Best of the Year: Internet

Sure, I could divide the Internet into its various components. Recognition for the best commercial site, the best social networking site, the best news site, the best queer site. But that would take a heck of a lot of time and totally misrepresent the fact that there is only one place I go every day without fail: Modern Fabulousity. ModFab has great taste, solid reviews, keen insight. And it's all mixed in with a whole lot of fun and hotness.

We might disagree on a thing or two. He owes me $35 for Fuerzabruta (I was only fifty percent of the way there with him) and I had no doubt that Sweeney Todd (the Tim Burton version) was going to blow me away. And I still can't figure out how he doesn't get Pushing Daisies. But ModFab is a blast to read. It connects me to some of the best music on the web and to some other great writers on the web. And he's a proud, stand-up-and-count-me gay man. That makes him a great role model, too.

Gotta give a special shoutout to Blue Hampshire. Being new to the whole New Hampshire thing, no site has done a better job of keeping me informed about the candidates and my new home state.

Best of the Year: Live and on Stage

This was a tough and simple category. Should I choose something I saw and admired in 2007 or should I choose something that actually opened in 2007? Going in the latter direction, it occurred to me that I would never get the chance to select Spring Awakening as my pick of the year. So, the live performance I rank as number one this year is, indeed, Spring Awakening. It's a fresh show dealing with difficult themes. It contributes to the development of music theater by introducing new forms.

The cast is exuberant with John Gallagher (who departed last week) and Jonathan Groff (who just extended six months) as standouts. But the creative team gets the biggest nod here. The book, music and lyrics by Duncan Sheik and Steven Sater are simply fantastic, and the package is amazingly well crafted by Michael Mayer. Bill T. Jones (choreography) and Kim Grigsby (musical direction) put their own stamps on the evening, as well.

I do my homework before I go to the theater. It's too frikkin expensive not to. The result is that I'm rarely surprised. I don't avoid spoilers, so heading into Spring Awakening, I knew a lot about the surprises in store. And still I was surprised. The show is so rich, so well done, so engaging that the chatter on the web can't reveal everything. That's masterful!

And if I had limited my choices to those that opened in 2007? Coram Boy. Another compelling night at the theater.

This year I saw perhaps the fewest live performances in the last two decades. But there were a few things that deserve honorable mention: Sweeney Todd demonstrated that there was still much to be mined in the John Doyle production. Judy Kaye was as good and as different from LuPone as possible. Iceland Dance completed its first American tour. The dances weren't always successful, but they could only have come out of Iceland. And Annie Lennox provided a thrilling evening at Symphony Hall in Boston.

Best of the Year: DVD

Knowing my great affection for Sigur Ros, my friends may be wondering why Hvarf-Heim, the last double disk from SR to drop, wasn't on my best of music choices yesterday. Well, it's an amazing album, but we can't have Sigur Ros top every category, can we? The choice for the best DVD of the year is not an easy one. A film like Shortbus, which is a great film that deserves a wider audience, could have easily topped my list this year. One of the many TV Box sets, like Hex or Slings and Arrows, that are difficult to find in the U.S. might have been there, too.

But no DVD release of the year moved me or excited me the way the Sigur Ros documentary/travellog Heima has done. Sigur Ros has always had a very "visual" sound, and their videos are among my favorites ever. Heima makes the argument that Sigur Ros is a product of its geography. We learn a little more about the members of the group, about their politics, and their great affection for their homeland. But mostly we get Sigur Ros performing in the most gorgeous of settings captured by the most gorgeous photography.

The idea is a simple one. After traveling the world in support of Takk, their 2005 album that did top my list (and many others), the band decides to travel across the villages and towns of Iceland. They play churches and town halls and open fields. Many moments are simply breathtaking.

I have to go back 25 years to find a film that moved me in similar ways. In 1982, I was bowled over by the marriage of music and visual images in Koyaanisqatsi, a film that still remains among the most important I have seen. I was humbled by the incredible artistry that unfolded before me on the screen. In 2007, I had that experience again with Heima. Sigur Ros is an amazing group of musicians and Heima brought me that feeling of discovering something new and fresh all over again.

Best of the Year: Television

No television program has brought more joy into our household than Pushing Daisies. Each week as many as 15 of us get together to watch Ned the Piemaker and his cohort of odd and endearing characters solve murders. But the murder mystery angle of the show is not what keeps us coming back each week. It's the fairy tale. Ned can bring people back to life by touching them, but if he touches them again they die forever. In the "Pie-lette" episode, Ned brings Chuck, the now grownup girl who gave him his first kiss when he was 10, back to life after her murder on a cruise ship. (By the way, if Ned doesn't touch the person he's brought back within 60 seconds someone else will die so the universe can right itself.) And so, Ned and Chuck are hopelessly in love and hopelessly unable to touch. The thought of it makes me weep, even as I type this.

There is much joy to be found in Pushing Daisies. The characters all care deeply about each other. They are a family, even though Chuck's aunts (the totally amazing, reason enough to watch the show Swoosie Kurtz and Ellen Greene) don't know she's alive. Olive Snook (the totally amazing, reason enough to watch the show Kristin Chenoweth) makes that connection, even as she tries to figure out Chuck's story and even as she pines away for the piemaker herself. And just when things are on the verge of sickly sweet, Chi McBride reminds us how surreal this whole thing is.

Pushing Daisies is a package, though. It's success is also due to incredible writing that is unlike anything else on the air. The narration is beautiful and moving, due in large part to the work of Jim Dale as the narrator. The colors are as surreal as the premise, so vibrant they cannot be found in nature. All of this is conducted under the sure baton on maestro Bryan Fuller, who creates a symphony of color and sound that moves the heart.

And what of Ned the Piemaker and Chuck? Lee Pace is perfect and Anna Friel has arrived at perfection over the first several episodes. It's hard to imagine the show working without either of these two, but it is Pace who stands out. Every smirk, every gesture, every line reading gets us closer to the experiencing the bittersweet world of Pushing Daisies.

OH YEAH! With that whole writers' strike going on, what are we to do for our PD fix? Run, don't walk, to get your hands on Wonderfalls, Fuller's 2004 Fox series that begat this year's favorite. It may just be the best show in the history of television.

Honorable mentions this year go to Ugly Betty, which is having a stellar sophomore season, The Closer, which has gotten better each season, and Damages, which was so drawn out it was painful to watch, but which was totally addictive thanks in large part to the work of Glenn Close.

Best of the Year: Music

So there's still one week left in the year, but no album has come close to The New Pornographer's Challengers as my choice for the best album of the year. Not a single track on the album misses, and the cumulative effect is an album of great wit, great insight and just plain great music. Carl Newman and company have released their best album to date. Nico Case shines as usual.

It's been years since I've given a specific album to people as a holiday gift. This year, quite a few people on my list got Challengers in their stockings. Four months after its release, the album still has a prized spot in my iPod. It should on yours, too.

Honorable mentions for the year go to Annie Lennox's Songs of Mass Destruction, Mika's Life in Cartoon Motion, Rufus Wainwright's Release the Stars, and the studio cast recording of Bare.

Charlie Wilson's War

It was with a small amount of trepidation that I went to see Charlie Wilson's War. I'm no fan of the work of Aaron Sorkin. Never saw an episode of West Wing that I could get into. Same with Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. A Few Good Men bored me. Until today, there's nothing of Sorkin's work that I would recommend. Until today.

Perhaps reined in by Mike Nichols or supported by the solid work of Tom Hanks (who also leaves me cold at times), Philip Seymour Hoffman and Julia Roberts, Charlie Wilson's War turns out to be a very good film. The humor is laugh-out-loud funny, but leaves you with that bad aftertaste that says, "Oh, maybe I shouldn't be laughing." It's humor that forces you to think, and that is an amazing way to comment on the current troubles.

Charlie Wilson is a flawed congressman who, after a moving visit to Afghanistan, pushes the U.S. to dramatically increase it's covert involvement in supporting the Afghans against the Soviet incursion. He's a good old boy politician to whom everyone owes a favor. So, it's within his power to bring the budget from $5 million to ultimately $5oo million, to get the CIA to change its philosophy that staying out will turn this into Russia's Vietnam, and to bring Israel together with Arab countries for mutual gain.

Hanks does a wonderful job of capturing the complexities of Wilson. Even when the script stumbles--and it does here and there, particularly in the last few minutes--Hanks is totally engaging. You can see the internal conflict of a man who laughs off ethics investigations and plays politics with natural ease. This cause means something to him.

Roberts gives a fine turn as the sixth wealthiest woman in Texas. For her this is a religious cause, and she brings her power to bear to get the cause on Wilson's radar. Similarly, Hoffman shines as Wilson's partner in bringing about U.S. involvement.

There's an absurdity to these proceedings that is captured beautifully by Mike Nichols. He's in great form here, and he serves up comedy at its most effective: thought provoking.

The film does falter in the final moments. To be sure, we all know the ending, but it's tough to swallow a preachy ending--we spent billions fighting the war, but can't even spend $1 milllion rebuilding the country--after a film that has shown us atrocity rather than preach about it.

Definitely one of the year's best, though!

Don't Quit While You're Ahead

The SpeakEasy Stage Company's production of The Mystery of Edwin Drood is great fun. Drood is one of the few Tony winners I never had a chance to see, so I'm grateful for the opportunity to take in a production of such fun and charm. The music hall setting of the show gives the company great freedom to involve the audience throughout. Members of the company connect with their sections of the audience from the start, and you find yourself rooting for your player throughout. It's a wonderful bonding moment that becomes totally engaging.

Drood, for those who don't remember, is the unfinished, serialized murder mystery by Charles Dickens, subsequently musicalized by Rupert Holmes. The 1985 production won a slew of Tony Awards and firmly entrenched the "let the audience decide the ending" gimmick used commonly on TV and in the theater these days. It obviously worked then and it definitely works now.

The SpeakEasy production is marvelously cast. Though a few off notes are hit here and there, the cast is uniformly charming and engaging. The choreography and direction make great use of the small stage, employing inventive solutions to theatrical problems.

Drood is the perfect musical for the season. Great fun, engaging. It just brought a big smile to my face.

Fun Fact: Halfway through the run of the Broadway production, Joe Papp changed the name of the play from The Mystery of Edwin Drood to, simply, Drood to secure a better position in the Times alphabetical theater listings.