The Culture Gabfest, "All Hail Hailee" Edition

Listen to Slate's podcast about the 2011 Oscar nominations, IFC's new sketch comedy show Portlandia, and Brock Enright's pay-per-thrill "reality adventures."

Listen to Culture Gabfest No. 123 with Jessica Grose, Nina Shen Rastogi, Dana Stevens, Julia Turner, and Jonah Weiner by clicking the arrow on the audio player below:

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We'd like you to participate in an exciting reader contest. Inspired by Stanley Fish's list of his favorite sentences in the English language, we want to hear your favorites. You can post your nominees—along with your analysis of why the sentence works so well—in the comments thread here, and Stanley Fish will pick the best answer of the bunch. Entries are due by midnight ET Thursday, Jan. 27.

In this week's Culture Gabfest, our critics Dana Stevens and Julia Turner discuss the just-announced 2011 Oscar nominations with Slate "Brow Beat" writer Nina Shen Rastogi, IFC's new sketch comedy Portlandia with Slate associate editor Jessica Grose, and Brock Enright's pay-per-thrill "reality adventures" with Slate pop critic Jonah Weiner.

Here are some links to the things we discussed this week:

The complete list of this year's Oscar nominees.
Slate's 2011 Lean/Lock Oscars prognostication game.
Slate reactions to the nominations from Nina, Dana, and Troy Patterson.
Best foreign language film nominee Dogtooth.
Julia's slide show on the Academy Awards and costume design.
Alexandre Desplat's scores for The Ghost Writer and The King's Speech.
Hailee Steinfeld's performance in True Grit.
The official Web site for IFC's new sketch comedy Portlandia.
You can watch the first episode on iTunes or Amazon.
The 1990s HBO sketch comedy series Mr. Show.
Portlandia co-creator Carrie Brownstein's former indie rock band Sleater-Kinney.
Carrie Brownstein's NPR Music blog Monitor Mix.
Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armisen's Web site ThunderAnt.
Jonah Weiner's NYT Magazine article on Brock Enright's Videogame Adventures Services.
Photos and descriptions of some of Enright's past "executive kidnappings."
Videogames Adventures Services' (minimal) official Web site.

The Culture Gabfest weekly endorsements:

Dana's pick: The song "Furry Walls" from Get Him to the Greek.
Jonah's pick: The short story "The Tremendous Adventures of Major Brown" from G.K. Chesterton's The Club of Queer Trades.
Julia's pick: Suzanne Collins' young-adult science-fiction trilogy, The Hunger Games.

Outro: "Portlandia Theme Song" by Carrie Brownstein

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This podcast was produced by Jesse Baker. Our intern is Forrest Wickman.

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• The Culture Gabfest, "All Hail Hailee" Edition
  Listen to Slate's podcast about the 2011 Oscar nominations, IFC's new sketch comedy show Portlandia, and Brock Enright's pay-per-thrill "reality adventures."
  Jessica Grose | Jan. 26, 2011
• The Culture Gabfest, "Entering the Age of Ophiuchus" Edition
  Listen to Slate's show about Gwyneth Paltrow in Country Strong, the "new" zodiac, and Lauren Redniss' graphic biography Radioactive.
  Stephen Metcalf | Jan. 19, 2011
• The Culture Gabfest, "Rags to Riches … and Back Again?" Edition
  Listen to Slate's show about Downton Abbey, the new censored edition of Huck Finn, and the overnight fame of Ted "Golden Voice" Williams.
  Stephen Metcalf | Jan. 12, 2011
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