Listen to Culture Gabfest No. 286 with David Haglund, Dana Stevens, and Julia Turner with the audio player below.

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On this week’s episode, the critics discuss Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel and debate the moral stakes of Anderson’s distinctly affectless directorial style. Next, the gabbers discuss the relaunch of Carl Sagan’s Cosmos, now hosted by Neil Degrasse Tyson on FOX. Can a kitschy TV spectacle be an educational platform for science? And finally, in light of Newsweek’s cover story about bitcoin’s origins, the critics welcome Reuters financial blogger Felix Salmon to unpack the promises and pitfalls of the virtual currency.

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

• Dana’s review of The Grand Budapest Hotel on Slate
• John Swansburg probes the autobiographical content of The Grand Budapest Hotel on Slate
• Rushmore
• The Darjeeling Limited
• The Fantastic Mr. Fox
• Moonrise Kingdom
• Stephanie Zacharek writes in the Village Voice about “Trying to Love Wes Anderson”
• Cosmos, hosted by Neil Degrasse Tyson, on FOX
• Carl Sagan’s Cosmos from 1980
• Planet Money features a bet between Felix Salmon and Ben Horowitz about the future of bitcoin
• Satoshi Nakamoto’s original bitcoin manifesto
• Newsweek claims to have found bicoin’s founder
• Felix responds to Newsweek’s “unveiling” on Reuters.com

Endorsements:

Dana: The extras on the Criterion Collection DVD of Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr. Fox

David: The music streaming service Pandora, which led him to Sibylle Baier’s song “Tonight” from her album Colour Green

Julia: Bird-watching around Central Park’s melting reservoir, where she spotted a wood duck, the “harlequin harlot of birds”

Outro: “Tonight” by Sibylle Baier

You can email us at culturefest@slate.com.

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

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