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Before Johnny Depp famously had a tattoo artist delete the "na" from his biceps, he had it right: "Winona Forever." Everywhere we look these days, there's another young brunette playing an ultrasarcastic, liberal-minded, sensitive slacker — the type of grunge Hepburn that Winona Ryder once made famous. Just watch Olivia Thirlby in The Wackness, Emma Stone in The Rocker, Hannah Bailey in American Teen, Ellen Page in Juno, Kat Dennings in Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist — if you squint through Nick and Norah, you might mistake Dennings for Ryder herself. Both are five-foot-four-inch Jewish girls whose curvy top halves upend their bottom halves, and both, curiously, were home-schooled. Why the Winona-vitalization? Maybe it's because America is starting to resemble the place it was when Winona schlepped a greasy Dave Pirner to the Oscars: The economy blows, grads can't find jobs, even flannel is back. Meanwhile Ryder, after a brief detour through shoplifting ignominy, is sticking to the future. She'll be in J.J. Abrams' Star Trek prequel, playing Spock's mom. Shit, we're old. MELISSA MAERZ

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