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I'm Stephen Metcath, and this is the Slate Culture Gap Fest. We Saw Your Aboob edition. It's Wednesday, February 27, 2013. On today's show, the Academy Awards, they've come and gone, and we'll talk surprises, speeches, controversies, etc.

And then the new dance and YouTube craze, the Harlem Shake.

And finally, HBO is enlightened.

It's beloved by its tiny audience, something Dana Stevens we sadly know too much about.

Joining me today is Slate's film critic, Dana Stevens.

Hey, Dana.

Hey, Dana. And Slate's music critic, Jody Rosen. critic, Dana Stevens. Hey, Dana. Hey, Dana,

and Slate's music critic, Jody Rosen. Hey, Jody. Hey, Steve.

Dana, I'm obliged to start with you because you're a film critic. And how many times have you been asked to opine on the Oscars in print, audio, video, on and on and on? At this point,

it must be just a vomitous ritual. It is kind of a blur, but as with last year, this was my last Oscar assignment or duty as well, and it was the funnest one. So I think we should just make this a totally loose Oscar discussion about whatever the hell we feel like talking about, because we know the awards went to the people we expected them to go to.

You know, maybe there were a couple surprises here and there, but that's the stuff that really bores me is the prognostication and the horse race side of it.

Talking about it is a bizarre cultural spectacle, I will do all day with you guys. Okay. I only have one thing, and I hope it's not too inducing of Groundhog Day nausea for you, that I find somewhat interesting,

which is that according to the whatever the hell that body is called, the Academy of Arts and Sciences or whatever,

according to the Academy, the best directed picture is not the best picture, and the best picture is not the best directed picture, which is weird,

but it probably doesn't bear commenting on that much.

Yeah, well, I guess it's fairly rare for any way to do what Ben Affleck has done, which does not be nominated as a director and then have your movie win anyway. But it's not an unheard-of thing to have happen. I mean, I think what sort of interested me about the strange apotheosis of Ben Affleck in this award season is that he's just profited so immensely from, I guess, the industry-wide pity he received for not being nominated for Best Director.

It almost seems like in the narratives that I see constructed, you know, by these Oscar prognosticating blogs that all of Hollywood took him under their wing when he had to suffer the humiliation of not being nominated for, you know, a movie that was being widely recognized. And as a result, he rolled through the season picking up all these critics group awards and I don't know what they all were, Directors Guild Award and a Critics Choice and a Golden Globe. And next thing, you know, the Oscars come. And he's still, I guess, reaping that sympathy. But I think it's also the result of a lot of other compromises and coincidences. The fact, for example, that Zero Dark 30 kind of scared people off with its content. That didn't go as far as they expected it to. Lincoln seems to me like the ultimate Oscar movie. I don't understand why it wasn't more recognized. But here I am talking about the exact stuff I didn't want to talk about. Well, let me talk a little bit about Ben Affleck. I thought it was his speech. Let's get into the speeches, right?

It was like ever so slightly, unseemly. For some reason, I'm inclined to root for Ben Affleck. I have no idea why. I kind of like Ben Affleck. I shouldn't. But any case, but I don't hate Ben Affleck. Well, he's a terrible actor, right?

He's a terrible actor.

I sort of like, as a director, I sort of like those, you know, ham-fisted hokey Boston movies he did. What was the movie? The town? Yeah, like that. I liked that. I liked it. And I liked the one before it, too. It was okay. Gone baby gone. Yeah, he's not bad. No, and he's getting better with each movie. But he speech first, I thought it was just, it was a little gauche the way he invoked the self-pity, you know. What did he say in his speech? You know, it's hard not to hold a grudge. I'll try not to hold a grudge. And got to chuckle from the audience. I know. That was really milking it. I mean, milk, milk, milk. Dude, you're up there on the stage getting a best picture Oscar at age like 40, right?

Right. Quentin Tarantino didn't get nominated for Best Director either. You don't hear him moaning and moaning about it, right? I mean, there's a lot of people who are better directors and have a lot, you know, longer in the directoral game who aren't up there whinging about it, right? That's number one. Number two, also, what did he say about his wife? That was, you don't say that shit about your wife when you're up there on stage. Oh, it's such hard work being married. What a drag. Yeah, people really didn't like that speech, actually, but there was a post on Slade and Double X about how that speech was actually great and to acknowledge that marriage's work is a good thing.

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