The Culture Gabfest “Doe-Eyed Triangle Player” Edition
Slate’s Culture Gabfest on Amazon’s new pilot Transparent, The Great Beauty, and the end of brand loyalty.
The Culture Gabfest has moved! Find new episodes here.
Listen to Culture Gabfest No. 283 with Stephen Metcalf, Dana Stevens, and Julia Turner with the audio player below:
And join the lively conversation on the Culturefest Facebook page here:
The sponsor of this week’s show is Audible. Get a free audiobook from Audible’s collection of more than 150,000 titles and a subscription to a daily audio digest when you sign up for a 30-day free trial at www.audiblepodcast.com/culturefest.
Culturefest is on the radio! Gabfest Radio combines Slate’s Culture and Political Gabfests in one show. Listen on Saturdays at 7 a.m. and Sundays at 6 p.m. on WNYC’s AM820.
And don’t forget you can find Culture Gabfest T-shirts for sale in the Slate store.
This week, the critics discuss the pilot episode of Transparent, an Amazon original series about an affluent Jewish family living in Los Angeles and struggling to deal with family secrets and the plight of their own privilege. Created by Jill Soloway (Six Feet Under, The United States of Tara) and starring Jeffrey Tambor, the show has inspired many to hail Amazon as the future of TV. Next, the gabbers turn to The Great Beauty (La Grande Bellezza), front-runner for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film. In the tradition of La Dolce Vita, the film celebrates Rome’s architectural grandeur and luxuriates in the shallowness of its social elite. And finally, inspired by a piece from James Surowiecki of The New Yorker, the critics discuss the state of brand loyalty in the age of Yelp, TripAdvisor, and user reviews.
Here are links to some of the things we discussed this week:
- The pilot for Transparent, streaming on Amazon.
- Willa Paskin calls Transparent Amazon’s House of Cards on Slate.
- The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen.
- The United States of Tara, co-produced by Jill Soloway.
- Six Feet Under, co-written by Jill Soloway.
- The 86th Academy Award nominations.
- Federico Fellini’s La Dolce Vita.
- Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Conformist.
- Manohla Dargis’ rapturous New York Times review of The Great Beauty.
- Beppe Severgnini’s New York Times op-ed about Italy’s unexpected response to the film.
- James Surowiecki writes in The New Yorker’s Financial Page about the end of brand loyalty.
Endorsements:
Dana: Shorpy.com, a historical photo website that never fails to attribute its images.
Julia: The 1990s club anthem “I Like to Move It” by Reel 2 Real, brought to mind by her children’s tinny Fisher Price toy.
Steve: Upstate Films Cinema in Rhinebeck, N.Y., and Blaze Foley’s heartbreaking song “Clay Pigeons.”
Outro: “I Like to Move It” by Reel 2 Real.
You can email us at culturefest@slate.com.
This podcast was produced by Ann Heppermann. Our intern is Anna Shechtman.
Follow us on Twitter. And please “like” the Culture Gabfest on Facebook.