Culture Gabfest - Nathan Fielder Goes Even Fuller Cringe
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Slate
3.9 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 22 November 2023
⏱️ 47 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week, the panel begins by reviewing The Curse, a cringe-worthy Showtime series co-produced by Nathan Fielder and Benny Safdie. Fielder and Emma Stone star as Asher and Whitney Siegel, a newlywed couple at the center of a reality HGTV show built on narcissism, gentrification, and lies. Then, the three jump into Alexander Payne’s The Holdovers, which Dana describes as a “sadsack Christmas classic,” starring Paul Giamatti as a curmudgeonly misanthrope professor alongside newcomer Dominic Sessa and Da’Vine Joy Randolph. The three play misfits being held over at a prep school during the winter break of 1970. Finally, the trio is joined by Dwight Garner, book critic for The New York Times, to discuss his delightful new memoir, The Upstairs Delicatessen: On Eating, Reading, Reading About Eating, and Eating While Reading.
In the exclusive Slate Plus segment, the panel commemorates Jezebel, the now-shuttered women-focused news and cultural commentary site, and reflects on their relationships with media geared towards women overall.
Email us at culturefest@slate.com.
Endorsements:
Dana: Life on Our Planet on Netflix, a nature documentary narrated by Morgan Freeman that tells the four-billion-year story of life on Earth. It’s perfect for at-home family viewing over the holidays.
Julia: A hilarious bit Nathan Fielder and Emma Stone did on Jimmy Kimmel Live! while promoting The Curse. In response to a less-than-glowing review of his acting skills in The New York Times, Fielder shows up in-character as a nonchalant, totally not stilted bad boy alongside Stone’s non-acted self.
Stephen: “Camus on Tour,” an excellent tour de force essay by Vivian Gornick in The New York Review of Books, in which she covers Camus’ Travels in the Americas: Notes and Impressions of a New World.
Podcast production by Jessamine Molli. Production assistance by Kat Hong.
Hosts
Dana Stevens, Julia Turner, Stephen Metcalf
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I'm Stephen Meckaff and this is the Sla Culture Gap Fest. |
| 0:13.0 | Nathan Fielder goes even fuller cringe edition. |
| 0:16.5 | It's Wednesday, November 22nd, 2023. |
| 0:19.5 | On today's show, Nathan Fielder, the reality TV postmodernist Maestro, creator of Nathan for |
| 0:26.7 | you in the rehearsal, returns with The Curse. |
| 0:29.6 | This one is a scripted show about a couple creating an H.G. TV show in an impoverished |
| 0:34.9 | New Mexico town. Its 10 episodes are on Showtime and then the holdovers. It's the new |
| 0:40.6 | movie from director Alexander Payne. It stars Paul Giamotti as a prep school Latin teacher who must chaperone the |
| 0:46.9 | holdovers, the boys with nowhere to go over the holiday, one Christmas break in 1970. And finally, the great New York Times book critic |
| 0:55.5 | Dwight Garner joins us to discuss his memoir The Upstairs Delicatessen on |
| 1:00.1 | eating, reading about eating, and eating while reading. |
| 1:05.0 | But first I'm joined by Julia Turner of the LA Times. |
| 1:08.0 | Hey Julia. |
| 1:09.0 | Hello, hello. |
| 1:10.0 | And of course Dana Stevens, the film critic for Slate. |
| 1:13.0 | Hey Dana. |
| 1:13.9 | Hey Stephen. |
| 1:15.2 | Everyone good. |
| 1:16.7 | We're gonna make a show? |
| 1:17.9 | Let's do it. |
| 1:18.7 | I'm ready. |
| 1:19.5 | Let's do it. |
... |
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