Slate's Culture Gabfest on It's Complicated, Vic Chesnutt, and predictions for the decade to come.

Slate's Culture Gabfest on It's Complicated, Vic Chesnutt, and predictions for the decade to come.

Slate's Culture Gabfest on It's Complicated, Vic Chesnutt, and predictions for the decade to come.

Slate's weekly roundtable.
Dec. 30 2009 11:57 AM

The Culture Gabfest, "Puny Ingratiation" Edition

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The Culture Gabfest has moved! Find new episodes here.

Listen to Culture Gabfest No. 67 with Stephen Metcalf, Dana Stevens, and June Thomas by clicking the arrow on the audio player below: 

You can also download the program here, or you can subscribe to the weekly Culture Gabfest podcast feed via iTunes or directly with our RSS feed.

Get your 14-day free trial from our sponsor Audible.com, which includes a credit for one free audiobook, here. (Audiobook of the week: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, written by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith and read by Katherine Kellgren.)

Find the Culturefest Facebook page here. Leave us a note and see what other Culturefest listeners have to say about the latest podcast.

In this week's Culture Gabfest, our critics discuss Nancy Meyers' latest yuppie comedy It's Complicated, the loss of singer-songwriter Vic Chesnutt, and predictions for the decade to come.

Here are links to some of the articles and other items mentioned in the show:

Dana Stevens' Slate review of It's Complicated.
The official Web site and trailer for It's Complicated.
Wikipedia's entry for The Philadelphia Story.
Lambchop's official Web site.
Sweet Relief II, a tribute album for Vic Chesnutt.
The official Web site for the Spanish film The Sea Inside, based on the life of Ramon Sampedro.
See Vic Chesnutt play a Tiny Desk Concert for NPR.
Anne Applebaum's take in Slate on what the next decade will bring.

The Culture Gabfest weekly endorsements:

Dana's picks: Vic Chesnutt's interview with Terry Gross on NPR and the Harry Nilsson album of children's folklore The Point!
June's picks: the Spanish historical epic film Bloody May,directed by Jose Luis Garci; and The Last Cargo Cult,created and performed by Mike Daisey.
Stephen's picks: writer Jonathan Raban's piece "Sarah and her Tribe," in the New York Review of Books,and Vic Chesnutt's album West of Rome.

You can e-mail us at culturefest@slate.com.

Posted on Dec. 30 by Jesse Baker at 11:57 a.m.

Dec. 23, 2009

Listen to Culture Gabfest No. 66 with Jessica Grose, Stephen Metcalf, Dana Stevens, June Thomas, and Julia Turner and by clicking the arrow on the audio player below:

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You can also download the program here, or you can subscribe to the weekly Culture Gabfest podcast feed via iTunes or directly with our RSS feed.

Get your 14-day free trial from our sponsor Audible.com, which includes a credit for one free audiobook, here. (Audiobook of the week: To The Lighthouse, written by Virginia Woolf and read by Virginia Leishman.)

Find the Culturefest Facebook page here. Leave us a note and see what other Culturefest listeners have to say about the latest podcast.

In this week's Culture Gabfest, our critics discuss June's list of the best TV of the year and decade, Dana's take on the best films of the year and decade, and the MTV reality show Jersey Shore.

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Lifetime's show Drop Dead Diva.
Burn Notice
on USA.
Edie Falco in Nurse Jackie on Showtime.
CBS's The Big Bang Theory.
Kyra Sedgwick in TNT's The Closer.
The Canadian television series Slings and Arrows.
Michael Kitchen in the British detective drama Foyle's War.
New York
magazine's Emily Nussbaum on when exactly TV became brain candy.
Dana's official "best of the decade" list on Slate.
June's favorite movie of the decade: the Spanish film Solas. (Slight disclaimer: It was released in 1999.)
Director Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood.
For the back episodes of Jersey Shore, MTV's official site for the reality show.
The SNL's "poof" skit that inspired the title of this week's podcast.

The Culture Gabfest weekly endorsements:

Julia's pick: The Replacements song "Alex Chilton."
Jessica's pick: Netflix's  movie streams for your Playstation3.
Dana's pick: The films that didn't make her best in the decade list: the Brad Bird film Ratatouille, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, the Coen brothers' O Brother, Where Art Thou?, and Spike Lee's Inside Man.
Stephen's pick: Sandy Denny singing "Who Knows Where the Times Goes" and just about anything from the band My Morning Jacket.

You can e-mail us at culturefest@slate.com.

Posted on Dec. 23 by Jesse Baker at 11:02 a.m.

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Dec. 16, 2009

Listen to Culture Gabfest No. 65 with Daniel Engber, Stephen Metcalf, Dana Stevens, Chris Suellentrop,  and Julia Turner by clicking the arrow on the audio player below:

You can also download the program here, or you can subscribe to the weekly Culture Gabfest podcast feed via iTunes or directly with our RSS feed.

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Get your 14-day free trial from our sponsor Audible.com, which includes a credit for one free audiobook, here. (Audiobook of the week: The Ruby in the Smoke, written by Philip Pullman and read by Anton Lesser.)

Find the Culturefest Facebook page here. Leave us a note and see what other Culturefest listeners have to say about the latest podcast.

In this week's Culture Gabfest, our critics discuss whether you should see the Avatar, women in (and absent from) the world of film, and the year in video games.

Here are links to some of the articles and other items mentioned in the show:

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Avatar's official site.
James Cameron's IMDB page.
The Matrix
's Wikipedia page.
Director Michael Bay's Web site.
Trailers for James Cameron's 1989 film The Abyss.
New York Times critic Manohla Dargis' foul-mouthed interview with Jezebel on women in film.
The trailer for Kathryn Bigelow's film The Hurt Locker.
The Web site for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.
Sony PlayStation3 video games Flowerand Uncharted 2: Among Thieves.
Puzzle teaser games Desktop Tower Defenderand Blueberry Garden.
The official site for Max Payne.
Trailer for the new Batman: Arkham Asylum.

The Culture Gabfest weekly endorsements:

Julia's pick: Cate Blanchett in A Streetcar Named Desire.
Chris's pick: Director Jason Reitman's latest film, Up In the Air.
Stephen's pick: Low's Christmas Albumand Slate's Timothy Noah's coverage of the health care debate.
Dana's pick: The new film Crazy Heart.

You can e-mail us at culturefest@slate.com.

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Posted on Dec. 16 by Jesse Baker at 12:30 p.m.

Dec. 9, 2009

Listen to Culture Gabfest No. 64 with Stephen Metcalf, Jody Rosen, Dana Stevens, and Julia Turner by clicking the arrow on the audio player below:

You can also download the program here, or you can subscribe to the weekly Culture Gabfest podcast feed via iTunes or directly with our RSS feed. 

Get your 14-day free trial from our sponsor Audible.com, which includes a credit for one free audiobook, here. (Audiobook of the week: And Then We Came to the End, written by Joshua Ferris and read by Ian Porter.)

Find the Culturefest Facebook page here. Leave us a note and see what other Culturefest listeners have to say about the latest podcast.

In this week's Culture Gabfest, our critics discuss a decade of change in the music business, commercials that star indie celebrities, and the inexorable rise of Facebook.

Here are links to some of the articles and other items mentioned in the show:

Carl Wilson's book Celine Dion's Let's Talk About Love: A Journey to the End of Taste.
Lady Gaga's official Web site.
Jody Rosen'slist of the top 10 albums of 2009 for Slate's "Music Club."
Kanye West's official blog.
Beyoncé's "Single Ladies" video.
The Black Eyed Peas' Target ad.
Seth Stevenson's piece on indie sweethearts doing commercials.
Seth Stevenson's piece on the Black Eyed Peas' Target ad.
Seth Stevenson's piece on the Bob Dylan Victoria's Secret ad.
Seth Stevenson's piece on celebrity voice-overs.
Neil Young's "This Note's for You."
George Clooney's commercial for Martini.
Luke Wilson's AT&T commercials.
Farhad Manjoo's recent Slate piece on the unstoppable Facebook.
Farhad Manjoo's piece from January on why you should join Facebook.
Information on Facebook Connect.

The Culture Gabfest weekly endorsements:

Dana's pick: the music search site Lala.com.
Jody's pick: the rare images blog BibliOdyssey.
Julia's pick: The New York Times crossword puzzle app.
Stephen's pick: Everything But the Girl's "Unless It Rains" and "Get Me."

You can e-mail us at culturefest@slate.com.

Posted on Dec. 9 by Jesse Baker at 11:44 p.m.

Dec. 2, 2009

Listen to Culture Gabfest No. 63 with Stephen Metcalf, Troy Patterson, Jody Rosen, Dana Stevens, and Julia Turner by clicking the arrow on the audio player below:

Get your 14-day free trial from our sponsor Audible.com, which includes a credit for one free audiobook, here. (Audiobooks of the week, as recommended by listener Maya Archer-Doyle: Richard Burton Reads the Poetry of John Donne; The Portrait, by Iain Pears, read by Peter Capaldi; and The Third Man, by Graham Greene, read by Joseph Cotten.)

In this week's Culture Gabfest, our critics discuss White House party crashers Michaele and Tareq Salahi, whether the aughts were the "decade from hell," and Eva Tanguay, the first rock star.

Here are links to some of the articles and other items mentioned in the show:

Troy Patterson's "Brow Beat" post on the art of party crashing.
Matt Lauer's Today show interview of Tareq and Michaele Salahi.
Andy Serwer's Time cover story on "the decade from hell."
Jody Rosen's Slate article on forgotten vaudeville superstar Eva Tanguay.
The Slate "Audio Book Club" dissection of a Raymond Carver story and its Gordon Lish edit.

The Culture Gabfest weekly endorsements:

Dana's pick: Morrissey on Desert Island discs.
Julia's pick: Gail Collins' When Everything Changed.
Jody's pick: P.G. Wodehouse's The Code of the Woostersand Leave It to Psmith.
Stephen's pick: Henning Mankell's Firewall.

You can e-mail us at culturefest@slate.com.

Posted on Dec. 2 by Samantha Henig at 11:30 a.m.

June Thomas is managing producer of Slate podcasts.

Stephen Metcalf is Slate’s critic at large. He is working on a book about the 1980s.

Dana Stevens is Slate’s movie critic.