre, all the way from the propaganda film of the 1930’s to the buddy comedies of the late 20th century, and beyond.

EPISODE 065: LESSONS IN FILM GENRE

Featuring: A Bug’s Life (1998); Chicken Run (2000); Robots (2005)

At the dawn of the new millennia, animated films began its rapid transition from physical medium to computer generation and changed the film industry altogether. Steve Jobs’ Pixar signaled the move away from Disney’s 2D cell animation and Aardman’s claymation, and foreshadowed the complete tech takeover that Hollywood has been experiencing since the 2010s. With months-long labor strikes, VFX artists unionizing, and Hollywood studios monopolizing nearly every other week, the phrase “means of production” carries a double meaning when it comes to critiquing the film industry from a Marxist perspective. To gain an elementary understanding of how Marxist theory operates, WR&P cohosts Ryan and Kevin throw it back to the early aughts and the late 90s with three animated children’s flicks from three different animation studios that echo sentiments of class consciousness, consumption, and materialism.

EPISODE 064: LETTERBOXD TOP 250 SHUFFLE

Featuring: Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964); Raging Bull (1980); The Father (2020); I’m Still Here (2024)

In a new episode of WR&P’s Letterboxd Top 250 Shuffle, Ryan & Kevin pin two cinema classics against two recent Oscar darlings. Despite the drastic jump in time, this particular collection is rare in its thematic cohesion. As our own reality tears at the seams, these four films build a portrait of this slow descent into destruction. Although these stories originate in history and/or fiction, the threat of nuclear warfare, the impacts of toxic masculinity, the complete loss of identity and memory, and fascist governments ripping apart families are all current events which continue to affect our society today.

EPISODE 063: SPECIAL EVENT

Wind Reel & Print “wraps” their first season with a celebratory WR&P Awards Ceremony. Cohosts Ryan and Kevin summarize the last year of podcasting by pinpointing landmark episodes that transformed, defined, and elevated our understanding of cinematic language. The First Annual WR&P Awards closes with an exciting announcement of this year’s winners for Best Screenplay, Best Actor(s), Best Director, and Best Picture.

EPISODE 062: CINEMA SINGLES

Having mentioned the film in a number of previous episodes, Kevin’s fascination with Damien Chazelle’s “Babylon” finally comes to fruition. In a heartfelt suicide note to Hollywood, Chazelle returns to his supposed entertainment industry comfort zone, relishing in the chaos and thrilling drama that defined his early successes in “Whiplash” and “La La Land”. After bombing at the box office, “Babylon” aims to achieve a cult following status with its grotesque humor and fantastical Hollywood episodes offering more than what initial viewers gave it credit for.

EPISODE 061: FILM THEORY DISCUSSIONS

Wind Reel & Print uncovers the secrets to Soviet cinema via the guidance of filmmaker Lev Kuleshov and his humbly named theory the “Kuleshov effect”. In an introductory lesson to film editing, this founding principle of film theory draws attention to the cut as the primary building block of film-meaning creation. Despite the inherent self-explanatory nature of this concept, this episode serves as an important reminder of the impacts Soviet film theorists had on the development of cinematic language, with the “Kuleshov effect” and the montage helping usher in film as the defining art form of a modern industrial society.

EPISODE 060: DOUBLE FEATURES

Featuring: Annie Hall (1977); [500] Days of Summer (2009)

What does the Academy Award-winning Woody Allen and Hollywood hearthrob Joseph Gordon-Levitt have in common? We’re actually not too sure either. But their movies felt like an appropriate pair to cut against. Both “Annie Hall” and “[500] Days of Summer” take the romcom genre to meta extremes and WR&P cohosts Ryan and Kevin examine the formal and narrative aspects that loosely define a meta romcom, namely the use of atemporal editing and the narrative focus on memory.

EPISODE 059: BAY AREA FLICKS

Featuring: Angels in the Outfield (1994); The Fan (1996); Moneyball (2011)

In possibly the biggest reach in WR&P history, Kevin bundles three Bay Area-based baseball movies in an attempt to define the local region through America’s Favorite Pasttime. From Brad Pitt’s Billy Beane to Robert De Niro’s fanatic antics, baseball is universally cherished as a game of passion. It stands as one of the iconic symbols of American and masculine identity, with both Ryan and Kevin sharing connections with baseball and their respective fathers. While the Bay Area ties aren’t incredibly strong across all three films, Ryan proposes how “Moneyball” echoes the sentiment of how Oakland has been poached of sports vivacity.