Listen to Culture Gabfest No. 257 with David Haglund, Seth Stevenson, and Julia Turner with the audio player below.

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On this week’s episode, our critics discuss Lake Bell’s new romantic comedy In a World, which she directed, wrote, and starred in. The film follows Bell’s character as she tries to break the glass ceiling in the voice-over world—a world dominated by low-pitch, high-testosterone male voices. The gabbers review the film and discuss the state of the modern voice-over. Next, the gabfest dissects the New York Times’ multimedia story “The Jockey.” Like its Pulitzer Prize-winning predecessor, John Branch’s “Snow Fall,” “The Jockey” features high-quality photos and video clips embedded throughout. Does this species of online journalistic experiment work? Or does it get in the way of solid reporting? Lastly, Slate music critic Carl Wilson joins in to discuss the 2013 Song of Summer, Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines.” This summer hit comes with copyright drama, a NSFW video, and allegations of sexism. But is it catchy enough to deserve the hype?

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

• Director/writer/actress Lake Bell.
• A.O. Scott’s review of In a World.
• The science of “uptalk” and “vocal fry,” in the New York Times.
• Linguist Mark Liberman’s “Language Log.”
• Seth Stevenson’s 2005 piece on the world of voice-overs, for Slate.
• “The Jockey,” by Barry Bearak for the New York Times.
• “Snow Fall,” by John Branch for the New York Times.
• “A Whole Lot of Bells, Way Too Many Whistles,” by Farhad Manjoo for Slate.
• Pitchfork’s feature on Daft Punk.
• Jonah Weiner’s interview with Daft Punk for Rolling Stone.
• Rolling Stone’s feature on Greenland’s melting ice sheets.
• David Haglund’s piece on an excommunicated Mormon historian for Slate.
• “Blurred Lines” (NSFW).
• Marvin Gaye’s “Got to Give It Up.”
• Thicke’s copyright controversy.
• “ ‘Blurred Lines’ Is Cocky, Yes. But Rapey? No.” By Jennifer Lai for Slate.
• Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky.”
• Icona Pop’s “I Love It.”
• Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe.”

Endorsements:

David: Reporter Sarah Stillman’s piece in The New Yorker on civil forfeiture.

Seth: Joe Swanberg’s new film Drinking Buddies, and, of course, the Slate softball team.

Carl: The songs of late summer, including Sam Phillips’ new album Push Any Button, John Cale’s “All Summer Long,” and Janelle Monae’s “PrimeTime.”

Julia: Steven Soderbergh’s film adaptation of Elmore Leonard’s novel Out of Sight.

Outro: “Pretty Time Bomb” by Sam Phillips.

You can email us at culturefest@slate.com.

This podcast was produced by Dan Pashman. Our intern is Sam McDougle.

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