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The following podcast contains explicit language.

I'm Stephen Metcalfe, this is the Slate Culture Gap Fest Stowe Your Blunderbuss edition.

It's Wednesday, October 3rd, 2012.

On today's program, the new sci-fi thriller, Looper, and the beloved sitcom Cheers turns 30.

And finally, we talk Grizzly Bear in the state of indie rock with Nissa Ababa, the music critic for New York Magazine. Joining me today, our Slate's deputy editor, Julia Turner. Hello, Julia. Hi, Julia. Hi, Steve. And of course, our film critic, Dana Stevens. Hey, Dana. I'm going to start with you. The new sci-fi thriller, Looper. For those in our audience who haven't seen it yet, let me give a little background without. out's quite the needle to thread here, is giving enough background so people who haven't seen the movie can listen to a discussion about it without spoiling it for them, because this is an eminently spoilable film.

But anyway, Looper is a sci-fi thriller. It stars Joseph Gordon Levitt as a hitman in the year 2004. Fact check me as I go,

Dana Stevens. His job is to contract to kill people delivered to him from 30 years in the future

when time travel has been made possible. To help cover their criminal tracks, sometimes the

future crime lords send back the future self of a current hitman to be killed by his current self, by his

younger self. This gives nothing away, by the way. I think all of that is in the first few

minutes, a couple minutes of the film. None of that is delivered as a surprise in the film,

so it has not been spoiled, save your angry emails. And it gives nothing a way to say that the movie is about the

complication that ensues when Gordon Levitt confronts his older self, who's played by Bruce Willis.

This is a very thought-provoking, kind of in the inception mode, extremely thought-provoking,

intricate, nonetheless, blockbuster, thriller. What did you make of it? I'm so curious to know. Yeah, to me, the comparison that pops to mind is almost more Christopher Nolan's memento than his inception. But it does have that kind of Nolan-esque. This is a puzzle film. It's kind of a logic puzzle of a movie and a time travel puzzle. Let's put it this way. Here are some of the things I liked about Looper. It's directed by Ryan Johnson. It's his third movie. Who I think of Ryan Johnson as the director who sort of brought us Joseph Gordon Levitt in his current form. He sort of started him on the path to becoming a movie star, which I think with this movie and the last few he's been in, he has now become. He was the kid on 30 Rock, right, and might have been associated with... Third Rock from the Sun.

...