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Listen to Culture Gabfest No. 408 with Stephen Metcalf, Dana Stevens, and Julia Turner with the audio player below.
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This week on Slate Plus, the critics talk about the horrible events that unfolded last week in Baton Rouge, Minnesota, and Dallas and how they were portrayed in the news and online.
On this week’s Slate Culture Gabfest, the critics discuss HBO’s new crime drama miniseries, The Night Of, starring Riz Ahmed. Is this the best crime drama series of the year? Next up, in light of the director’s recent death and Dana’s endorsement of Close-Up last week, Julia and Steven address their mutual cultural blindspot: the cinema of Abbas Kiarostami. The critics talk about why this movie has earned its place in cinematic history. Last, the gabbers focus on Owen Gleiberman’s heavily criticized article in Variety on Renée Zellweger’s apparent plastic surgery and uncover the issues at the heart of Gleiberman’s argument.
Links to some of the things we discussed this week follow:
- The Night Of on HBO
- Other Riz Ahmed titles: Nightcrawler, Four Lions, The Reluctant Fundamentalist
- The addictive true crime of Serial and Making a Murderer
- Close-Up by the late Abbas Kiarostami
- Kiarostami’s Koker trilogy: Where is the Friend’s Home?, Life, and Nothing More, Through the Olive Trees
- Owen Gleiberman’s controversial essay on Renée Zellweger in Variety
- Rose McGowan’s outraged response to Gleiberman in the Hollywood Reporter
- “Man Extremely Worried About the Wellbeing of Renee Zellweger’s Face” in Jezebel
- David Edelstein’s review of Nicole Kidman’s apparent botox in Australia
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Endorsements:
Dana: Afghani Kabob House in Beverly Hills (see here for Dana’s sweet Yelp review)
Julia: The Crucible on Broadway, and Julia’s very own cultural blindspot, The Crucible by Arthur Miller.
Stephen: Clive James on Lauren Mayberry and Mayberry’s band CHVRCHES.
Outro: “We Sink” by Chvrches
You can email us at culturefest@slate.com.
This podcast was produced by Ann Heppermann. Our intern is Lizzie Fison.
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