Listen to Culture Gabfest No. 177 with Stephen Metcalf, Dana Stevens, Seth Stevenson, 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, and Julia Turner review Smash, NBC’s new musical series about the drama of Broadway. Next, they take in Hugo, Martin Scorsese Oscar-nominated 3-D ode to the early days of cinema. For their final segment, Gabfesters are joined by Slate’s Seth Stevenson to discuss this year’s much-hyped crop of Super Bowl advertisements.

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

Slate’s Troy Patterson on Smash.
Broadway’s history on the small screen.
The New York Times’ feature piece on Smash.
The Hollywood Reporter’s interview with Smash’s creators.
Smash’s official site.
Dana’s review of Hugo.
Slate’s Forrest Wickman on the “movies about movies” advantage in awards season.
Slate’s Forrest Wickman on the real movies that inspired Scorsese’s Hugo.
The Guardian’s interview with Martin Scorsese on Hugo and 3-D movies.
Slate’s Seth Stevenson on the best and worst Super Bowl ads.
Slate’s Matthew Yglesias on the cost of Super Bowl ads.
Slate’s David Haglund on the much-discussed Ferris Bueller Honda commercial.
The New York Times’ report on this year’s Super Bowl ads.
Buzzfeed’s list of the 10 greatest Super Bowl commercials of all time.

The Culture Gabfest weekly endorsements:

Dana’s pick: Two artists who died last week, actor Ben Gazzara (especially in Killing of a Chinese Bookie ) and Polish poet Wislawa Szymborska.

Julia’s pick: The Tumblr account “Fuck Your Noguchi Coffee Table.”

Seth’s Pick: The Ferris Bueller’s Day Off “soundtrack.” Find the assembled soundtrack as a Spotify playlist or on last.fm.   

Stephen’s pick: Charles and Mary Lamb’s children’s classic Tales from Shakespeare. Also, the great Super Bowl catches of Mario Manningham and David Tyree.

Outro: The Flowerpot Men’s “Beat City”

You can email us at culturefest@slate.com.

This podcast was recorded by Chris Wade and produced by Jesse Baker. Our intern is Matt Sigl.

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