Culture Gabfest

A eulogistic weepfest? A “valediction forbidding mourning”? A conscious unthroupling? All of the above? Believe it or not, the time has come for Steve, Dana, and Julia to convene the Culture Gabfest panel for the very last time.  Before saying goodbye, they look back at the very first piece of culture they ever gabbed about on their inaugural episode in February 2008: the film Juno . Does the...

The Gabfest’s end is nigh but we’ve still got a few bits of culture to gab upon. This week, Steve and Dana are joined by longtime Gabfest star pinch hitter Dan Kois.  First up for consideration: Pixar’s Toy Story 5 . In this fifth installment of the computer animation studio’s flagship franchise, the threat to the vital bond between toy and child are computers themselves. Will Pixar, of all e...

Steve, Dana, and Julia gather once more—for almost the last time—to unpack the week’s culture. This week, conversation has to include the cultural, cinematic juggernaut Steven Spielberg and his new film Disclosure Day . Starring Josh O’Connor and Emily Blunt, it’s a sci-fi, action thriller about the longheld Spielbergian obsession: extraterrestrial life. Does it deliver that trademark Spielberg se...

As you may have heard in last week’s episode, the Culture Gabfest is hanging up its microphones after 18 years of cultural commentary. But before our final episode, we’ve still got much to discuss! On this special guest-packed show, Steve, Dana, and Nadira Goffe have the power! That is the power to get into it with VSFOP Jamelle Bouie about Masters of the Universe , the latest attempt by Mattel to...

This week Steve, Dana, and Julia convene once again—this time with some big news. Also, they make a classic Gabfest episode.  First up, it's the alienating fluorescent buzz, infinite carpeted sprawl, and liminal horror of Backrooms . The new release from A24 is directed by 20-year-old Kane Parsons based on his YouTube series which itself was inspired by deep internet lore and a viral piece of...

This week, the OG three Steve, Dana, and Julia dig into the visually stuffed, Marxist smorgasbord that is Boots Riley’s latest film I Love Boosters . Starring Keke Palmer and Demi Moore, the candy-colored agitprop is about exploitation, the fashion world, shoplifting as class warfare, and— as they discuss—perhaps more than one movie can handle.  Next they turn from Marx to Freud and analyze t...

This week, we’ve got an all-guest-host panel with Gabfest faves Isaac Butler, Sam Adams, and June Thomas guiding the discourse… straight to hell. In this case, hell is the romantic relationships depicted in the buzzy indie horror Obsession . This rom-com/horror mashup—marking Curry Barker’s impressive feature directorial debut—deals with questions of codependency and consent. But the real question...

On this week’s show, our panel of Dana, Steve, and Sam Adams are on the case. The case: is the movie Sheep Detectives a real movie and is it any good? The answer: it’s a star-studded cozy murder mystery based on a best-selling book about ungulate sleuths… and yeah, it might just be the surprise word-of-mouth delight of the season.   Next, they take up the proverbial conch shell to assess Lord...

This week, Julia Turner and Dana Stevens are joined by Slate’s own Rebecca Onion to discuss The Devil Wears Prada 2, BEEF season 2, and the NYT’s best living songwriters package with Slate’s music critic Carl Wilson.  Twenty years on, we return to the world of The Devil Wears Prada. In the sequel, Andy, Anne Hathaway’s character, must save Runway Magazine from the forces of capital, who are s...

This week, Dana, Steve, and Nadira Goffe assess if we as a culture can ever really escape Neverland— namely, the gigantic and fraught legacy of Michael Jackson. They unpack the biopic Michael. Directed by Antoine Fuqua, starring Jackson’s own nephew Jaafar Jackson, and produced by much of the Jackson family, the film is chock full of musical numbers and light on the troubling aspects of the singer...

Steve, Dana, and Julia convene once more for a rousing Gabfest. First up, it’s Mother Mary . David Lowery’s strange psychodrama centers on a pop star, played by Anne Hathaway, reuniting with her estranged friend and costume designer, played by Michaela Coel, and the menacing piece of red chiffon that haunts them both.  Next, they turn to another pair of mothers in Margo’s Got Money Troubles ....

Richard Pryor redefined comedy by telling the truth, even when it scorched him. Today, we’re sharing a preview of a new podcast, Big Lives, and a special episode about Pryor. Every week, hosts Kai Wright and Emmanuel Dzotsi dig into the BBC archive to explore the story behind the icons who shape our culture—trailblazers like David Bowie, Meg Ryan, Amy Winehouse, and Tina Turner—and better understa...

On this week’s show, Dana, Steve, and Dan Kois get into cultural topics of various scales. First, they examine The Christophers , the latest film from Steven Soderbergh . The small scale two-hander starring Ian McKellen and Michaela Coel about an aging artist and an upstart forger is intentionally intimate, but is it too slight? They discuss. Next, they pick up their cultural magnifying glasses to...

What’s the worst thing Steve, Dana, and Julia have ever done? And would you still love them if you knew the answer to that question? That’s not a subject for today’s episode, but these three do get into The Drama , the dark, polarizing rom-com directed by Kristoffer Borgli starring Zendaya and Robert Pattinson which is animated by such disquieting inquiries. Next, it’s time for elk meat, Montana g...

On this week’s show, Dana is joined by Slate’s own Nadira Goffe and Richard Lawson, of the Critical Darlings podcast. Their first agenda item is Jury Duty Presents: Company Retreat , the second installment of the workplace comedy/reality show hybrid which places an unknowing everyman in a made-up scenario populated entirely by actors. Does the second season deliver a heart-warming moral test in th...

 Welcome to a very special Money On Film miniseries! Over three episodes, Slate Money’s Felix Salmon and Slate culture writer Nadira Goffe revisit three films at the intersection of culture and finance. On this episode, Nadira and Felix take a trip to a bathhouse for spirits in 2001’s Spirited Away . Directed by Hayao Miyazaki, the film follows a girl named Chihiro, who becomes trapped in the...

This week, Dana, Julia (fresh from the launch of her new media venture L.A. Material ), and guest host Dan Kois set their gaze to the heavens with a discussion of the lost-in-space adventure yarn Project Hail Mary. Based on the book by Andy Weir and directed by genre movie savants Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, the sci-fi blockbuster stars Ryan Gosling and a big rock creature puppet. Next, they...

Welcome to a very special Money On Film miniseries! Over three episodes, Slate Money’s Felix Salmon and Slate culture writer Nadira Goffe revisit three films at the intersection of culture and finance. On this episode, Felix and Nadira discuss dating and money in Celine Song’s 2025 romantic comedy Materialists , which centers on a love triangle between a millionaire matchmaker (Dakota Johnson), a...

Welcome to a very special Money On Film miniseries! Over three episodes, Slate Money’s Felix Salmon and Slate culture writer Nadira Goffe revisit three films at the intersection of culture and finance. On this episode, we’re headed to Wall Street to watch a Felix Salmon favorite: Margin Call , the 2011 thriller-drama starring a long list of famous people, including Jeremy Irons, Paul Bettany, Stan...

On this week’s show, Dana and Steve are joined by long-time FOP Isaac Butler (and author of the forthcoming book The Perfect Moment: God, Sex, Art, and the Birth of America's Culture Wars .) They step into this week’s cultural trenches by way of an animatronic beaver den in Pixar’s Hoppers . Does the kooky eco-romp revive Pixar from its much-discussed slump? They discuss. Next, they step to the fr...

On this week’s monster mash, Steve, Dana, and Julia gather around the proverbial reanimation laboratory to take on the nutty, goth, and unbridled The Bride! Maggie Gyllenhaal’s feminist—or not, it’s up for debate—retelling of Frankenstein features a truly committed performance from Jessie Buckley. Do the disjointed pieces add to a coherent whole? They discuss. Next, they take a look at Paul McCart...

On this week’s show, Steve is joined by June Thomas, author of A Place of Our Own , and Michael Schulman, author of Her Again and Oscar Wars , for some rollicking Gabfest discourse. First up, they get all shook up by EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert , the concert documentary directed by Baz Luhrmann from archival Elvis performance footage. Does the master of cinematic spectacle bring the King back t...

The original trio Steve, Dana, and Julia convene for a right cracker of a Gabfest as they discuss How to Get to Heaven from Belfast, the new comedic mystery from Derry Girls creator Lisa McGee. In the Netflix series, three longtime Belfast friends must revisit their childhood trauma to unravel the mystery of a fourth friend’s disappearance— raucous Northern Irish hijinks ensue. Next, they step int...

This week, Dana is joined by Amy Nicholson, Los Angeles Times film critic and host of the podcast Unspooled , as well as Jamelle Bouie, New York Times columnist and host of the podcast Unclear and Present Danger . They discuss love affairs, lustful, glamorous, and interspecies. First up, it’s the lustful as they take up Emerald Fennell’s bodice-ripping adaptation of “ Wuthering Heights.” Starring...

The sugarcane fields! La casita! Piraguas! Lady Gaga! Ricky Martin! An actual wedding! Bad Bunny’s immense and boisterous Super Bowl Halftime show brought a whole Puerto Rican universe to Levi’s Stadium and into American viewers’ homes. Julia and guest hosts Nadira Goffe and Rebecca Onion revel in the joyful spectacle and are joined by Slate writer Joshua Rivera to decode the inclusive politics of...