The following podcast contains explicit language.

I'm Stephen Metcath, and this is the Slate Culture Gab Fest, Feel the Burn Edition.

It's Wednesday, September 21st, 2011.

On today's program, The New Thriller Drive, starring Ryan Gosling, the new two and a half men starring Ashton Coochard, and Slate's own Seth Stevenson, joins us to talk about the Burning Man Festival. Joining me today are Slate's deputy editor, Julia Turner. Hello, Julia. Hi, Steve. And our film critic, Dana Stevens. Hey, Dana. Dana, I'm going to start with you. Drive, I should say, is the quiet and seething thriller starring Ryan Gosling as a Hollywood stunt driver who moonlights as a freelance getaway driver for criminal mischief makers in Los Angeles, right? It's a very L.A. movie. L.A. Noir. The film was a big film festival hit. It got standing ovation at Cannes. It won Best Director for its – how would you pronounce the director's name of this film?

I'm just going to go with an anglicized Nicholas Winding Refn. He's a Danish guy, and I don't know if that's vending or what in the middle. But he seems to be going by Nick Reffin in interviews. I think he's trying to get away from that complicated name. Well, anyway, he won the best director prize at the Cannes Film Festival,

which I'm psyched to know, is called the Prix de la Misencine. Well, how would you pronounce that?

Come on, Dana, work with me here.

There you go, beautiful. Or is it the Misen Sene? I don't know. Anyway, some critics love this

movie. Some critics very, very vocally descended from that consensus.

I have not read your review.

I have seen the movie.

I have my own opinion. I'm dying to know what yours is. What did you think of this movie? I'm dying to know what you guys is. Well, I was seduced. I loved drive. I don't know quite how far it goes. I don't think that I'm among the critics calling it a masterpiece,

because I don't know that there's a lot more to it than being an incredibly stylish and seductive and suspenseful thriller,

but that's a lot. And I thought it was a fantastic movie, one of my favorite this year so far.

Oh, dear. Okay, Julia, what did you think? I liked it, too. I had been warned going in that Dana had loved it, but that it was also a little bit similar to the American, the movie that you and I, Steve, hated last year, which is similarly a movie about sort of an underworld artisan who's slightly withdrawn.

You're right.

The American was something I scribbled in my notes.

And as it happens, John Swansberg, who saw it with me and spoiled the movie, also scribbled The American in his notes. And we had seen that together and liked it. But this is much better than the American. I think it is better than the American. It reminded me of another movie, also History of Violence a little bit. It's got some, it's got some Kronenberg in there.

I mean, in terms of the sudden, unexpected graphic violence that pops out of nowhere.

Anyhow, I was pretty seduced. It's a delightful movie to see. I mean, delightful is maybe not the right adjective.

It is gripping and arresting and you fall into a pool of moody emotion as you watch it. I'm not sure it offers

much more than cinematicness. It's just incredibly beautifully cinematic. It makes you feel like,

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