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as usual, i’m late with my favorites of 2005. here they are anyway:

M.I.A. arular
sufjan stevens illinois
constantines tournament of hearts
spoon gimme fiction
ida heart like a river
sleater-kinney the woods

it was a close one between arular and illinois but i usually have to be in a certain mood to enjoy the latter. despite sounding like nothing else in my collection, arular puts me in a good mood no matter what. tournament of hearts takes everything great about shine a light (still my favorite) and expands on it - whatever it lacks in catchiness it makes up for with depth and an urgency that is hard to match for any other band out there today. in a similar vein, gimme fiction doesn’t have any songs that match “everything hits at once” or “me & the bean” for pop bliss but it’s so smoothly, dynamically and painstakingly well thought-out and crafted. the songwriting is so sharp that you could carve deli meat with it. ugh, did i just say that? heart like a river avoids any big changes in sound and rates as merely good for an ida record but for any other band it would be a great release. on the other hand, the woods finds SK sounding much darker and having much more to say. the songs aren’t all there but there’s a desperation about this album that i haven’t heard from them since the hot rock (which is incidentally, also the name of my iPod).

serenity
sin city
junebug
crash
layer cake

despite no introduction, serenity was easily the best sci-fi movie i’ve seen in years. with a rich story, awesome cast and characters you truly cared for, it succeeded in all the areas where star wars utterly turned me off and made me a rabid fan of the genre again. i saw it 3 times in the theater, got the firefly boxed set, got the dvd - i even bought a serenity t-shirt off ebay (no, you can’t wear it). sin city basically took the comics it was based on and used them as storyboards, if not panel by panel direction. it was uncompromising and brutal, just the way it should have been. junebug features a heartbreaking performance by amy adams and perfectly contrasts family dysfunction against some beautifully quiet moments. it’s the most realistic movie about family i’ve seen. crash was great because it had no easy answers and no heavy-handed message, it was one of those movies that was both accessible yet raised questions you could talk about with friends without feeling like a movie snob. layer cake is like snatch’s older, tougher and humorless brother that punches you in the stomach and takes your lunch money.

mercenaries
resident evil 4
splinter cell: chaos theory
the hulk: ultimate destruction
true crime: new york city

what can i say, i’m a sucker for third person games and mercenaries was the best one this year. the missions allow you to go anywhere, blow up anything (or anyone) in any fashion you want. following closely behind, RE4 and SC:CT are by far the best in their respective franchises with exceptional graphics, near-perfect gameplay, compelling stories and tons of replay value (unlockable modes in RE4 and online multiplayer/co-op in SC:CT). the hulk: ultimate destruction was the most fun game i played this year. anytime you can climb buildings and destroy fighter jets with your bare green hands is a guaranteed good time. true crime: nyc is probably the glitchiest of the games i’ve listed but it’s also the biggest with a ton of things to do.

what are you waiting for? go listen/watch/play these now!