Slate's Culture Gabfest on the film critic Roger Ebert, The Ricky Gervais Show on HBO, and ChatRoulette.

Slate's Culture Gabfest on the film critic Roger Ebert, The Ricky Gervais Show on HBO, and ChatRoulette.

Slate's Culture Gabfest on the film critic Roger Ebert, The Ricky Gervais Show on HBO, and ChatRoulette.

Slate's weekly roundtable.
Feb. 24 2010 10:55 AM

The Culture Gabfest, "Meet the Crotchman" Edition

Listen to Slate's show about the week in culture.

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The Culture Gabfest has moved! Find new episodes here.

Listen to Culture Gabfest No. 75 with Stephen Metcalf, Dana Stevens and Julia Turnerby 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 iTunesor 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:The Ricky Gervais Showpodcast by Ricky Gervias, Stephen Merchant, andKarl Pilkington.)

Find the Culturefest Facebook page here. Leave us a note and see what other Culturefest listeners have to say about the latest podcast.And please help us with the Slate Podcast Pledge Drive—and give yourself a shot to win free movie tickets and a chance to endorse something you love on our show—by sending your Culturefest "conversion story" to culturefest@slate.com.

In this week's Culture Gabfest, our critics Stephen Metcalf, Dana Stevens, and Julia Turner discuss an Esquire profile of film critic Roger Ebert, the new animated HBOincarnation of The Ricky Gervias Show,and ChatRoulette, the international chat room that pairs you and your webcam with a total stranger.

Here are some links to the things we discussed this week:

Esquire's profile of film critic Roger Ebert.
Roger Ebert's response to the piece on his blog.
Dana Steven's Movie Club in Slate with Roger Ebert.
The IMDB page for Beyond the Valley of the Dolls.
The Ricky Gervais Show on HBO.
Trailers for The Invention of Lying and Ghost Town.
Slate's review of The Invention of Lying by Dana Stevens.
Writer Sam Anderson's tests out ChatRoulette in New York magazine.
The New York Times goes a few rounds with ChatRoulette.
The New York Times unmasks the site's 17-year-old Russian founder.
ChatRoulette itself.

The Culture Gabfest weekly endorsements:

Dana's picks: Three soundtracks: Crazy Heart, Adventureland, The Fantastic Mr. Fox.
Julia's pick: Fentimans botanically brewed ginger beer.
Stephen's picks: An article in The Nation on lobbying and the media; St. Vincent's latest CD, Actor; and actor Peter Capaldi's performance in In the Loop.

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

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Posted on Feb. 24 by Jesse Baker at 10:55 a.m.

Feb. 17, 2010

Listen to Culture Gabfest No. 74 with Stephen Metcalf, Jody Rosen, Dana Stevens and Julia Turnerby 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: The Painted Veil, written byW. Somerset Maugham and read by Kate Reading.)

Find the Culturefest Facebook page here. Leave us a note and see what other Culturefest listeners have to say about the latest podcast. Please help us with the Slate Podcast Pledge Drive—and give yourself a shot to win free movie tickets and a chance to endorse something you love on our show—by sending your Culturefest "conversion story" to culturefest@slate.com.

In this week's Culture Gabfest, our critics Stephen Metcalf, Jody Rosen, Dana Stevens, and Julia Turner discuss "We Are the World 25 for Haiti," singer-songwriter John Mayer's disturbingly frank interview in next month's Playboy, and the start of the 2010 Winter Games.

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Here are some links to things discussed on this week's show:

The 1985 version of "We Are the World," recorded to benefit famine relief in Africa.
The 2010 version of "We Are the World," recorded to benefit earthquake victims in Haiti.
Other songs sung for a good cause: "Voices That Care" and "Do They Know It's Christmas?"
The New York Times' Jon Pareles on why, 25 years later, "We Are the World" is still a terrible song.
John Mayer's interview in Playboy.
Jody Rosen and Jonah Weiner's "Track of The Week" Brow Beat post on the John Mayer single "Who Says."
The official schedule for the 2010 Vancouver Winter Games.

The Culture Gabfest weekly endorsements:

Dana's pick: NBC's Winter Games e-mail alerts, so you can tune in for just the event you want.  
Jody's pick: The works of French writer Georges Simenon and the Fresh Air interview with actor Jason Segel.
Julia's pick: Transit Maps of the World by Mark Ovenden.
Stephen's pick: The sinus-cleansing neti pot and director Judd Apatow's 2001 sitcom Undeclared.

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

Posted on Feb. 17 by Jesse Baker at 11 a.m.

Feb. 10, 2010

Listen to Culture Gabfest No. 73 with Stephen Metcalf, Dana Stevens, Seth Stevenson, and Julia Turner 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: Thinking in Pictures: My Life with Autism, written byTemple Grandinand read byDeborah Marlowe, and Animals Make Us Human, written by Grandin and read by Andrea Gallow.)

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 Stephen Metcalf, Dana Stevens, Seth Stevenson, and Julia Turner discuss this year's crop of Super Bowl ads, HBO's Temple Grandin biopic, and the New York Times story on a killer karaoke song by Frank Sinatra.

Seth Stevenson's column on this year's Super Bowl ads in Slate.
Google's Super Bowl ad about Parisian love.
The Dodge Charger and Dove Super Bowl ads.
HBO's official Web page for the biopic Temple Grandin.
Born on a Blue Day, the memoir by Daniel Tammet.
The Lancet retraction of the autism and vaccine study.
The New York Times story on karaoke killings in the Philippines.
Claude Francois singing "Comme d'Habitude," the French ancestor of "My Way".
The live storytelling podcast The Moth.

The Culture Gabfest weekly endorsements:
Dana's pick: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot.
Julia's pick: New York Magazine's Valentine's special Q&A with married actors Megan Mullally and Nick Offerman.
Stephen's pick: Don DeLillo's novel Great Jones Street.

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

Posted on Feb. 10 by Jesse Baker at 2:51 p.m.

Feb. 3, 2010

Listen to Culture Gabfest No. 72 with Stephen Metcalf, Meghan O'Rourke, Troy Patterson, and Dana Stevens 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: The Adventures of Augie March, written by Saul Bellow and read by Tom Parker.)

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 Stephen Metcalf, Meghan O'Rourke, Troy Patterson, and Dana Stevens discuss Oscar nominations, the state of grief in America, and the loss of author J.D. Salinger.

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

The complete list of nominees for the 82nd Oscars from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
In the Loop's official site on the Independent Film Channel.
In the Loop on Amazon.com
Meghan O'Rourke's New Yorker article on the state of grief in the United States.
Meghan's series on grief and recovery in Slate.
Adam Gopnik's goodbye to J.D. Salinger in The New Yorker.
Slate's Troy Patterson takes on the two faces of J.D. Salinger  and Stephen's  tribute to the author, also in Slate.
The New York Times' dispatches from Cornish, N.H., on the real "Jerry" Salinger.
Dana Stevens on Hollywood Holdens.

The Culture Gabfest weekly endorsements:

Meghan's pick: A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis.
Troy's pick:  Fleetwood Mac performing "Tusk" with the USC marching band.
Stephen's pick: Thomas Hardy's series of love poems written after the loss of his wife, Emma.

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

Posted on Feb. 3 by Jesse Baker at 11:15 a.m.

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

Dana Stevens is Slate’s movie critic.

Julia Turner, the former editor in chief of Slate, is a regular on Slate’s Culture Gabfest podcast.