Culture Gabfest - The Brutalist’s Outsized Ambition
Slate Culture Feed
Slate Podcasts
4.2 • 2K Ratings
🗓️ 8 January 2025
⏱️ 69 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On this week’s show, it’s an all-movie week! Isaac Butler — author of The Method: How the Twentieth Century Learned to Act and host of the new Criterion Channel series, The Craft of Acting — sits in for Stephen Metcalf. First, the panel explores The Brutalist, director Brady Corbet’s two-part epic following the life of László Tóth (Adrien Brody), a Hungarian-born Jewish architect who survives the Holocaust then emigrates to the United States. Then, the three unpack Carry-On, an action thriller set in Los Angeles International Airport. It’s a well-made film with a dumb concept, and smashed Netflix records over the holiday. Finally, it’s that time of year again: Dana leads the panel through Slate’s Movie Club 2024, a cherished tradition in which she chats with other critics over email about the year in cinema. (Read her first post, here.)
In the exclusive Slate Plus segment, the all-movie theme continues, as the three spoil The Brutalist.
Email us at culturefest@slate.com.
Endorsements:
Dana: Adaptation, directed by Spike Jonze and written by Charlie Kaufman.
Julia: A two-part endorsement: (1) My Cousin Vinny and (2) the production design of Three Men and a Baby (that apartment!)
Isaac: “Eat What You Kill,” a masterfully reported piece by J. David McSwane for ProPublica.
Podcast production by Vic Whitley-Berry. Production assistance by Kat Hong.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | This episode is brought to you by Sun Express Airlines. |
| 0:04.0 | Planning your next get-away, early bird offers are here. |
| 0:08.0 | Flights to Turkey from just 5999, perfect for couples escaping the daily grind. |
| 0:13.0 | Soak up the sun in Antalya or explore Izmir's vibrant streets. |
| 0:18.0 | Why settle for tea time when happy hour in Turkey awaits? |
| 0:21.7 | These non-stop flights won't last long. |
| 0:23.8 | So book now, tan later, at sunexpress.com. |
| 0:32.6 | They've got a text. |
| 0:37.1 | That's right., dating royalty returns. |
| 0:40.3 | The Love Island All-Stars have got their invites and are heading back to the villa. |
| 0:45.3 | Which couple will wear Love's crown? |
| 0:48.3 | Tune in to ITV2 and ITVX on Monday 30th of January at 9 p.m. |
| 0:57.1 | When love will reign supreme. |
| 1:14.0 | Hello, I'm Dana Stevens, and this is the Slate Culture Gab Fest, the Brutalist's outsized ambition edition. It's Wednesday, January 8th, 2024, and this week we have an all-movie |
| 1:19.7 | show, something that warms my heart as a movie critic. We will be discussing, first of all, |
| 1:24.1 | The Brutalist, the three-and-a-half-hour-long epic starring Adrian Brody as an immigrant architect after World War II |
| 1:30.0 | that seems poised right now to become an award season darling, having just walked off with Best Picture, Best Actor, and Best Director at the Golden Globes. |
| 1:38.0 | Then we'll talk about Carry On, a Netflix action thriller that pits Teran Edgerton as an Everyman TSA agent against Jason Bateman |
| 1:46.1 | cast very much against type as a ruthless terrorist looking to get a deadly item onto a plane. |
| 1:52.0 | Finally, we'll talk about movie club, Slate's long-running yearly feature in which I, Slate's movie |
| 1:57.5 | critic, and a group of my colleagues from other publications, talk about the |
| 2:01.1 | movies of the year and kind of get personal and exchange emails about the movies we loved and hated |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Slate Podcasts, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Slate Podcasts and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.