KEVIN WILLIAMSON
1. David Letterman's libido. Whatever you think of the late night talker's sex scandal, the fact is, for a few fleeting moments, it distracted everyone from Jon and Kate, the Kardashians, Lauren Conrad, Heidi and Spencer, and any number of reality-TV bottom-feeders. Remember when you had to have talent before you were gossiped about?
2. Mad Men. The sharpest, sleekest series on television bathes in style and revels in narrative (and physical) curves, but remains foremost about the smouldering silences between a cast that is single malt smooth.
3. Stephen Colbert. Still a savage satirist, the chief danger Colbert faces is that the neo-con nitwits he's mocking have become such jabbering, weeping parodies of themselves -- Glenn Beck, anyone? -- that Colbert's act seems comparatively sane.
4. Larry David. His Curb Your Enthusiasm is the true successor to Seinfeld's circus of manners and minutiae, so where better to stage a "reunion" of the Seinfeld cast a decade later? So far, this appears to be a sitcom reunion that could defy precedent -- they all tend toward varying degrees of suck -- and, as Jason Alexander says, make up for the final episode nobody really liked.
5. Radiohead. They've adapted faster than most to a digital age in which audiences expect their entertainment for free. Ironic. Why? Because as opposed to most disposable, formulaic pop music, Radiohead's soundscapes actually have value.
6. The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson. I admit it took the arrival of the amateurish, insufferable Jimmy Fallon to appreciate just how skilful Ferguson -- the best interviewer on late night -- is.
7. District 9. The year's most surprising, satisfying science-fiction adventure, it should serve as a template for all summertime aliens-versus-us fare to follow: Character-driven, provocative, exciting and -- most thrilling of all -- genuinely original.
8. Family Guy. An unrepentantly juvenile guilty pleasure that, for all its bad taste, is anchored by two characters of uncommonly high celebrated intelligence: Martini-sipping canine Brian and evil diaper-wearing genius Stewie.
9. Nick Hornby. This year saw the author return to familiar literary terrain with Juliet, Naked -- which, like High Fidelity and About a Boy is about the musically adroit but emotionally stunted -- as well as expand his reach by adapting the memoir An Education, about a teenaged girl in 1961 London whose sexual and spiritual awakening mirrors the culture's own.
10. Karen O. It's not enough this art-rock chanteuse fronts the trio Yeah Yeah Yeahs -- now she's moonlighting as the creative force behind 2009's most remarkable, evocative soundtrack -- for Where the Wild Things Are.
JIM SLOTEK
1. Ten movies being up for best picture Oscars (in a pretty weak year overall). Go, Star Trek!
2. PVR and Timeshift. Sundays are bad enough, but there'd be blood on the floor Thursdays if we couldn't sort out those two hours of Survivor, Bones, The Office, CSI, Supernatural and Fringe.
3. Satellite radio. No more asinine DJs (at least they keep it to a minimum). And hooray for stations that play "oldies" I've never heard before. (Did you know Van Morrison actually recorded songs other than Brown Eyed Girl?)
4. Being able to appreciate irony. Case in point: Glenn Beck has written a book wherein he posits a fictional liberal, makes up that person's positions and refutes them. The name of the book: Arguing With Idiots. Does it get any better?
5. Ricky Gervais. The man could make me laugh in his sleep.
6. Other than, maybe, Avatar, there are no annoying, headache-inducing 3D movies on the release schedule that I have the least interest in seeing. The savings on Advil alone are worth giving thanks for.
7. Despite a lifetime of playing video games -- including all five (!) Halos -- my kids have not turned into psychopathic monsters. Yet.
8. My backyard, which we sometimes use as an outdoor movie theatre, and which mostly is a place I go to escape and read.
9. Bill Bryson keeps writing books. See No. 5.
10. Megan Fox and Angelina Jolie keep talking smack about each other. I don't know, I just find it hot.
LIZ BRAUN
1. The blissful time spent reading Too Much Happiness, the latest collection of short stories by Alice Munro. I'm also grateful the next filmmaker (after Sarah Polley) to take a crack at adapting Munro's work is Jane Campion, who intends to make a version of Runaway.
2. Robert Downey Jr. thriving. That's a more positive thought than one concerning Roman Polanski in jail finding out for himself about forcible confinement and unwanted sexual advances.
3. The Kardashian family, for if they did not exist, it would be necessary to invent them.
4. My own personal pair of 3D glasses for when Avatar finally opens.
5. That the Private Lives of Pippa Lee is a good movie. It opens in November. Rebecca Miller wrote the novel it's based on and she directed the movie; since Miller has to drag around all that baggage of being playwright Arthur Miller's daughter and actor Daniel Day Lewis' wife, you can't help rooting for her.
6. The cruelly funny Between Two Ferns with Zach Galifianakis (on funnyordie.com). My favourite is the slap fest with Bradley Cooper.
7. That Robin Wright Penn finally figured out how to lose Sean Penn without losing face. Good job.
8. The existence of Chelsea Lately. Almost makes it worthwhile to have a television.
9. That the nooks and crannies at my local Chapters make it possible to sneakily speed read Art In America and W without anyone noticing. That's terrible, isn't it?
10. That Gordon Lightfoot returns to Toronto's Massey Hall in November. There was that ribbon of darkness over the whole country a few years ago when it briefly seemed our Gordon might not play anywhere ever again. That's all over. Whew.
DARRYL STERDAN
1. Asian cinema. You can keep your overpaid Hollywood stars and comic-book sequels. I'll stick to the Samurai masterworks of Akira Kurosawa, the disturbing weirdness of Takashi Miike, the dark intensity of Park Chan-Wook and the unstoppable exuberance of Bollywood.
2. Harlan Ellison. This irascible short-story master, critic and essayist has been relegated to the science-fiction ghetto -- but the truth is, tales such as A Boy and His Dog, I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream and Jeffty is Five are immortal works in any genre.
3. The Internet. Yeah, I know it's destroying the music industry. It isn't doing newspapers any favours, either. And someday, it will probably rise up and kill us all. In the meantime, you can see or hear anything you want, anytime you want, at the click of a mouse.
4. Looney Tunes. When it comes to classic cartoons, I'll take Bugs and Daffy (photo) over Mickey and Goofy any day. You can't top gems such as The Rabbit of Seville, Duck Amuck or the hunting trilogy of Rabbit Fire, Rabbit Seasoning and Duck! Rabbit, Duck! Th-th-th-that's all, folks.
5. Lost. I know they're never going to explain everything. And I don't care. The topsy-turvy plotlines, complex puzzles and meticulously detailed world of this shapeshifting tropical-island drama are reward enough. The only complete TV series I will ever buy on DVD.
6. Marah. This Philly-born outfit is quite simply the best band you've never heard. Think Springsteen jamming with Van Morrison, Faces and The Replacements at your corner bar. Go find their 2000 masterpiece Kids in Philly and tell me I'm wrong.
7. Noir. From Raymond Chandler to James Ellroy, from The Big Sleep to Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, there are a million stories in the naked city -- and the best star wisecracking gumshoes, black-widow femme fatales and an inconvenient corpse or two.
8. Iggy Pop. I try not to worship at too many rock-star altars. But I always genuflect for Iggy. He's the godfather of punk. He invented stage diving. And at age 62, he's still searching, still destroying, still doing things his way -- and still looking better shirtless than I ever could.
9. The Shield. Another TV show that actually rewards viewers for paying attention, this gripping drama about a corrupt, Machiavellian police detective (Michael Chiklis) began with a murder -- and spent the next seven seasons dealing with its bloody, brutal aftermath.
10. South by Southwest: Every year in March, I ditch my parka for a pair of shorts and spend a week in Austin, Tex., watching some of the biggest and best bands in the world, scarfing BBQ and Mexican food, and drinking beer in the great outdoors. Do I really need to say more?
JOHN COULBOURN
1. Canadian artists. We don't always treat them well and begrudge them even a living wage, yet, in the face of our indifference, they still strive to reflect our world in a light that helps it all make sense.
2. Ottawa. While the politicians drive us nuts, the nation's capital has morphed into a wonderful place to visit during the summer months, full of fine museums, parks and performance spaces-- a city that reflects the soul of a nation, if not always its heart.
3. kd lang (photo). Listen to her heart-stopping rendition of Hallelujah and you'll understand.
4. The Canadian canon. I like new plays a lot, but the legacy of playwrights such as David French, George, F. Walker, Sharron Pollack and Michel Tremblay is really something to treasure.
5. PAL. In a country that doesn't always understand its artists (see No. 1), the Performing Arts Lodges prove our artists have learned how to look after themselves -- and to create a vibrant community in the process. Toronto had the first, but thankfully it's a movement that's taking root across the country.
6. No star system. It's a pain in the butt for aspiring artists, but it also means we can still get up close and intimate (theatrically speaking) with accomplished artists such as Eric Peterson, R.H. Thomson, Fiona Reid, Sonja Smits, Brent Carver, Jackie Richardson, Louise Pitre and Yanna McIntosh.
7. The Stratford thrust stage. These days, few directors know how to use the stage designer Tanya Moisewitsch created for the Festival Theatre In Stratford -- a design echoed in both the Tom Patterson and Studio stages. But once you've seen a director who knows what he (or she) is doing at work on one of those stages, they are nothing short of a revelation -- and a national treasure.
8. My birth certificate, which happily makes me old enough to have seen some worthwhile Shakespeare on those stages.
9. Opera on CD and an afternoon drive across the Canadian prairie. Try it and I'm betting you'll be hooked.
10. A good memory. Which puts the whole notion of Stephen Harper tickling the ivories at a gala at the National Arts Centre in its proper context.
