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The Culture Gabfest, "Daniel Craig in Chaps" Edition

Listen to Slate's show about Cowboys & Aliens, AMC's Breaking Bad, and painter Lucian Freud.

Posted Wednesday, Aug. 3, 2011, at 11:59 AM

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Listen to Culture Gabfest No. 150 with Dana Stevens, June Thomas, Julia Turner, and Jacob Weisberg by clicking the arrow on the audio player below or opening this player in another tab:

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In this week's Culture Gabfest, our critics Dana Stevens, June Thomas, and Julia Turner discuss the new sci-fi Western mashup Cowboys & Aliens. Next, they discuss whether it's time to start watching AMC's award-winning drama Breaking Bad. For their final segment, they're joined by Slate Group chairman Jacob Weisberg to discuss the death of painter Lucian Freud.

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

The official site of Jon Favreau's Cowboys & Aliens.
Josh Levin's review of
Cowboys & Aliens for Slate.
Dana's reviews of other recent Westerns True Grit and Meek's Cutoff.
The official site of last weekend's other sci-fi opening Attack the Block.
The official site of AMC's Breaking Bad.
Jessica Grose and June Thomas' recaps of Season 4 Episodes
1, 2, and 3 for Slate.
David Segal's NYT Magazine article on Breaking Bad showrunner Vince Gilligan.
Troy Patterson's 2008 review of the first season of Breaking Bad for Slate.
Slate's long-running "TV Club" for Mad Men.
William Grimes' NYT obituary for British painter
Lucian Freud.
Jerry Saltz's New York article on Lucian Freud and "
Why Artists You Don't Love Can Still Be Great."
Christopher Benfey's 2008 slide-show essay on "
Lucian Freud, Unbuttoned" for Slate.
Australian performance artist
Leigh Bowery.

The Culture Gabfest weekly endorsements:

Dana's pick: Constantin Stanislavski's seminal acting book An Actor Prepares.
June's picks: Tayari Jones' 2011 novel Silver Sparrow and Colm Tóibín's 2009 novel Brooklyn.
Jacob's pick: Jacob co-endorses Brooklyn, and also recommends The Decemberists' most recent album, The King Is Dead.
Julia's pick: Adult Swim's police procedural spoof NTSF:SD:SUV::.

Outro: "June Hymn" by The Decemberists

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

This podcast was produced by Jesse Baker. Our intern is Forrest Wickman.

Follow us on the new Culturefest Twitter feed. And please Like the Culture Gabfeston Facebook.

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MySlate is a new tool that lets you track your favorite parts of Slate. You can follow authors and sections, track comment threads you're interested in, and more.

June Thomas is a Slate culture critic. Follow her on Twitter.

Dana Stevens is Slate's movie critic. Email her at slatemovies@gmail.com or follow her on Twitter.

Julia Turner is Slate's deputy editor and a regular on Slate's Culture Gabfest podcast.
You can email her at juliaslateturner at gmail.com or follow her on Twitter at http://twitter.com/juliaturner.

Jacob Weisberg is chairman and editor-in-chief of the Slate Group and author of The Bush Tragedy. Follow him at http://twitter.com/jacobwe.

Illustration by Robert Neubecker.