ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT >>

• BEST ACTOR IN A COMEDY
  Our affection for the campy Bryant-Lake Bowl musical comedy The Temp was due in no small part to the zealous performance of the rubber-faced Michael Ritchie. As Richard, the greasy, bespectacled, sniveling office reject, Ritchie brought apoplectic gonzo gusto to the task of bumbling his way out... More >>
• BEST ACTOR IN A DRAMA
  For years Janasz has been one of the Guthrie's most underappreciated players, probably because he disappears so far into his characters that we forget there's a man underneath. This quiet depth was evident in his performances as the sputteringly proper Jack Worthing in The Importance of Being... More >>
• BEST ACTRESS IN A COMEDY
  Lesheim's liquid performances as the leggy landlady in Loring Playhouse's Killers and the boozing, fading movie star in Red Eye's MAMBO 55 were crucial to the credibility of both of these heavily stylized stage noirs. She melts into her roles and the productions melt with her as she creates... More >>
• BEST ACTRESS IN A DRAMA
  Kellogg's steepest competition for this category is herself: 1998 saw Kellogg grab audiences with her performances as the dowdy Irish mother and accidental revolutionary in Radio Free Theater's Freedom of the City and as a leather- and fishnet-clad S&M psychic in Outward Spiral's... More >>
• BEST AM RADIO PERSONALITY
  Why did Tommy Mischke spend virtually half of last winter off the air on sick leave? Was it detox, as he initially claimed on the night he returned? Or was it a sex change? Or maybe Gulf War Syndrome? The real deal is that it has something to do with stomach problems, but you're not bound to... More >>
• BEST ART CINEMA
  As the best art almost always runs counter to commerce, the best art cinema books its schedule boldly without regard to the bottom line. Run since the '60s by the inexhaustible art-cinema guru Al Milgrom and his ever-revolving staff of young masochists, U Film promises to give the local film... More >>
• BEST BLUES RADIO PROGRAM
  Pete Lee's Bop Street (4:00-6:30 p.m. Wednesdays) may take its name from the sound of Parker and Gillespie that removed jazz from the mainstream dance world, but the records he plays are geared toward as wide an audience as possible. Bop Street features the R&B shouters and honkers of the... More >>
• BEST BOOK BY A LOCAL AUTHOR
  Falcon Publishing's smart outdoor guides have long been essential gear for explorers of Western states like Montana and Alaska, and in 1996, Falcon entered the North Star State with Jay Michael Strangis's excellent Birding Minnesota. Last year, Falcon released Hiking Minnesota, a comprehensive,... More >>
• BEST BUDGET MOVIE THEATER
  Okay, so some might argue that this classic neighborhood theater's five-dollar gate charge bans it from consideration as the best budget cinema in town--but we beg to differ. First of all, five dollars isn't $6.75. And second, what kind of bargain is a two-buck movie ticket if the movie is a... More >>
• BEST CABLE-ACCESS TV SHOW
  Honorable mentions go to Dotty and Margo from Fargo, your drag queen hosts of Get Off My Dress and perennial favorites among the cable-show scene. Whether they are discussing the latest in vintage fashion or demonstrating the best juicing techniques, Dotty and Margo prove that "bad is... More >>
• BEST CHOREOGRAPHER
  Ballet and modern dance are two entirely different worlds in form and function, so the idea of staking out one's career between the realms could well be an invitation to madness. But Robin Stiehm isn't living on the verge of an artistic split-personality disorder. In fact, the choreographer... More >>
• BEST CLASSICAL RADIO PROGRAM
  Mornings are hard enough without having to listen to a crew of nitwits slander indigent immigrants. Compared with the white noise that clutters most of the bandwidth, Top of the Day host Melissa Ousley sounds like a civilized voice in the radio wilderness. If we absolutely must roll out of bed,... More >>
• BEST COMEDIAN
  If your past has included picking up your debutante prom date in your dad's BMW, the comedy of Colleen Kruse may be lost on you. But if, like most of us, you've struggled en route to the top, middle, or bottom of the heap, Kruse's musings will bring the laughter of recognition. The comedian is... More >>
• BEST DANCE INSTRUCTOR
  Certainly, you'll come away from a Constantine session with the basics of a dance step engraved in your mind and a little more rhythm in your slightly looser booty. But what sets Dean and his partner Dorothy apart from the pack is the vaudevillian patter they keep up as they... More >>
• BEST DANCER
  Whether performing with her mother Ranee Ramaswamy in Ragamala Music and Dance Theater or setting her own high standards in recent solo efforts, Aparna Ramaswamy has made a unique impression for one barely out of college. Of course, Ramaswamy has been studying bharatanatyam, an ancient dance... More >>
• BEST EXHIBITION
  In Mexico and many other Latino cultures, the first day of November belongs to the dead. Special breads are baked, graves are cleaned, and ofrendas (altars) are built in homes, all to help lost souls find their way back to the land of the living. CreArte marks the occasion annually by... More >>
• BEST FILM
  Far and away the richest local film released in the last 12 months, director Rolf Belgum's dark horse rock-doc got a jump on a subgenre that's fast becoming de rigueur: the portrait of the artist as loser or vice versa. This real-life Spi¨nal Tap brilliantly leaves it to the viewer to... More >>
• BEST FILM FESTIVAL
  This category will be no contest as long as U Film Society's Al Milgrom continues his annual workaholic binge otherwise known as the Mpls./St. Paul International Film Festival. The '99 edition flaunted 93 films from more than 35 countries, including a great many movies that had never played in... More >>
• BEST FM RADIO PERSONALITY
  When the topic is broadcasting food, the only thing we can think of that would keep us from tuning in to KNOW (91.1 FM) to hear Minnesota Public Radio's nationally syndicated show The Splendid Table would be if the Food Network were to suddenly start airing the original black-and-white episodes... More >>
• BEST FREE TOUR
  Dreaming of a kitchen that doesn't have parquet flooring on the countertops? Or a bathroom with adult-size fixtures? Wondering if you'll go mad if you buy, gut, and restore that dilapidated Queen Anne? Want it all but don't want to commute? The home tour is your chance to tromp through several... More >>
• BEST JAZZ RADIO PROGRAM
  We keep waiting for some other DJ to step center stage and challenge jazz ambassador Leigh Kamman to a full-blown battle royal, juke-joint style. Since he created The Jazz Image for Minnesota Public Radio in 1973, though, the veteran host has faced few worthy adversaries. That's because the... More >>
• BEST LITERARY ZINE
  With a nod going out to the redoubtable Rain Taxi, whose continued existence seems to contradict every accepted truth about today's publishing industry, this year we recognize an equally unlikely literary endeavor, XCP: Cross Cultural Poetics. As that title suggests, there's an academic bent to... More >>
• BEST LOCAL ARTIST
  There are many good artists and many good people, but only one who tops our list in both categories. After decades of quietly beautifying the Twin Cities with public murals that look like splashes of living color on the dreary concrete shells of parking ramps and office buildings, St. Paul... More >>
• BEST LOCAL CARTOONIST
  Although Chris Monroe's work is made in Duluth, its greatest audience is here in the Cities: Her regular comic strip is currently one of the best reasons to read the local news weekly Pulse. Each issue, Monroe's scratchy, winsome Violet Days meanders through everyday topics: the merits of... More >>
• BEST LOCAL DIRECTOR
  Finding common ground among diverse cultures is no mean task. Since 1995 Mukherjee and his colleagues at Pangea World Theater have shown they can walk the delicate line between poetry and polemic in such productions as Conference of the Birds and The Winged Seed while making eloquent statements... More >>
• BEST LOCALLY GENERATED WEB SITE
  In the days before the Internet, St. Paul Pioneer Press writer James Romenesko hinted at his publishing future with a book called Death Log. Compiling grisly reports from the Milwaukee morgue about auto-erotic asphyxiation, fatal pork-chop disputes, and the like, this self-published 1981 book... More >>
• BEST MOVIE THEATER
  From its splendid art deco exterior to its handsome and spacious screening area, this theater has long been the class of local film houses. But for how much longer? Even as we speak, the Twin Cities' last remaining movie house of decent size is being scheduled for vivisection, its balcony... More >>
• BEST MUSEUM
  Consider this the meat-loaf-and-mashed-potatoes choice. The Institute is not the most adventurous of art museums--we leave that role to the Walker Art Center--but the exhibitions displayed along the grand marble hallways provide the same sort of soothing effect as our favorite comfort foods.... More >>
• BEST NEW RADIO STATION
  These days it seems that the concept of locally programmed radio has headed the same way as the independent newspaper. Most commercial broadcasting either comes over a satellite, or is decided down to the last reverb-laden promo by certifiably soulless executives in offices far away--or perhaps... More >>
• BEST PLACE TO SEE A FOOT-OPERATED BREAST ENLARGER
  How can anyone resist a place that bills itself as "the world's largest display of what the mind has devised without the benefit of science or common sense"--and is free, to boot? The museum is a modern-day testimonial to greed, desperation, and quackery--all the virtues that describe the AMA... More >>
• BEST PRODUCTION OF A COMEDY
  Before last November's opening of Picasso at the Lapin Agile, the Hidden Theatre ensemble admitted to some nerves about their first foray into straight comedy. They needn't have worried. The company that gave us Ibsen's hyper-Nordic, funereal Hedda Gabler in the summertime also delivered Steve... More >>
• BEST PRODUCTION OF A DRAMA
  Casey Stangl and her Eye of the Storm were probably the best company in town when it came to tackling Paula Vogel's 1997 Pulitzer Prize-winning drama, bringing a sharp sense of staging to the playwright's intellectual journeys. Vogel's story of a woman looking back on an affair with her uncle... More >>
• BEST RADIO STATION
  With hip hop and R&B responsible for the most energy (and the most listeners) in contemporary popular music, KMOJ--the only urban music station in our market--would be worthy of attention regardless of quality. KMOJ, our least celebrated community station, shares an immediate rapport with... More >>
• BEST READING SERIES
  Rain Taxi deserves a nod for attracting authors like Clayton Eshleman for their Brainstorm series, but the main magnet for top-shelf literary acts is still the Hungry Mind. In a given month, the national notables stopping by the store (or its satellite stage at the Macalester College chapel)... More >>
• BEST SPORTS TALK RADIO HOST
  Given the stupefying proliferation of generic shticks that now clog the sports talk airwaves (the white hipsters, the braying hysterics, the lackluster stat hounds, and so on), Reusse wins points for originality alone. The longtime Strib columnist possesses one of the funniest, least affected... More >>
• BEST THEATER (INDIE)
  The selection of the movie-of-the-week script Standing in the Shadows to open this year's season may have been a misstep for the company. Their true strength lies in edgy contemporary theater like 1998's Why We Have a Body and Unidentified Human Remains and the True Nature of Love. Directors... More >>
• BEST THEATER COMPANY
  All right, maybe their recent Macbeth didn't go over so well. We still think you're better assured of quality theater at the Jungle than anywhere else in town. This troupe is responsible for many of the most heralded productions in the last several years (Bus Stop, Who's Afraid of Virginia... More >>
• BEST TV NEWSCASTER
  We scoured the A-teams for a likely candidate, but found ourselves numbed by all those primping youngsters and slick ironists. Call us traditionalists: We like our TV news delivered by an anchor with a hint of maturity and reserve--someone in the mold of Uncle Walter. Carlson began his long... More >>
• BEST TV SPORTS ANCHOR
  Sure, Grayson, age 33, hasn't been around as long as his colleagues at the big three network affiliates. And maybe he doesn't have the insider connections of hometown guy Mark Rosen, or Randy Shaver, or even Joe Schmidt. No matter. The appealingly untelegenic Grayson works harder on his prose... More >>
• BEST TV STATION
  Oh, how we yearned to give this one to KTCA, our diligent and earnest friends at public television. How we wish we could say that we really wanted to watch all that wholesome, informative TV. But faced with the classic desert-island conundrum (if you could view just one station, which would it... More >>
• BEST-DRESSED TV NEWSCASTER
  Is this newscaster's personal shopper involved in a practical joke or a pernicious psy-ops experiment? Purple blazers with mustard-colored ties. Mustard-colored blazers with grass-green ties. Patterned blazers that recall the psychedelic '70s. Eyeglasses previously available only in East... More >>