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This week on Slate Plus, Jessica Winter and Forrest Wickman join Julia and Dana to discuss the ins and outs of a celebrity clash of the Titans: Kimye vs. Taylor Swift. Whose side are you on?
On this week’s Slate Culture Gabfest, we discuss Paul Feig’s remake of the 1984 cult hit Ghostbusters. The critics disagree over whether the urge to protect the movie from sexist trolls skews their perception of how good it actually is. Next up, Pokémon Go has seemingly taken over the world: By the second day after its release, it had already been uploaded onto more than 5 percent of all Android phones in the U.S. Can the gabbers resist the addictive draw of the game? Finally, the critics differ on their reading of Wil S. Hylton’s Chuck Close profile in the New York Times Magazine. What makes a satisfying celebrity profile?
Links to some of the things we discussed this week follow:
- Ghostbusters (1984)
- Other Paul Feig collaborations with Melissa McCarthy and Kristen Wiig: Spy, Bridesmaids
- Pokémon Go
- Pokémon the card game
- Snapchat
- Wil S. Hylton’s profile of Chuck Close in the New York Times Magazine
- The Vanity Fair profile of Margot Robbie that was heavily criticized last week.
- Caity Weaver’s profile of Kim Kardashian in GQ.
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Endorsements:
Dana: Abbas Kiarostami’s interview on Close-Up and the augmented reality app SkyView
Julia: The “Pumpkin Dance” video from KXVO
Stephen: The novels of Iris Murdoch and a video of Elvis Costello and Sting talking about “Roxanne” and “Alison.”
Outro: “Ghostbusters” by Ray Parker Jr.
You can email us at culturefest@slate.com.
This podcast was produced by Ann Heppermann. Our intern is Lizzie Fison.
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