Half-yearly report card: the best pop culture of 2023 (so far)

we’ve reached the halfway point of the year, which means it’s time for a pop culture stocktake. Feel as though time has flown away from you? No stress, here’s what you should have watched, listened to, read and clicked on in the first half of the year.

Watch

Poker Face (Stan*)
For Natasha Lyonne, Millennial Columbo
We didn’t know how much we needed a throwback to those ’80s case-of-the-week serials (think Columbo and Murder, She Wrote) until we got it. Full of star power, cinematic set pieces from creator Rian Johnson, and the mesmerising Natasha Lyonne as the coolest gumshoe on the run, it was a royal flush (correct, I know nothing about poker).

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Wager by David Grann
For the mutiny (and for Leo)
Heave away, haul away! This immensely readable book tells the true story of mutiny aboard the British warship HMS Wager in 1741. Written by the bestselling author of Killers of The Flower Moon, Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio have picked up the film rights already.

Watch

Succession (Binge)
For Lukas Mattson, Alexander Skarsgard’s vicious tech bro
No matter how much the Roy Boys connived to “bleed the Swede” or go “reverse viking”, the GoJo bro had their number. Played with slimy perfection by Skarsgard, a master of onscreen villainy, Mattson pulled off the Succession coda’s biggest miracle: offering a nastier nemesis than Logan.

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Spare by Prince Harry
For the royal gossip (not the helicopters)
Despite what he says, this record-breaking memoir makes it obvious that the great love of Prince Harry’s life isn’t Megan Markle, it’s Apache helicopters. But if you chopper through those chapters, the book is full of juicy details including: the King performs daily headstands, Queen Elizabeth loved Kate’s hair and Harry suffered frostbite on his penis. You’re welcome.

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The Drop
For all your culture needs
We might have a slight bias toward this one as it’s produced by The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age (and features many Spectrum faces), but The Drop is your one-stop shop to stay on top of pop culture. Still processing the Succession finale? The Drop has you.

Watch

John Wick: Chapter 4 (available to buy on streaming platforms)
Because every dog has his day
To think it all started with the death of Daisy the dog. Now after four chapters, the John Wick story closes. Saving the best for last, Keanu Reeves takes the character out with a bang in this three-hour epic. Strap in.

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Barry (Binge)
For ‘It Takes a Psycho’, the year’s best 34 minutes of TV
Barry’s final season had already dialled up the dark humour to suffocating stakes but its fourth episode, directed by star Bill Hader, was an emotional masterwork. We’ll save the specifics in case you’re behind, but there were laughs, tears, and an ending that was bewildering in its boldness.

Listen

Desire, I Want to Turn Into You, Caroline Polachek
For pop music at its most emotional, intellectual and funny
A flamenco guitar here, a trip-hop beat there, even a Dido cameo – Polachek’s playful and poetic album was a patchwork of hammy signifiers from the adult contemporary side of ’90s and ’00s pop, all in service of a heart-bursting odyssey into love and longing.

Watch

Return to Seoul (available to rent on streaming platforms)
For a surprise gem
A touching film about a Korean adoptee raised in France (a phenomenal debut turn by Park Ji-min) who, you guessed it, returns to Seoul. Entrancing and emotional – and with a great soundtrack – this film deserves to be more widely known.

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Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld
For an enormously fun time
From the author of Rodham and American Wife, comes Curtis Sittenfield’s compulsively readable story about thirtysomething TV scriptwriter Sally and her pop star crush Noah. There are so many mediocre men partnered with amazing women, could the script ever flip?

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Jury Duty (Prime Video)
For James Marsden’s best work (not including Sex Drive)
Poor Ronald Gladden, the well-meaning lackey at the centre of this elaborate Truman Show-esque ruse, was its unwitting star. But James Marsden, playing a horrible version of himself, was its most inspired gambit. He truly deserved the lead in Lone Pine.

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Women I Know by Katerina Gibson
For short stories that pack a punch
This debut collection – which will make you laugh and question why you’re laughing – just won the $40,000 Christian Stead Prize for fiction. It plays with genre and gender, and will keep you guessing until the very end. I don’t want to say you heard about it here first, but maybe you did, because Gibson was one of this year’s Sydney Morning Herald Best Young Australian Novelists.

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Unreformed: The Story of the Alabama Industrial School for Negro Children (iHeartMedia)
For a story that needs to be shared
Reporter Josie Duffy speaks to former students for this podcast investigation into the Alabama Industrial School for Negro Children in Mount Meigs, a reform school where the lives of thousands of black children were derailed by physical and emotional violence.

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Beef (Netflix)
For the year’s biggest TV surprise
Led by the incredible performances of Steven Yeun and Ali Wong, the Netflix hit seemed a perfect analogy for the current world order - a road rage incident devolves into a petty grudge and futile gamesmanship, and no one’s left a winner.

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Outlive by Dr Peter Attia
For the secrets to everlasting life
This New York Times bestseller is all about the art of living longer – and better. This is a user-friendly guide that will change how you think about, and prepare for, the winter of your life. And if you’re eye-rolling, it’s worth noting Hugh Jackman, 54, is a patient and friend of Dr Attia!

Watch

Pearl (DVD and Blu-Ray)
For Mia Goth, an instant icon
That Ti West’s Pearl, his prequel to his 2022 creepy fave X, is still awaiting its streaming debut is ludicrous (death to algorithms). Now’s the time to dust off your DVD players, because Mia Goth’s titular freakshow – a slasher Dorothy in pigtails – is so worth it. Playful, menacing and unpredictable.

Listen

Boy’s a Liar, Pt. 2 PinkPantheress and Ice Spice
For Ice Spice’s star-making cameo
The original track – a slinky, yearning jam from the 22-year-old British pop phenom PinkPantheress – was already perfect, but it was NYC rapper Ice Spice’s guest verse that elevated it to global chart-topper status. The way she says “grabbin’ my duh-duh-duh”, you just can’t beat it.

Watch

Air (Prime Video)
For Matt Damon and Ben Affeck’s teamwork making the dream work
An all-star line-up tells the Hollywood-friendly story of how the Air Jordan was created (which in turn created billions for both Nike and Michael Jordan). A good-time film in time for the NBA finals series.

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Sydney Sweeney’s trust-fall
For singlehandedly reigniting the romcom revival
Did they or didn’t they? That’s the question gossip tragics will be asking themselves when Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell’s Anyone But You, filmed in Sydney, opens in December – all thanks to a five-second video posted to Instagram in April. But my god, what a video.

Listen

10,000 Gecs, 100 Gecs
For a wonderfully ridiculous time
The US hyperpop duo of Laura Les and Dylan Brady gifted us the ultimate soundtrack to our perennially online era, fusing rap-rock, slap-bass and not one but two ska-punk songs into an engrossing, anything goes masterpiece. The machines are coming for us, let’s party.

Listen

Last Night, Morgan Wallen
For an insight into the country music takeover
The US singer’s redemption tour couldn’t have gone more smoothly, led by this lilty R&B hit that led the global country music revival. Sixteen weeks after it exploded, it’s still top of the charts in Australia – a country smash we haven’t seen since Billy Ray.

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Praiseworthy by Alexis Wright
For a story from one of Australian literature’s greats
From the Stella and Miles Franklin prize-winning author comes an epic set in a town in the north of Australia, known as Praiseworthy, above which a “haze cloud” floats. Told with Wright’s epic vision and trademark humour, this novel is a story of Aboriginal sovereignty and ecological change.

Listen

Red Moon in Venus, Kali Uchis
For the sexiest album of the year
Our astrological knowledge stops at Saturn returns, so we still don’t know what a red moon in Venus represents – but if this is the mood, we’re in. Uchis’ perfect third album was an expansively soulful work that flowed on her smoky vocals and Sade-of-the-streets attitude. No skips, just lie back and bliss out.

*Stan is owned by Nine, the owner of this masthead

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