The Thousands 2016 staff wrap-up

Claire Finneran · Thursday December 22, 2016

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Well wasn't 2016 a real treat. Apocalyptic segues aside there was still a lot to be excited by this year. Below are our picks and musings on the best cultural tid bits. Sure, some of it wasn't even made this year, but this makes it more exciting right? Thanks for reading.

Angela Schilling, Five Thousand Editor

Favourite film of 2016: Arrival or Rogue One

Film you're most looking forward to re-watching over the holidays: I'll finish watching all of Daria then probably watch it again.

Best book of 2016: The World of Edena by Jean 'Moebius' Giraud

Favourite podcast of 2016: Reply All

Favourite TV show of 2016: Daria and the infomercials I can now watch because I have a TV for the first time in years.

Favourite mixtape and/or album of 2016: Blonde

Frank Ocean - 'Nikes' from DoBeDo Productions on Vimeo.

Favourite local release: Adelaide release - Allume, 'Why Move Very Fast At All' and Aus release - Dan Kye, 'Joy, Ease, Lightness'

Favourite film clip: Rainbow Chan, 'Pearled Into'

Favourite pop culture moment: Mariah Carey sues James Packer for $50mil for wasting her precious time. <3 u MC, h8 u JP. Don't mess.

Highlight of 2016: Dancing to Jlin at Unsound Festival as part of the 2016 Adelaide Festival, and being dangerously caffeinated for 2 weeks straight in Vietnam. Also releasing my first wax recording.

How will you be spending New Year's Eve: Half a cap with my best friend on the couch watching some fireworks on TV.

Sam West, Three Thousand Editor

Favourite film of 2016: Slapper, a short film by Luci Schroder. I wrote some scenes for this like 5 years ago, Luci completed the script and and filmed it. She's an uncompromisingly weird and honest filmmaker. I reckon they're all gunna be scrambling for her attention when Slapper screens at Sundance next year.

Film you're most looking forward to re-watching over the holidays: When it starts hitting 40 degrees I'm gunna buy one of those big frozen cokes and go see Rogue One I reckon.

Best book of 2016: Simon Hansellman (as always)

Favourite podcast of 2016: Julia Turner from Slate, twenty years of publishing success on the internet. Pretty incredible.

Favourite mixtape and/or album of 2016: Sailing off into the sunset with the Nicklebuck and Tim White Sayonara 2016 mixtape.

Favourite local release: Pop on 'Wildflower' and roll around on a crochet rug.

Favourite film clip: Don't just 'Burn the Witch', light a match, flick it on a petrol puddle, walk away and don't even look back when whole thing explodes.

Favourite pop culture moment: Anytime Sinead Stubbins wrote a Game of Thrones power ranking for Junkee.

Highlight of 2016: Walking past a building site for a new cafe the other day and knowing that once that cafe is built I'll never have to go in there (unless I feel like).

How will you be spending New Year's Eve: Probably rolling around on a crochet rug listening to Wildflower.

Claire Finneran, Managing Editor

Favourite film of 2016: Mustang for its spunky sibling dynamic and American Honey because I love Andrea Arnold's soundtracks, teen choreography, casting, premiere outfits…everything. And, any film that Kate and I reviewed over iMessage.

Film you're most looking forward to re-watching over the holidays: Broadcast News. <3 Holly Hunter and Joan Cusack <3

Best book of 2016: I spent the first half of the year reading female celebrity autobiographies stoned in a bath ( working title for my own memoirs: 'Weed in The Bath') so I can't remember. I can remember reading all these great independent publications from this year though: Krass Journal, Swampland, Tempered, Apathetic Journal, Heavy II, Oberon 2 and Hot Chicks With Big Brains.

Favourite TV show of 2016: Search Party, mainly for the stand-out gross behaviour from John Early and cameos from Rosie Perez and Parker Posey.

Favourite mixtape and/or album of 2016: Was really into lots of female-led hip hop and rnb this (every) year, if I had to choose it would be a toss up between Princess Nokia's 1992 and Kamaiyah's A Good Night In The Ghetto.

Favourite local release: Everything on Paradise Daily, Holy Balm Activity and Rainbow Chan's Spacings

Favourite film clip: Princess Nokia, 'Tomboy' and also the morally opposite butt-jigglin' in a puddle from Big Baby D.R.A.M. feat. Lil Yachty with 'Broccoli'.

Favourite pop culture moment: All of my own Snapchat stories.

Highlight of 2016: It happened really recently, but my mates Em and Deb (hi!) have such high ceilings they can fit a swing inside their lounge room. Their in-house policy for first time swingers is you have to choose a song and then swing for it's entirety. I experienced pure joy there recently swinging to the sounds of Australian Crawl's 'Downhearted'. Belissimo.

How will you be spending New Year's Eve: Hopefully on someone's roof looking into the sky and thinking deeply.

Kate Jinx, National Film Editor

Favourite film of 2016: Julieta for its over-the-top Almodovar melodrama, The Love Witch for blowing my lil witchy mind, and Chantel Akerman’s final film No Home Movie for absolutely breaking my heart.

Best book of 2016: Maggie Nelson’s The Argonauts, a book I feel I’ll always return to.

Best podcast of 2016: The one Claire Finneran and I talk about starting but never actually do. Maybe in 2017?

Favourite TV show of 2016: For a so-called ‘golden year of TV’ I didn’t actually like all that much. Oh, I lie! Real Housewives of Auckland. An exquisite program.

Favourite mixtape and/or album of 2016: Obvs Solange’s ‘A Seat at the Table’ (Junie on repeat thx).

Favourite local release: The Goon Sax ‘Up to Anything’ really helped me get through some cold-hearted cynical times this year. Bless them.

Favourite pop culture moment: Duh, the Instagram account @theartistisxmaspresent and the ‘gold digger, gold digger’ moment on RHOA.

Highlight of 2016: Running into Darlene from Roseanne in LA while my girlfriend was actually wearing a Darlene from Roseanne T-shirt.

How will you be spending New Year's Eve: On a beach known as ‘Woopi’ up in Northern NSW, having a glass o' bubs and hoping to hell that some young beach gronk has some DIY fireworks.

Nick Buckley, Three Thousand contributor

Favourite film of 2016: Down Under. While maybe not the start to finish best film of the year, it articulated the societal divisions and frustrations that led to the return of Pauline Hanson and the rise of Donald Trump with brutal hilarity and genuine compassion.

Film you're most looking forward to re-watching over the holidays: Hard Target, Jean-Claude Van Damme punches a snake. The End.

Favourite mixtape and/or album of 2016: Leon Vynehall -Rojus (Designed to Dance). Melbourne has been in the grip of a serious techno obsession over the last couple of years. I'm over it to be honest and just want sexy sweaty house music like this. 90% humidity, palm fronds and being fed bunches of tropical fruit in the club from now on please.

Favourite local release: Zone Out, Transience

Favourite podcast Fresh Air with Terry Gross. Almost daily interviews with the most genuinely inquisitive and generous host on the air. Look back into the archive for amazing pieces like this heartbreaking interview with author of Where the Wild Things Are, Maurice Sendak.

Favourite film clip: King Gizzard,'People Vultures'

Favourite pop culture moment: New Zealand politician Steven Joyce getting hit in the head with a dildo. Wang thrower Josie Butler is my hero for 2016.

Highlight of 2016: The time Jenny Branagan from Nun kicked the crap out of a punter under the dome of the Melbourne State Library. Similar levels of tough to JCVD punching the snake.

How will you be spending New Year's Eve: A Low Hum NYE. The first time I went to a different iteration of this festival, there was a hippy couple selling bbq corn cobs with a tab of acid for NZD$33. I tried to keep up with Sam West but freaked out after my 4th cob when Captain Ahab, dressed in nothing but muscles and undies started throwing down hard house at the bottom of an abandoned pool, with blood and fisting porn playing on a giant screen behind them. Hopefully shit gets similarly weird minus the freak out.

Spencer Morrow, Two Thousand contributor

Favourite film of 2016: Star Wars

Film you're most looking forward to re-watching over the holidays: Something equally bland and compelling - like Matchstick Men, or Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead, or A Simple Plan.