The best and worst of pop culture in 2023 (so far)
From Succession's stellar finale to The Flash's rubbery cameos, here's what worked—and what didn't—in entertainment this year
Aux Features Stephen King
We’re only halfway through 2023, and we’ve already had some bonkers new TV shows (hi, The Idol), triumphant film franchise finales (’sup, Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3), and media companies continuing to make a mess of everything they touch (ew, Max). And, as the studios continue to hold out on a deal with striking film and television writers and with an actors strike a distinct possibility, the second half of the year is looking bleaker and bleaker. What disarmingly sexy fungus men will we have to celebrate if there are no scripted shows to watch and no stars to portray said characters? That’s why we’re looking back on all the things we’ve loved and hated so far this year: who knows when we’ll next get to see anything glorious, weird, terrible, or gloriously weirdly terrible? We need to enjoy these moments while we still can. Here’s the best and worst of pop culture so far in 2023.
42 Comments
Ant-Aman is a boring character in print and on screen. The only time he was ever interesting is in print in the Ultimate universe when Cap beats the jelly out of him for hitting Janet. Otherwise, stop with Ant-Man.
Shark Tank is dumb. Stop giving assholes a platform.
Shark Tank Australia offered some brilliant insight into just how fucked our economy is:“Where in China were you planning on manufacturing your product and if not China how much did your mum drink while you were in her womb?”“Er, well, I actually have been in discussions with a factory who specialises in this sort of injection moulding in Silverwater, in Sydne-”“You could get this made in Shenzhen for a fiftieth of the cost. I know like eight guys who could do 50,000 units for less than I paid for for my shirt. Fuck off.”
Chris Pratt was fine. Y’all just like to dislike Chris Pratt.
Ah yes, “fine”. The highest of praise!
Fine shouldn’t qualify for “worst of ” anything which was the point you seem to have missed
I mean, it was a cheap cashgrab kids movie so celebrity stuntcasting where the actor puts in no effort and basically does what he’s always done in every other cheap cashgrab kids movie was exactly the right fit.My kid loved it so that’s all that mattered to me, but compared to other kids media it was pretty bad.
They like provoking people into commenting.
The SPR3’s “Hackers” themed music video didn’t make the cut? That’s bananas!
Best: It’s been a pretty good year for gaming. Worst: AV Club’s continued slideshows.
That’s gold, baby.
we didn’t want Charles Martinet to be the voice of Mario.we wanted Danny DeVito.
They’re saving him for Wario.
I still say a Mario movie with the cast of Always Sunny would work. Dennis = Mario. Mac = Luigi. Charlie = Toad. Frank = Wario. Dee = Birdo.
Worst: Chris Pratt voicing Mario“Before Mario Brothers came out we spent a lot of words saying how godawful Chris Pratt as Mario was going to be. the movie made a billion dollars anyway. Let’s get one last shot in ”
Lots of billion dollar movies have bad casting. If celebrities that kids don’t care about are going to permanently replace actual voice actors in these big budget films, I would at least hope they’re great at the role, and Pratt’s voice did not match.
Sure, and he was serviceable. But not “worst” by any stretch.
Listening to the actual VA for MArio for an hour and a half would be torture. MAybe I would have more confidence in him if y’know he actually ever had a “real” speaking part as Mario in a game.
And he proved that he actually COULD do a Mario voice, it was always an intentional decision for him not to sound like that the whole film.
It’s rage-bait. They know that if they bring it up, people will be commenting that it’s a non-issue, or that AVC are obsessed with pushing this narrative, replying that no, it was indeed bad, etc.Half the comments are already about that slide.
Chris Pratt did a decent job. As much as I love Martinet in the Mario games (I even met him at a con and he signed my Mario hat), it only works in the games because we hear him in small doses. Having to hear Martinet doing the exaggerated accent in a 90 minute film would be torture.
At least Chris TRIED. Seth Rogen just did “Seth Rogen” for Donkey Kong
Yeah people are just dying to hear 2 hours of high pitched “It’s a me!”.At this point you’re just silly.
Given that most SB halftime shows are awful, Rhianna’s was ‘fine’. Like, I didn’t want to change the channel, or leave the room. That admittedly clear the really low bar set by most previous shows, but it was hardly a great pop culture moment.
As a Rihanna fan I agree. It was a bit on the sleepy side (granted, she was pregnant at the time).
I’d have a hard time calling it a Best though. I know she was pregnant and probably didn’t want to move around a lot but everyone just riding those platforms up and down got boring pretty fast. It was bottom-half Super Bowl halftime shows.
No mention of either The Bear (ep. 4, 6, 7) or Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom a bests? I would’ve gone for ep. 3 (or the mall scene) for The Last of Us and maybe Joel in the “Gloria” scene from the Somebody Somewhere finale.
I don’t get Max as a worst. As someone who loves HBO content, works in branding and UX, and dislikes Zaslav and the Discovery content as much as anyone without a vested interest, the complaints about this are way overblown—it’s still got the most best content that is not hard to find and manage for anyone who actually uses it regularly. Would I prefer the pre-merger version? Sure, but this is low on the list of things to complain about after the initial mocking. Just not worth the amount of words apparently still being written about it vs. the business side of the company and the future of the content.
Yeah The Bear is a big omission, some of the best TV I’ve watched all year. As a former line cook it really hits the marks.
It’s got great content, but it’s not great to navigate. The “Continue Watching” function only works like half the time. And, some shows don’t have all their episodes on there. Not to mention all the shows they just took off there to save money.
The AV Club writers have a weird hate-boner for the Discovery merger/Max. I mean, it sucks, Zaslav sucks, everything sucks, but the way AV Club covers it you’d think that Max was the only streaming service and Warner Discovery the only shitty media conglomerate.
Who made this list? GotG3 sucks fat ass and spends more time torturing little animals than it does having fun. Also, Padme has always been a self-centered ass who had no place at the table, her leaving Top Chef if the best thing that can happen to the show.
Quantumania was a weird one because it could have been great, but every bit of the execution was thoroughly mediocre (except the acting).Guardians 3 balanced comedy and darkness fantastically, so it’s not like the tone couldn’t have worked; but the jokes weren’t really funny and most of Kang’s build-up was told rather than shown. What could have been a vibrant, creative science-fantasy world was undercut by the decision to make every scene a murky blue or orange.And of course, setting most of the film in the Quantum Realm meant it had none of the imaginative action scenes that made the previous films stand out. Instead of setpieces like tiny car chases and fights in a roomful of toys, characters were just shrinking and growing amongst generic sci-fi buildings. It’s almost like these were the wrong characters for the film.I wouldn’t call it a low point for the franchise (Inhumans put the bar through the floor), but it was just so goddamn bland and forgettable.
Introducing Kang in an Ant-Man movie did seem weird. But, I can’t think of a good character whose movie would have made for a better introduction. Iron Man would have been perfect, but he’s dead. Fantastic Four could have worked but only in a sequel. It would have been too much to introduce all of them in the same movie. Dr. Strange could have worked, Kang being the villain manipulating Scarlet Witch and causing all that multiverse madness. But, honestly, I think they should have just given us the Strange VS Mordo movie that we want.
My idea that I think would have solved both the drab environments and the forgettable action scenes would be to have a load of random crap that got sucked in with them, turn up in the quantum realm at random sizes. They did a bit of that with – SPOILER – the ants. – END SPOILER -So like, there’s stuff like lightbulbs and batteries that the microverse people are using like borrowers; maybe a micro-town inside a PC case or something (because they’re outside of linear time so stuff could’ve been there forever), or a massive phone that’s being mined for its giant minerals. Have a scene where they find Scott’s car but it’s half the size it should be so he has to drive it around with his knees sticking out comically. A toolbox spills giant tools around that they fight with, or something. idk, it’s 2am and this is off-the-cuff :Pre. Strange vs Mordo, I feel like there’s been enough gaps and time-jumps that they could shoehorn that in anywhere they like. Someone else mentioned in another thread that if they want to do another Hulk movie without undoing his character arc they can stick one in the 5-year Blip time-jump.
That sounds pretty cool. Also, didn’t James Gunn pitch a Hulk movie with the Red Hulk? I’d love to see that movie.
I wonder why people thought The Weekend would be able to act better than he can sing?
That episode of yellowjackets was silly as fuck. stylized cannibalism by way of euphoria/riverdale. RAW did more with just a finger
Maybe instead of MAX as your Worst for Streaming, you could have used the practice they seem to have started all the streamers down the path to: removing or cancelling content for tax-exemption purposes. From ditching Batgirl to the recent removal of shows from MAX, Hulu, Disney+ and more, this is the worst part of streaming so far and it will continue to be.
Do they need to save hard drive space? Hulu announced today that they’re getting rid of one-season shows. Wasn’t that one of the points of having streaming available? Being able to use all your backlog content yourself?
It’s funny how HBO decided to use MAX, which reminds everyone of Cinemax, all because they got some feed back from some MAGA morons in the midwest that HBO is consider “too liberal”.
BEST: I Think You Should Leave.
“ They should’ve just kept Charles Martinet, who’s voiced Mario in the video games since 1991.” His first game where he played Mario was Mario Teaches Typing in1994.
Best: Across the Spiderverse managing to keep up the flowing animation and frantic vibe of Into the Spiderverse.Worst: Having to wait until March 2024 (or later) for the finale.
I disagree with you on Vanderpump Rules. I’ve never seen the show, don’t know of anyone that’s seen the show, yet from watching the endless previews and coverage from websites and blogs, Bravo is making it a bigger deal than it deserves. The men look like slimeballs. The women look like even the porn industry rejected them (What grown ass woman calls themselves Lala?). Nobody has any actual talent, except for making themselves look ridiculous in front of the camera. And “Scandoval”? Is that a thing? Are people that desperate to be famous that they’ll sell their souls to do garbage like THIS?