Listen to Culture Gabfest No. 168 with Stephen Metcalf, Dana Stevens, and Julia Turner by clicking the arrow on the audio player below or opening this player in another tab:

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In this week's special live Culture Gabfest at New York’s City Winery, our critics Stephen Metcalf, Dana Stevens, and Julia Turner discuss a new ode to the silent screen era, The Artist, and the new Discovery Channel show Weed Wars. For their final segment, the Gabfesters try to keep up with the Kardashians.

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

Dana’s Slate review of The Artist.
Harvey Weinstein’s plan for The Artist to win an Oscar.
Slate’s Forrest Wickman asks whether movies about movies have an advantage in awards season.
Collider.com’s interviews with The Artist’s director Michel Hazanavicius and the film’s stars.
The Artist’s official site.
June Thomas’ Slate piece on the Discovery Channel’s new show Weed Wars. 
MTV’s True Life episode on the marijuana business.
Slate’s Explainer asks, “Is it more dangerous to drive drunk or stoned?”
The history of marijuana laws, at Cato Unbound.
The Discovery Channel’s Weed Wars official site.
New York’s assessment of modern American pot culture.
Slate’s look at Kardashian divorce jokes on Twitter.
Slate’s L.V. Anderson on Kim Kardashian and six other highly profitable reality star weddings.
The Keeping Up With The Kardashians Wikipedia page.
The New York Times’ Frank Bruni on Kim Kardashian’s divorce.
The Hollywood Reporter’s Rebecca Ford thinks Kim’s brief marriage was just a big hoax.
US Magazine’s love affair with Kim Kardashian.
Keeping Up With The Kardashians’ official site.

The Culture Gabfest weekly endorsements:

Dana’s pick: Reading the “codex” of We Need To Talk About Kevin (or any book) in bed.
Julia’s pick: Gabfest listeners, for supplying The Little Drummer Boy Christmas challenge.
Steve’s pick: Bedrock Wine’s “Ode to Lulu” Rose, the John Cusack/Tim Robbins classic Tapeheads and Alec Guinness’ timeless turn in the original screen adaptation of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy?

Outro: Bob Dylan's "Rainy Day Women"

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This podcast was produced by Jesse Baker. Our intern is Matt Sigl.

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