On this week’s show, our fighters Steve, Julia, and Dana enter the ring to tussle over The Smashing Machine, the Dwayne Johnson vehicle directed by Benny Safdie. Can they smell what the Rock is cooking? Is it a subtly modulated performance about a sensitive pro UFC fighter? Or, a shameless Oscar play? 
Next, it’s on to the offbeat climes of Tulsa, Oklahoma by way of The Lowdown, a shaggy noir series created by Sterlin Harjo and starring Ethan Hawke. Finally, they gaze into the uncanny eyes of Tilly Norwood, the A.I. beauty that launched a thousand think pieces and a Hollywood freakout.
On an exclusive bonus episode for Slate Plus subscribers, the panel unburies an old hatchet to discuss Elizabeth Gilbert’s newest memoir. 
Email us your thoughts at <a href="mailto:culturefest@slate.com">culturefest@slate.com</a>. 
Podcast production by Benjamin Frisch. Production assistance by Daniel Hirsch.
Endorsements
Dana: The N+1 essay "<a href="https://www.nplusonemag.com/issue-51/the-intellectual-situation/large-language-muddle/">Large Language Muddle</a>" and Isaac Butler's <a href="https://slate.com/culture/2025/10/daniel-day-lewis-anemone-movie-oscars-best-actor.html">deep dive on Daniel Day-Lewis</a> in Slate.
Julia: Walking in <a href="https://copr.nrs.ucsb.edu/visiting/">Coal Oil Point Natural Reserve</a>.
Steve: James Meek's essay in The London Review of Books "<a href="https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v47/n18/james-meek/computers-that-want-things">Computers that want things</a>" and the novel <a href="https://bookshop.org/p/books/gargoyles-a-novel-thomas-bernhard/083fdbe79671bd91?ean=9781400077557&next=t&">Gargoyles</a> by Thomas Bernhard (and welcomes listener suggestions for what else to read by Bernhard). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit <a href="https://megaphone.fm/adchoices">megaphone.fm/adchoices</a>

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