Slate's Culture Gabfest on Betty White, the birth control pill, and Iron Man 2.

Slate's Culture Gabfest on Betty White, the birth control pill, and Iron Man 2.

Slate's Culture Gabfest on Betty White, the birth control pill, and Iron Man 2.

Slate's weekly roundtable.
May 12 2010 11:15 AM

The Culture Gabfest, Bigger Explosions, Smaller Laughs Edition

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The Culture Gabfest has moved! Find new episodes here.

Listen to Culture Gabfest No. 86 with Stephen Metcalf, Dana Stevens, and Julia Turner by clicking the arrow on the audio player below:

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In this week's Culture Gabfest, our critics Stephen Metcalf, Dana Stevens, and Julia Turner discuss 88-year-old Betty White's appearance on Saturday Night Live, the 50th anniversary of "the pill," and the release of Iron Man 2.

Here are some links to the things we discussed this week:

Betty White's turn as the host of Saturday Night Live.
Time looks at the pill at 50.
Dana Stevens reviews Iron Man 2.
A.O. Scott reviews Iron Man 2.
The official site of Iron Man 2.

The Culture Gabfest weekly endorsements:

Dana's pick: The 1938 film The Adventures of Robin Hood, starring Errol Flynn and Basil Rathbone.
Julia's pick: KCRW's weekly radio show and podcast The Business.
Stephen's pick: 13 Bankers,the book by Simon Johnson and James Kwak, who also write the blog Baseline Scenario.

You can e-mail us at culturefest@slate.com.

Posted on May 12 by Matt Lieber at 11:15 a.m.

Stephen Metcalf is Slate’s critic at large. He is working on a book about the 1980s.

Dana Stevens is Slate’s movie critic.

Julia Turner, the former editor in chief of Slate, is a regular on Slate’s Culture Gabfest podcast.