The Culture Gabfest “Tales From the Decrypt” Edition

Slate’s Culture Gabfest on The Imitation Game, HBO’s Togetherness, and Joan Didion as the new face of Céline.

By Stephen Metcalf, Dana Stevens, and Julia Turner

The Culture Gabfest has moved! Find new episodes here.

Listen to Culture Gabfest No. 331 with Stephen Metcalf, Dana Stevens, and Julia Turner with 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:

Go to slate.com/cultureplus to learn more about Slate Plus and join today. This week, Slate Plus listeners will hear Julia and Steve grill Dana about the 2015 Oscar nominations.

Get tickets for the Outward live event in New York City on Feb. 3 with Slate’s June Thomas, Bryan Lowder, Mark Joseph Stern, and Lea DeLaria from Orange Is the New Black. And come see Julia answer questions at a live taping of the Ask Roulette podcast in NYC on Jan. 29.

And don’t forget you can find Culture Gabfest T-shirts for sale in the Slate store.

This week on the Slate Culture Gabfest, the critics discuss the Alan Turing biopic, The Imitation Game. Does this film play fast and loose with the facts of Turing’s life? Next up, HBO’s new show, Togetherness, is the latest in a series of hyper-realistic comedies that address the frustrations of modern marriage. Finally, major fashion brand Céline recently made Joan Didion its new icon. Are brains the new beauty, or does Céline simply know its target consumers better than it knows itself?

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

Bryan Lowder and June Thomas’ conversation in Slate about The Imitation Game
Willa Paskin’s review of Togetherness about “the new normal” in prestige TV
Please Give with Amanda Peet
Heavenly Creatures with Kate Winslet and Melanie Lynskey
Molly Fischer’s piece on Didion and Céline in New York magazine

Endorsements:

Dana: Adrienne LaFrance’s piece on fashion and fabric in Joan Didion’s work.

Julia: The Smitten Kitchen recipe for the best yellow layer cake.

Steve: “The West Wing of Oz” by Joan Didion from her collection Political Fictions

A Slate Plus Special Feature:

(Almost) every product recommended on every Slate podcast since the dawn of creation.

Outro: “Cheap Sunglasses” by ZZ Top

You can email us at culturefest@slate.com.

This podcast was produced by Ann Heppermann. Our intern is Lindsey Albracht.