AlbumsAntony and the Johnsons
'I Am A Bird Now'
It's a concept album about becoming a woman. Or it's about becoming one's true self. Either way, it's the most uplifting, inspiring record of the year. These should be the anthems for 17-year-old girls. Antony sings like a chanteuse on her death bed from inside a hollowed-out piano. My uncle sits in his bubble bath every night with a glass of wine and warbles through these tracks. This is the sound of a particular unique beauty not often realized, and deserves all the accolades it has received.
-Benjamin Yakas


The Agony Scene
'The Darkest Red'
This album took me a while to fully appreciate, because it is so loud and brutal. The Darkest Red, with its speed metal and hardcore influences, has to be one of the most crushing albums I've ever heard. Still, The Agony Scene managed to pull off multiple songs with clean vocal chorus lines without losing their integrity. These songs leave me singin' along with my toes tapping. From "Scars of Your Disease," an entirely hardcore vocal song, to "Prey," a song driven by its melodic chorus line, The Agony Scene never lets up, creating an entire album of quality songs with replay value. If you're looking for a great metalcore album, this is the one.
-Seth Roberts

Sufjan Stevens
'Illinois'
What was perhaps most astounding about the second installment in New Folk wunderkind Sufjan Stevens' "50 States" project wasn't just the sheer variance found within its 22-track span-muted confessionals about serial killers, banjo ditties for The Great Emancipator, celebratory Chi-town anthems and more-but the fey, orchestral stylization that made it so surprisingly cohesive given its length. Adorned with childlike choirs, full string sections, blaring horns, steel drums and Stevens' own saccharine vocals, Illinois is at once novel and ingenious, a larger-than-life Americana narrative steeped equally in the folklore and indie folk traditions.
-Jonathan Fischer

Movies

'Sin City'
I've never seen a better transition from graphic art to film. The movie manages to incorporate all the noir, humor and horror of Frank Miller's series and still make a movie that stands alone. I eagerly await a sequel, which will hopefully include a few more of his sordid tales.
-Matt Wright

'Walk The Line'
Walk The Line is intelligent, well-acted and entertaining at the same time. Joaquin Phoenix delivers a compelling and haunting performance as Johnny Cash, and Reese Witherspoon plays a perfect June Carter. The film follows Cash and Carter's rocky love affair and includes many songs actually performed by Phoenix and Witherspoon. Walk The Line is, in many ways, the typical "sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll movie." It pulls you in from the beginning, however, and takes you along for an impressive, tumultuous and powerful ride.
-Jessica Sedaca-Rosenberg

'The Aristocrats'
The Aristocrats, a documentary about an inside joke among comedians, was certainly the funniest thing I have seen in a long time. Raunchy, obscene and off-the-wall, this movie was so gleefully vulgar that people left the theater trying to concoct their own versions of the description of a family stage show. This is the kind of movie that would make fans of The Passion of the Christ combust. And we may never again be able to watch re-runs of Full House after watching Bob Saget go bluer than the deepest ocean.
-Benjamin Freed

'The Constant Gardener'
The Constant Gardener is neither sugarcoated nor corny. Rather, it portrays a realistic story of pharmaceutical interests superceding human livelihood, in which a desperate husband decides to follow the footsteps of his wife: truth at all costs, no matter the price. And there is quite a price to pay. Boosted by powerful performances from its lead actors Rachel Weisz and Ralph Fiennes, as well as a fine supporting cast, The Constant Gardener uses beautiful cinematography to express the point of view of another protagonist: the continent of Africa and its people.
Flush with vivid color and stunning landscapes, director Fernando Meirelles contrasts a lively Africa with a gloomily-colored, technological, cold Europe, and though the movie is satisfyingly resolved, it nonetheless ends with a legitimate question: How much does the West truly care about the African people-whose fortunes come alive in this film-but who, in reality, are dying in great numbers, despite the cynical West's ability to help?
-Amit Shertzer

'Red Eye'
So it was more than a tad idiotic. It featured exploding buildings, 11th-hour plot twists up the wazoo and 20-minute blocks of time reserved for the gratuitous throwing-of-things at current "It Boy" Cillian Murphy. Still, Wes Craven's ostensible "thriller"-endangered children, Dr. Phil-related plot points, rocket launchers and all-was the unintentional howler of summer 2005, and as such, it occupies the fond place in my heart reserved for gloriously stupid airborne movies. That is, at least until the perfectly-named Snakes on a Plane arrives in theaters later this year. Sss!
-Jennifer Morrow