Listen to Culture Gabfest No. 344 with Stephen Metcalf, Mike Pesca, and Julia Turner with the audio player below.

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This week on Slate Plus, listen to Steve, Mike, and Julia debate the use of the historical present tense and explore the other tenses they have known and loved.

On this week’s Slate Culture Gabfest, the critics discuss About Elly: the newly released movie from Iranian director Asghar Farhadi. How does this story speak to both global and Iranian audiences? Next up, Gwyneth Paltrow recently took the SNAP challenge and vowed to live for a week on the amount of money that food stamp recipients receive. Is she an entitled snot or an empathic spokeswoman? Finally, what makes a good movie trailer? The critics weigh in, and also discuss the recent spate of high-profile leaks and previews.  

Links to some of the things we discussed this week follow:

• A Separation
• The Past
• Gwyneth Paltrow’s explanation of her SNAP challenge attempt
• Amy Woolard’s Gwyneth Paltrow SNAP challenge piece in Slate
• Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens trailer
• Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice trailer
• “Our Modern Movie-Trailer Fatigue” in The Atlantic
• Furious 7 trailer
• Mad Max remake trailer
• E.T. trailer
• Sneakers trailer
• Clueless trailer
• Major League trailer
• Blue Crush trailer
• The Goonies
• Alien trailer
• Blade Runner trailer
• Cliffhanger trailer
• The Fugitive trailer
• “This Trailer Show Is Rated G for Great” on WNPR’s The Colin McEnroe Show
• The Naked Gun
• Airplane!

Endorsements:

Steve: George Blaustein’s “Letter From Amsterdam” and “On Horseshit” on n+1

Mike: trailersfromhell.com and “Two Girls Freak Out On the Slingshot Ride” on YouTube

Julia: “Surely You Can’t Be Serious: An Oral History of Airplane!” on the A.V. Club and The Heidi Chronicles on Broadway

Outro: Skeet Surfin’ from the opening scene of Top Secret

You can email us at culturefest@slate.com.

This podcast was produced by Ann Heppermann. Our intern is Lindsey Albracht.

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