Slate's podcast about Sight & Sound’s list of top films, the ABC Family series Bunheads, and Seinfeld’s Web series Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee.

Listen to Culture Gabfest No. 203 with Dana Stevens, June Thomas, and Julia Turner by clicking the arrow on the audio player below:

Subscribe in iTunes ∙ RSS feed ∙ Download ∙ Play in another tab

And join the lively conversation on the Culturefest Facebook page here:

The sponsors of today’s show are Ting.com and Audible.com. Go to Gabfest.ting.com and save $50 on a device purchase. Get a free audiobook from Audible’s collection of more than 100,000 titles and a subscription to a daily audio digest when you sign up for a 30-day free trial at www.audiblepodcast.com/culturefest.

On this week’s Culture Gabfest, the Gabfesters are joined by Slate culture critic June Thomas. They first ponder Sight & Sound’s “Greatest Films of All Time” list, which has been issued once a decade since 1952, and wonder how such a venerable entity holds up in today’s web-based, list-crazed era. The Gabfesters then discuss Bunheads, the new multigenerational show from Gilmore Girls creator Amy Sherman-Palladino, its witty dialogue and its delightful (but sometimes irritating) affectations. Finally, the critics discuss Jerry Seinfeld’s new Web series Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee and whether glossy production values, a vintage car collection and capitalizing on the popularity of the “comedians chatting with each other” format is a winning combination.

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

• Sight & Sound’s list of the greatest films of all time.
• Dana on the list and movie list-making in general for Slate.
• Theories for how Vertigo displaced Citizen Kane for the greatest film of all time by Aisha Harris for Slate.
• A few movies from the list, including: Vertigo, Citizen Kane, Tokyo Story, and 8½.
• The popular TV series Mad Men and The Sopranos.
• Quentin Tarantino’s movies Pulp Fiction and Inglourious Basterds.
• Legendary filmmakers Ingmar Bergman, Akira Kurosawa, and John Ford.
• Film magazines Cahiers du cinema and Film Comment.
• The 2012 Sight & Sound Directors’ Top Ten list.
• A few of Dana’s picks for critical responses to Sight & Sound’s list: Richard Brody for The New Yorker on the top 50 and why Vertigo tywas top movie and Scott Tobias for the A.V. Club on “The radical visions in Sight & Sound’s stodgy best-films poll.”
• The ABC Family series about teenage gymnasts Make It or Break It.
• Amy Sherman-Palladino’s series Gilmore Girls.
• Bunheads co-stars Sutton Foster and Kelly Bishop.
• Kelly Bishop as the original “Sheila” singing “At the Ballet” from the Broadway musical A Chorus Line.
• For Salon, Willa Paskin on Bunheads' charming nihilism and her interview with the show’s creator Amy Sherman-Palladino.
• The multigenerational soap operas The O.C. and Gossip Girl.
• Kathy Griffin on Law and Order: SVU.
• The first two episodes of Jerry Seinfeld’s new Web series Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee with Larry David and Ricky Gervais.
• Jerry Seinfeld’s post-Seinfeld projects Bee Movie and The Marriage Ref
• Jay Leno’s car collection.
• Andrew Wallenstein for Variety on Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee as comedy jazz
• Warren Littlefield and T.R. Pearson’s book Top of the Rock: Inside the Rise and Fall of Must See TV.
• Marc Maron’s podcast WTF which pioneered and popularized the “comedians chatting with each other” genre.
• Julia’s favorite notebook brand, Rollbahn.

Endorsements:

• June’s picks: Friday Night Comedy from BBC’s Radio 4, particularly the News Quiz and Now Show episodes that have aired every other day during the London 2012 Olympics and use the games as the basis for live topical comedy. And the best stationery store in North America, Papeterie Nota Bene in Montréal.
• Dana’s pick: Lauren Child’s Charlie and Lola, the books as well as the animated series.
  
• Julia’s pick: Unique brand Pretzel Shells, hollow rods of pretzel with the inside blah of the pretzel removed. All crunch, no filling!

Outro: The Charlie and Lola theme

You can email us at culturefest@slate.com.

This podcast was produced by Dan Pashman. Our intern is Sally Tamarkin.

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