Listen to Culture Gabfest No. 289 with Stephen Metcalf, Dana Stevens, and Julia Turner with the audio player below.

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On this week’s episode, the critics discuss Darren Aronofsky’s Noah, starring Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly, and Emma Watson. Heavy-handed on the CGI—and attempted allegorical resonances with modern life—the film brings the book of Genesis to the big screen. Next the gabbers turn to the HBO miniseries Doll & Em, starring Emily Mortimer as herself, and Dolly Wells as her best friend-cum-personal assistant. Is the series more than another smug send-up of celebrity culture? And finally, the critics eulogize Television Without Pity, a website that developed the art of the episode recap. Where do websites go when they die, and what does cultural preservation look like in the Internet age?

Links to some of the things we discussed this week follow:

• David Plotz writes about Noah’s implicit message about environmentalism and public policy on Slate
• Miriam Krule writes about the film’s biblical accuracy on Slate
• A.O. Scott’s New York Times review of Noah
• Pi
• Requiem for a Dream
• Black Swan
• Willa Paskin reviews Doll & Em on Slate
• The Larry Sanders Show
• Entourage on HBO
• Broad City on Comedy Central
• Enlightened on HBO
• Veep on HBO
• BBC’s The Office
• Margaret Lyon eulogizes Television Without Pity and its archives on Vulture
• The news—which broke after our taping—that the archives will be preserved thanks to the fan outcry.
• Television Without Pity’s genre-defining collection of Dawson’s Creek recaps
• Dawson’s Creek on the WB
• Sex and the City on HBO
• The Paley Center for Media (formerly The Museum of Television and Radio)
• Julia’s recaps of Mad Men on Slate
• Paul F. Tompkins recaps American Idol’s 10^th season on Vulture
• Vulture’s “Recap of the Recap”

Endorsements:

Dana: Donating to the Wayback Machine, a vast attempt to preserve Internet culture with more than 404 billion Web pages saved.

Julia: Episodes, a send-up of Hollywood starring Matt LeBlanc on Showtime.

Steve: Aretha Franklin’s “April Fools” on Young, Gifted, and Black and the Oscar-winning documentary 20 Feet From Stardom.

Outro: “April Fools” by Aretha Franklin

You can email us at culturefest@slate.com.

This podcast was produced by Ann Heppermann. Our intern is Anna Shechtman.

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