Culture Gabfest - The Wild Robot’s Big Heart

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3.9 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 9 October 2024

⏱️ 57 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

On this week’s show, Dana and Stephen are joined by Supreme Friend of the Podcast (SFOP) Isaac Butler, author of The Method:‌ How the Twentieth Century Learned to‌ Act. The trio first explores The Wild Robot, DreamWork Animation’s handcrafted, lovingly made film that’s the surprise of the year. Lupita Nyong’o voices ROZ, an old-fashioned robot powered by supremely advanced A.I. who must learn about and adapt to her new wild surroundings.

Then, they dissect Nobody Wants This, a new Netflix series starring Kristen Bell (who plays a sex podcaster) and Adam Brody as a hot rabbi. Although there are obvious charms, the show’s “will they, won’t they” rom-com beats can often feel, at best, gratingly familiar, and at worst, bizarre and unthoughtful, particularly in its portrayal of Jewish women.

Finally, the Criterion Collection, is “a catalog so synonymous with cinematic achievement that it has come to function as a kind of film Hall of Fame,” writes Joshua Hunt for The New York Times. The panel dives into the wonderful world of ‘Closet Picks,’ a viral video format in which celebrities and movie buffs head into the Criterion Collection stockroom and pluck high-quality DVDs and Blu-rays off its shelves while explaining their personal significance.

Also mentioned in this episode:‌

“The Wild Robot Has an Intelligence That’s Anything But Artificial” by Dana Stevens for Slate.
“‘Nobody Wants This’ Pits Jewish Women Against ‘Shiksas.’ Nobody Wins.” By Jessica Grose for The New York Times.

In the exclusive Slate Plus segment, the panel extols the joys of being on the ground. Inspired by Chris Black’s column for GQ, “How I Learned to Love a Layover,” the trio discusses how they spend their time in airports.

Email us at culturefest@slate.com.

Endorsements:

Dana:‌ “Abbas Kiarostami’s Childhood Films,”‌ a collection of 17 films by the renowned Iranian filmmaker made about or for children.

Isaac:‌ The Tale of The Princess Kaguya, directed by Isao Takahata.

Stephen:‌ “The Song That Connects Jackson Browne, Nico and Margot Tenenbaum”‌ by Bob Mehr for The New York Times.

Podcast production by Jared Downing. Production assistance by Kat Hong.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This ad-free podcast is part of your Slate Plus membership.
0:14.0	I'm Stephen McAfin. This is the Slate Culture Gab Fest, the Wild Robot's Big Heart Edition.
0:19.6	It's Wednesday, October 9th, 2024. On today's show, The Wild Robot,
0:24.2	it's an animated feature from Dreamworks about a robot, nicknamed Roz, who gets stranded on an island
0:30.3	populated only by wild animals. Along the way, Raz adopts a baby gosling and together the two
0:36.6	outcasts, along with an outcast fox become an
0:39.9	ad hoc family. Adventures in Sue. It's directed by Chris Saunders and voiced by Lupita, Njongo, and
0:47.0	Pedro Pascal, among many, many others. I'm sure we'll get into that. And then nobody wants this
0:52.3	is a rom-com series on Netflix. It stars Adam Brody as a young
0:55.9	rabbi and Kristen Bell as a co-host of a sex podcast. He's Jewish, duh, but she's a Gentile. The series
1:04.0	traces the fate of their unlikely romance in the conception of the series, their unlikely romance.
1:09.6	We'll get to that. And finally, the many,
1:12.3	many little joys and not so little joys of something called the Criterion Clause, which Dana,
1:17.7	I knew nothing about until we got our prep document. Oh, pity for you. All those wonderful
1:22.8	moments missed. I mean, but also good, good on me. I've got all that to come. I mean, I'm lost in it already. But anyway, we'll get there. Joining me today is Isaac Butler, author of The Method, How the 20th Century, Learned to Act, a tremendously good book. Thank you, sir. And if someone listening to this hasn't read it, you will really enjoy it. So go get it. Welcome back to the show. It is always a pleasure to be here. You know, you got to do a certain number of times to maintain your S-FOP status or else you get downgraded. It's like an airline, I think, here at the Culture Gab Fest. Senior? I think it was super. I don't remember. You're the one who came up with the reward tiers. I have to check the ledgers. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I get bonus miles now here. The secret ledgers. I think you're maybe a super senior, so a FOP. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You don't want to slip down to like W. FOPP, like Juan, friend. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, because then you don't get into the lounge, you know, before the, before we record.
2:18.6	You don't get into the line.
2:19.8	Open bar? Yeah, no, it's not good.
2:21.3	All right. Well, the Razum Unit 7134 is in appearance an old-fashioned by sci-fi standards and very roboty device, boxy with saucer lens, see eyes, and bendy tentacally metal hose arms.
2:38.3	The machine is apparently powered by what has to be supremely advanced AI and therefore is
2:43.3	capable of learning and adaptive behavior as we come to understand.
2:47.1	And so stranded on an island without humans, but many, many animal species, Raz begins to
2:52.7	learn and adapt, ends up the surrogate mother, in fact, to an orphaned, Gosling, and buddy to a fox.
	...

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