FILM

photo by BRYCE DUFFY best shit-disturber in a supporting role Kika Thorne At some embryonic moment, Thorne mixed together love, sex, film and activism. Since then, she's launched dozens of odd couplings, group actions and fearless film salvos from the fringe.

best filmmaker
David Cronenberg

His career started with Shivers, a film so disturbing that Robert Fulford suggested that if this was what was going to be produced by the Canadian film industry, maybe there shouldn't be one. When horror movies were getting dumber, Cronenberg made smart, menacing films that questioned the nature of human identity while scaring the shit out of people. And just when he was acclaimed as the master of horror, he started making strange literary adaptations like Naked Lunch, the only Canadian film ever referenced on The Simpsons. Thirty-five years of making films, many of them of the international-release major-studio kind, and he still lives within spitting distance of Bloor. 1989's Dead Ringers is still the greatest film ever shot in Toronto.

best filmmaker to document your life
Peter Lynch

Lynch's films (Project Grizzly, Cyberman) sing local oddballs into national myth. Your quirks should be so lucky.

best exhibition trend
Stadium seating
After the hell of 80s cinema construction "the shoebox cinema" we now get big screens, leg room and headroom. Unless you're Sarah Polley, or Erykah Badu plunks herself down in front of you, you'll never, ever, have trouble seeing the screen.

worst exhibition trend
snack bar prices

Should I have a large drink or buy a car?

best deal-maker to have in your corner
Robert Lantos

The guy behind Serendipity Point Films - aptly named given the wild things he'll do when he's taken something personally - is the id-fired mogul industry types love to hate. But 25 years on, he's still taking risks. Cronenberg, Egoyan, Rozema, McDonald - Lantos gets some of this country's most ambitious films made.

best personal adviser for your dvd collection
James Quandt

Cinematheque Ontario's programmer has impressive taste. Through his screenings at Harbourfront, then Cinematheque Ontario and now in a series of Cinematheque monographs, he's always pushed the rigorous, joyful appreciation of cinema. It's thanks to Quandt that Toronto knows its Bresson and Imamura.

most valuable video activist
Scott Treleaven

The rabble-rousing artistic director of Trinity Square Video has injected all kinds of edgy, sexy notions into the place since he took the reins two years ago. He continues to program heavy hitters like the brainy Krokers and video star Flora Sigismondi, but he's also paved the way for emerging artists like Daniel Cockburn and Chantal Rousseau by making them artists-in-residence. The political focus lives on at Trinity, but thanks to Treleaven, the art's getting even better.

ART

best unintentional art installation Suicide barrier (in progress) on the Bloor Viaduct Called the Luminous Veil, the award-winning structure being built on both sides of the bridge connecting Bloor to the Danforth will one day prevent people from using the viaduct as an exit ramp. But right now, it's nothing more than two series of grim crosses cantilevered off the bridge to give jumpers some extra clearance.

best use of kindergarten skills
Bucky & Fluff's Craft Factory

This frisky pair (Allyson Mitchell and Lex Vaughn) play well together, making colourful, imaginative art from all kinds of materials. You'd be proud to put one of their pieces on your fridge. B&F's social calendar is booked up this fall, with a show called Flea Market Freak-Out at 1080Bus (10801/2 Queen West) through November 3 - it's actually an installation made to look like a shop, with the goodies inside for sale from $2 to $200 - and another at Paul Petro (980 Queen West) from November 30 to December 21.

best mad inventor
Max Dean

Dean was probably the kind of kid who found toys boring unless they were mechanized, and so grew up to think installations were boring unless they were motorized, too. Recent pieces include a computer-modelled chair that falls apart and then puts itself back together again, a motion picture that moves only when you prompt it by talking into a microphone, and a remote-controlled table that was part of the 2001 Venice Biennale, the World Cup of art.

best exposed testicles next to a pastry shop
AA Bronson

A founding member of Canadian art super-group General Idea, Bronson could recently be found hanging upside down at Solo, a very vertical gallery space beside Dufflet Pastries at 787 Queen West. The life-sized photo showed the artist bound and hung by his ankles, with his signature beard and other bits dangling at gravity's mercy.

best art space
S.P.I.N.

At an age when many little kids still haven't figured out that crap goes in the toilet, S.P.I.N. has developed into a prodigy. The three-year-old space is attracting strong young artists and savvy veterans - witness September's pairing of new OCAD grad Matt Behen's military monkeys with GG winner John Scott's psycho-bunnies. 158 Bathurst, 416-530-7656

best use of recycled industrial lands
Don Valley Brick Works

Here's proof that through conscientious landscaping and architectural recycling, former industrial sites can become more than trendy lofts. Restoration of the area began with the creation of an ecological preserve by diverting Mud Creek behind and between the Works' assorted buildings to create a series of reed-lined pools, a natural filter for the water on its way to the Don River. Look for little things like the rooftop boxes, and a ladder that pokes cautiously out of a window. Off the Bayview extension, south of Pottery Road, 416-392-1111

best outdoor mural
Wall-to-wall graffiti in alley south of Queen West

Running between Spadina and Portland, this industrial pathway is littered with fantastic graffiti. From scribbled names and linear tags to fantastic zigzag tags written in a chunky hand, words mix with figures of demons and scary ants. Amid the gangsters and artists are the thinkers who write things like "You will love me" and "Don't think, feel."

BOOKS

best local writer about to explode
Tamara Faith Berger

The former sex columnist at Exclaim! and author of Lie With Me - the book Canadian critics called too risquŽ - has almost finished her second novel. Berger may have honed her skills writing for porn mags, but don't think there isn't a mind at work here. The upcoming book, Whoredom, is a modern-day retelling of the life of Saint Mary of Egypt, wherein God is a whore and a whore is a deep ditch. Berger's more Georges Bataille than Alice Munro. This book might give Can Lit a Euro-complex.

edgiest micro-publisher
Gutter Press

Run by lovable media whore Sam Hiyate, who also edits lit mag Blood & Aphorisms, Gutter Press is all over T.O.'s hot new urban writers. Don't look too hard for the Canadian wilderness, stuffy literary allusions or nods to dead authors in books by people like Tamara Faith Berger, Evelyn Lau or Derek McCormack. While Gutter's not as interested in the little details - OK, like editing - it's right-on at discovering daring, marginalized work and shoving it into stores disguised as pretty little books.
www.gutterpress.com

most valuable local art mag
Lola

The darling of Toronto's art scene is a mag with the heart of an entire community. Like its feminist big sister, Bust, it's run by two kick-ass women, Catherine Osborne and Sally McKay, who aren't afraid to tackle controversial issues and champion the underdog. In just one issue, you get millions of show reviews, a short history of blow jobs and an article on the toilets of yesteryear. Finally, some competition for Toronto Life!
www.lolamagazine.com

best writer about to explode in the u.s.
Sheila Heti

NOW readers agree that art writer and woman-about-town Sheila Heti is destined for the big time - they voted her best emerging author. Her surreal collection of shorts, The Middle Stories, soon hits stores in the U.S. courtesy of the most indie of indies, McSweeney's, and its proprietor, Dave Eggers. The cover will feature one of five different images that have been defaced by Canadian artisans. Heti is also the mistressmind behind the Trampoline Hall Lectures, a monthly series in small spaces around town that features Òinteresting people who do interesting things. Expect to see her in Entertainment Weekly in 2003.

best underground publication to hunt down
M@B comic

As long as M@B is slappin' the streets of our city, we'll know that both indie publishing and irony are not dead. Little cartoon Matt (also the name of the comic's creator) filters the complexities of life in Little Italy through his determined innocence. He hangs out at Reclaim The Streets, talks to homeless dudes, rearranges his room and rides the subway high. Get the current issue, What Are We Waiting For?, while it's still handmade
www.mattbcomic.com.

STAGE

photo by KATHRYN GAITENS stand-up we'd ask to mc a wedding Pete Zedlacher Maybe it's because of his small-town Ontario roots (OK, he's from Wawa). But Zedlacher's got an all-round likeability and the comic intuition to know how to work any room. He's fast on his feet and not fond of put-down humour. No wonder he got the call earlier this year to entertain the troops in Afghanistan. If you're lucky, maybe he'll lip-synch to a Slayer song.

most underused actor
Irene Poole

The Labrador-born performer has only done two shows in Toronto, The Glace Bay Miners' Museum and Fighting Words, both at Factory. Nobody touches the emotions as empathetically as Poole. Sure, she's done some Shakespeare out of town and is playing in Montreal and Sudbury this year. But it's criminal she's not working more here.

best playwright
Daniel MacIvor

He topped our list of best playwrights over the past 20 years, and his cachet hasn't diminished since. In fact, he's added to it with the elliptical works You Are Here and world-touring In On It, pieces exploring our lost opportunities to connect with others. MacIvor explores the worlds inside us, places we often don't want to visit. It's always worth going there.

best performer in a call-out role
Ellen-Ray Hennessy

Actor/director Hennessy has stopped conversations at many parties with her "Honeee!" as she greets friends. She's also nearly 6 feet tall and her wardrobe is as loud as she is. But there's a quiet aspect to Hennessy that we see rarely, as in The Emotionalists. Too bad she isn't allowed to present her introspective side more often.

best performance value for your dollar
Go7

Several years ago, seven theatre and dance groups - including Theatre Columbus, Theatre Smith-Gilmour, MOonhORsE Dance Theatre - formed an umbrella organization to offer discount tickets to each company's performances. This season's events number 19, organized in six different types of passes, including music groups as well as theatre and dance shows. It's a great way to encourage audience crossovers as well as link the artistic concerns of people from different disciplines.

best actor to deliver your eulogy
Brent Carver
He's one of those performers who wears his emotions in his eyes. In Timothy Findley's Elizabeth Rex and Shadows at Stratford, he got you going both ways, laughing and crying. And he might even sing a song to celebrate the dear departed. What better way to leave this world?

best designer to redo your bedroom
Jan Komarek
Komarek uses light to sculpt and shape spaces - who else can use a shaft of illumination to shift the mood? - and his play with the evocative quality of reflected images is remarkable. Come on over.

best emerging actor
Christopher Morris

Lots of up-and-coming actors do the poseur thing; Morris doesn't need to. He's dramatic to the bone, completely devoted to his craft. Early on, it looked like he would specialize in intense disturbed-young-man roles, like his electrifying turn in I Might Be Edgar Allan Poe. But last season he made us laugh as an inept gangster in Mojo, and made the journey along the play Road - he was the lusty, bushy-bearded narrator - as memorable as a night in an English pub.

photo by STEVE PAYNE best female actor Nancy Palk She gleams even when the work itself needs polish. This founding member of Soulpepper dazzles in the classics and puts a definitive stamp on new works. When we saw her last in The Winter's Tale and The Maids, we realized we can't get too much of an actor with this kind of warmth and intelligence.

best independent theatre company
Volcano

Founded by Ross Manson in 1994, Volcano reinvents itself with every performance. The award-winning troupe (Building Jerusalem) relies on multimedia styles to present new and contemporary productions - Andre Alexis's Lambton, Kent and an adaptation of Woyzeck are in their repertoire. Volcano's most public face, though, is the regular arts salon Short Stuff, a series of informal developmental evenings that pull together various artistic disciplines.

best reason to love modern dance
Peggy Baker

Maybe it's her long limbs or expressive, muscular back. Or maybe it's her face, which radiates empathy. Baker in motion communicates something beyond words: clarity, strength, confidence. As with the best dancers, she gets so inside a work - emotionally, physically - it appears as if she's creating the work on the spot. The result? A performance that moves her. And us.

best modern dance company
Toronto Dance Theatre

Credit artistic director Christopher House for taking TDT to the next level. In his recent trilogy Nest, Severe Clear and Persephone's Lunch, House has found a new freedom of expression that lets modern moves nestle up to urban riffs. There's an emphasis on design, too, that results in a theatricality missing from most contemporary dance.

comic who most deserves his tv show
Gavin Crawford

Crawford's one of those performers - Tracy Dawson and Shoshana Sperling are others - who are so unique they need their own vehicle to showcase their talents. The Gavin Crawford Show lets him display his characters in all their gender-bending glory. Thankfully, the show's been picked up for another season on the Comedy Network. Sad to say, though, if he lived in the States he'd be a household name by now.

best improv troupe
Slap Happy

Individually, Dave Pearce, Sandy Jobin-Bevans, Kerry Griffin and Tabetha Wells are funny performers. But put them on a stage together, shout out a premise and within a few minutes your stomach will be hurting. In a good way. The troupe's long-form improv takes lots of circuitous routes, but after 40 minutes or so they always drive the car smoothly into the driveway in shows that are consistently intelligent and imaginative.