My Choice: Best of 2005

Best on TV:

1. Arrested Development (All of it. Pure gold.)
2. Six Feet Under (in particualr, the series finale -- the song Breathe Me by Sia still brings me close to tears by reminding me of the final few minutes)
3. My Name is Earl (best new comedy this year)
4. Dr. Who!! (best sci-fi for my buck)
5. House (yes, it is getting a bit tired, but Hugh Laurie is just so watchable)/The Daily Show/Colbert Report (funny and topical)

If Arrested Development dies on the table, then so be it. I will just have to buy all three seasons on DVD, along with all the other clever people out there.

Best on the Big Screen (out of the 19 theatrical releases I saw this year):

1. Syriana
2. Serenity
3. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
4. Wallace & Grommit: Curse of the Wererabbit
5. Broken Flowers

OK, the first three are definitely set in stone; both Syriana and also Serenity surprised me with their connections to humanity and Goblet of Fire surprised me with its ability to boil down a huge book into a tightly wound adventure. Curse of the Wererabbit was definitely the best family film I saw this year. Broken Flowers could as easily be exchanged for Jarhead -- both were enjoyable on the same sort of level; I got a lot out of them in the theatre, but don't need to see either again. I'd have included Constantine -- which I liked enough to buy on DVD -- but it was all eye candy with little if any substance.

Best Music:

This one is simple. For me, this was the year of Kanye West. Hubby and I bought both Late Registration and also College Dropout because:

1. He said "George Bush doesn't care about black people!" on live TV
2. His performance on SNL kicked ass (as did the backstage with Mike Myers skit -- a nod to the live TV rant)
3. His single "Jesus Walks" was used in the trailer for Jarhead -- and it just lodged itself in our brains.

I'm not going to write about Best Books because I don't think I read a single book on any bestseller list ... or in fact much of anything published in 2005.