The Verdict

I don’t give a Ratajkowski what you think of celebrity gossip, I love it

The Kiss Heard Round The World was the highlight of my month, and I’m not ashamed to admit it.

• Tabitha Carvan

In praise of the intermission, the best part of theatre

Movies, take note: it’s the right time for a halftime.

• Robert Moran

• Opinion

#FreeKeanu: When can we stop pretending that John Wick is good cinema?

A decade on, it’s time for John Wick’s candle to be snuffed out.

• Robert Moran

Ted Lasso is nice, but there’s no way it’s good comedy

The much-hyped TV series Ted Lasso is to comedy what being slapped in the face with a wet newspaper is to boxing.

• Luke Ryan

No wonder the carpet wasn’t red: award show fashion has become beige

Once a highlight of the international fashion calendar, the pre-show preening for the Academy Awards has become as predictable as an episode of Is It Cake?

• Damien Woolnough

Why there should never be another Met Gala

The event has proved itself a relic of the past - and the past is where we should leave it.

• Alice Tovey

Madonna and her ‘new face’ are completely brilliant

The pop icon knew her new face would be the face that launched a thousand think pieces.

• Mali Waugh

And Just Like That … Aidan returns to sap the life out of Sex and the City

No one cares that you make tables with your hands and have nice hair, just take your dog and leave.

• Thomas Mitchell

Why Reputation era Taylor Swift was my favourite Taylor Swift

Look what you made me do: completely re-evaluate that album.

• Tabitha Carvan

Board games are terrible. Please don’t make me play them

No, I don’t hate fun. Your fun is boring.

• Kishor Napier-Raman

I know it’s summer, but outdoor entertainment is for the birds

Just ’cause it’s summer, do we have to completely disown roofs?

• Robert Moran

We need to save Osher, Australia’s son, from The Bachelor

Like Queen Elizabeth II before him, the artist formerly known as Andrew G represents constancy for us all.

• Alice Tovey

Keep your smocks and linen sets – you can’t beat my summer hat

One of the few hats lucky enough to share its name with a disease, the Legionnaire cap with flaps and back is the ideal accessory.

• Deirdre Fidge

I ruined my office Kris Kringle - and I’ll never take part again

There were two things I knew about Stacey: she didn’t know my name and she worked in marketing.

• Alice Tovey

It doesn’t make sense, but Austin Powers is somehow still very funny

I’m not sure how this is even possible and you should know that I’m not entirely comfortable with the idea.

• Nick Bhasin

The best gift you can give your children this Christmas? The truth

My friend’s kid keeps eating sand, so I don’t think it’s a huge intellectual triumph to convince her Santa is real.

• Patrick Lenton

Paint and sip? Why can’t team building be kept to office hours

Brush and Bubbles, ArtBar, Champainting, Canvas and Cabernet, Picasso and Piss, Botticelli and Booze - they’re popping up everywhere.

• Cherie Gilmour

Sin, sex and Celine Dion: This is the best album you’ve never heard of

Here is a wild work from an enigmatic genius that is ridiculous, over the top and dripping in lyrical and musical excess.

• Michael Koziol

Awkward nudity and secret bars? I dread the boom in immersive theatre

It’s become a buzzy cultural go-to ever since the infamous Sleep No More, but this type of theatre sucks from the moment you walk in the door.

• Robert Moran

Since I first watched this show, I haven’t been able to think of anything else

If The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills is good enough for Roxane Gay and Meryl Streep, it’s good enough for you.

• Eliza Reilly

Three cheers for the best part of singing Happy Birthday

A few months ago, a friend told me one of the funniest stories I’ve heard. I’ve thought about it a lot since.

• Rebecca Shaw

When can we stop pretending that Bluey is ‘must-see viewing’ for grown-ups?

Bluey is the Lantana of kids’ shows: perfectly fine but with a reputation far outstripping its actual quality because our expectations were so low.

• Ben Pobjie

Why do we need to BeReal? Reality is depressing

I saw the best minds of my generation, sitting on office chairs, wearing cardigans, toiling endlessly under the yoke of capitalism.

• Patrick Lenton

Press restart: Why it’s time to bring back TV’s Press Gang

It should be a point of national pride to get the ’90s hit streaming on the ABC (its spiritual home) again.

• Tabitha Carvan

Not the same as it was: One Direction were always great. It’s me who sucked.

What if those millions and millions and millions of teenage girls were, in fact, on to something? What if One Direction were never really bad?

• Tabitha Carvan

• Opinion

Tedious, nauseating, overblown: why it’s best to leave this ‘classic’ book in the past

Trying to get into the first few chapters of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road while a toddler wriggled all over me on a plane, it seemed like a meaningless list of places I’d never been and people I didn’t care about.

• Michael Ruffles

Enough of this tin-hat weirdo, Australia needs a new cultural hero

Who made it compulsory to make Ned Kelly cameo in every single Australian novel, poem, or painting ever?

• Eliza Reilly

Chill out, what ya yellin’ for? Avril was the best, and we took her for granted

It’s been exactly 20 years now, since June 2002, when Avril Lavigne released her breakout debut album Let Go.

• Robert Moran

Let’s have a moment for the finest piece of literature in cinema

Quite simply, it’s the best grand gesture ever in a rom-com.

• Deirdre Fidge

Why you should vote 1 against political satire

Modern satire is often just someone in a suit shouting ... and changing no one’s mind.

• Demi Lardner

Upstairs, Downstairs, who cares? Can we be done with Downton Abbey, please?

After six seasons and two movies, Downton Abbey is still just rich English people sitting around a big house, waiting for other rich people to visit.

• Thomas Mitchell

Thanks Apple, but we don’t need new emojis. The perfect option already exists

The humble smiley does not pretend to convey a range of complex human emotions. And yet, he somehow does.

• Deirdre Fidge

Shame on us, we didn’t know what we had until Sizzler was gone

It was the Garden of Eden with its green and white panelling, a beautiful cornucopia of trays full of pretty okay food. And we let it fade away.

• Rebecca Shaw