In part 3, Carrie Miller recalls Snowtown, Heath Franco’s front door, Kim Kardashian’s fairytale wedding and much much more…
1. Snowtown
When a movie has a bathtub torture scene like this – and that’s not why you would describe it as brutal – it’s got to be good. Oh yes, and it’s his dog.
2. Ikea, Tempe grand opening
Here’s one fun fact about the new Ikea: it has 44 checkouts. Here’s another: our local bus, the 422, has a stop right out the door. Sounds promising, doesn’t it? Unfortunately, the grand opening was as disappointing as thinking you’ve gone to bed with Jennifer Hawkins and waking up next to Carlotta. Anastranova Val summed it up for all of us when she posted on the Ikea Tempe Grand Opening Facebook page: “Went there before 7am in the rain (&very very cold!) with my little bub, waited 1 hour, didn’t get anything [sad face emoticon] & got to work late because of it &the heavy traffic! The stage show was boring, the meatball didn’t come out till when I was leaving.”
3. Heath Franco, Your Door
Heath Franco’s practice sits somewhere among the inspired work of comedian Andy Kaufman, Australian artist Tony Schwensen, and Ricky Gervais’ walking blind spot, David Brent. The experience of watching Your Door is like a cross between seeing planes fly into the World Trade Centre and being sexually harassed by a clown. Franco’s brutal study of suburban life exploits the most repugnant of marketing techniques, the advertising jingle, to prove that the devil really is in the detail of the everyday. Cuppa anyone?
4. John Waters on Q and A
It took the Pope of Trash to restore some class, style and substance to the ABC’s flagship light entertainment program this year. John Howard’s Australia reached its dénouement with the earlier appearance of Marxist philosopher Slavoj Zizek, which was appropriately broadcast from that cul-de-sac of culture, the Sydney Opera House. When the middle class reaches critical mass, the only thing to do is to send for the Godfather of white trash culture. Hurry John, hurry.
5. The Occupy Movement
The capitalist class was finally overthrown by the proletariat who…oh, hang on a sec, they were too busy making meth in Walmart because they couldn’t afford to buy the chemicals. This year, the World Wide Church of Give Me All Your Fucking Money was finally told to suck it by a bunch of people who have come to be known as the ‘99%’. According to Fox News, dangerous and irrelevant hippy communes have sprung up everywhere. On being shown a picture of one of the protesters wearing an ‘I am the 99%’ on his Perry Ellis blazer, an African AIDS orphan was quoted as saying: “What the fuck does that make me?”
6. Kim Kardashian’s Fairytale Wedding
When hyper-reality TV star and one-woman moll patrol Kim Kardashian married pituitary case Kris Humphries, it looked like a match made in the offices of E! Entertainment lawyers. But if you thought that, it’s you who is the cynic. Yes, YOU. Personally, I was already worried when one of Kris’s friends said to him before the big day, “one vagina for the rest of your life, bro”. Thanks to laser vaginal rejuvenation, Kim’s friends needn’t ever have to say the same to her.
7. John A Douglas, Body Fluids II
In a mesmerising ten hour public performance, Douglas, entombed in a sense-depriving, gold suit, performed kidney dialysis on himself while carrying out a series of choreographed moves that appeared to synch with the three films projected behind him.This work showcased the fundamentals of Douglas’s practice – an obsession with his subject and a singular commitment to art making – in an entertaining and unsettling way.
8. Word: Amazeballs
Definition: Basically beyond amazing. Being so awesome that a regular word can’t describe you.
Eg: Baz Luhrmann is amazeballs.
9. Sylvania Waters
Often cited as the first reality TV series, this fascinating Oz docu-soap aired in 1992, but began filming in ‘91, which made this year its 20th anniversary. Watching it again was fucking disturbing. The seeds of the aspirational crop that Howard reaped in 1996 were out and proud, drunk on their boat the Bla-se, with opinions on everything from unionised labour to becoming a republic. Line of the series? “Have you got the TV off for any reason, Yvette? It’s like a morgue in here.”
10. Cripple with Swag, My Vagina Ain’t Handicap
My favourite YouTube find of the year. Finally, someone who rocks the phrase ‘don’t dis my ability’. Cripple with Swag puts to shame the people behind some of the patronising campaigns around people with disabilities. Those do-gooders look as if they’ve gone FULL RETARD in light of her killer lyrics and breathless, laconic delivery. Check it: “So pop a squat and cop a feel, this’ll be hard to top not only offer great sex, but best spots in parking lots.”
