Listen to Culture Gabfest No. 172 with Stephen Metcalf, Dana Stevens, June Thomas, 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 Culture Gabfest, our critics Stephen Metcalf, Dana Stevens, June Thomas, and Julia Turner hop across the pond with the new Margaret Thatcher biopic The Iron Lady and the return of the outrageous sitcom Absolutely Fabulous. For their final segment, Gabfesters survey the films of 2011.

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

Dana’s review of The Iron Lady.
Slate’s L.V. Anderson calls The Iron Lady sexist.
The Atlantic’s Robert Levin on The Iron Lady, a political film that avoids the political.
Margaret Thatcher’s biographer criticizes The Iron Lady.
The New York Times’ A.O. Scott on Meryl Streep’s The Iron Lady, and on the real one.
The fashion styles of Margaret Thatcher.
Slate’s Jessica Grose on the return of Absolutely Fabulous.
New York’s report on the real woman who served as the inspiration for Edina.
The New York Times’ Artsbeat blog on the return of Absolutely Fabulous.
The official site of Absolutely Fabulous.
The Absolutely Fabulous dance remix.
Slate’s movie club.
Dana’s original review of Melancholia.
Collider.com’s Rob Vaux on the motion capture technology that brought Caesar to life in Rise of the Planet of the Apes.
Slate’s Nathan Heller on the documentary film Bill Cunningham New York.
Dana’s review of Woody Allen’s Midnight In Paris.
The New York Daily News on hot nude yoga.
The Culture Gabfest weekly endorsements:

Dana’s pick: Spicoli’s checkered Vans are back in style. Also, June Thomas’ new Slate podcast, The Afterword.

Julia’s pick: Slate’s Seth Stevenson on “the greatest paper map of the United States you’ll ever see.”

June’s pick: Party Animals on Hulu and the return of Downton Abbey.

Stephen’s pick: “Maps” by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and the poem “The Map” by Elizabeth Bishop. Also, John Lanchester on WalMart, in the London Review of Books.  

Outro: “Maps” by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

You can email us at culturefest@slate.com.

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

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