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Best Books, Movies, and Podcasts of 2023 with Web Barr

·51 min·3 clips

Will Guidara says 11 Madison Park was once 46th in the world before becoming number one.

1. Making Media focuses on Webb Barr’s 2023 picks across books, film, television, and podcasts. 2. Hosts Dom Cook and Webb Barr return as the regular pair, and Webb’s High Bar Media newsletter matters because it resurfaces older interviews and profiles. 3. The episode asks which 2023 cultural release is worth time in full, and it treats long-form criticism as the filter. 4. Webb’s article pick is Patrick Radden Keefe’s New Yorker profile on Larry Gagosian, which he says only The New Yorker could write. 5. The Gagosian discussion covers William Morris, selling posters in Los Angeles, and the expansion of an art empire across the 1980s, 1990s, and present day. 6. The hosts dwell on the art market’s opacity, the market power of gallery owners, and the question of why Gagosian allowed the profile at all. 7. Webb points to The New Yorker’s style of letting readers decide for themselves rather than directly naming conflicts of interest. 8. Dom compares the piece to commentary around James Cameron, saying the article communicates criticism through the people quoted rather than through a direct verdict. 9. Webb’s book pick is Will Guidara’s Unreasonable Hospitality, which he frames as an applied management manual. 10. The book centers on 11 Madison Park, where Guidara became general manager at 26 and the restaurant later reached number one in the world. 11. The hosts discuss the earlier 46th-place ranking and the restaurant’s willingness to pursue “unreasonable lengths” in service. 12. Dom says the book applies to podcasting, sponsors, contractors, and any business that depends on audience experience. 13. Webb’s film pick is Oppenheimer, and he says the three-hour runtime felt like two. 14. The movie discussion highlights Christopher Nolan’s use of music, practical effects, and a structure that moves like an action film, heist film, horror film, and drama at once. 15. The conversation also touches on Barbie, Killers of the Flower Moon, and the making-of feature on the digital PVOD release of Oppenheimer. 16. Dom’s television pick is All the Light We Cannot See on Netflix, adapted from Anthony Doerr’s 2014 novel and directed by Sean Levy. 17. The TV section covers Marie, Werner, Saint-Malo in 1944, the four-part format, and a few adaptation differences from the book. 18. The discussion closes on David Fincher’s The Killer and Rick Rubin’s Tetragrammaton with Rory Sutherland, linking both picks to over-optimization and creative process. 19. The episode suits listeners who want books, films, and podcasts to add to a year-end list. 20. It is less useful for listeners who want only brief entertainment chatter with no recommendations.

As heard by us

A roundup that turns curation into the main point.

Making Media treats a roundup as an argument for curation itself. Webb Barr joins the hosts as they revisit High Bar Media picks and resurfaced interviews, and the conversation keeps returning to what makes a work last: a sharp interview, a memorable scene, a recommendation that…

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For a media roundup that explains why the picks mattered, not just what made the cut.

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