Left to my own devices

I've been missing my parents recently. Of course they are never too far from my heart, though I don't consciously miss them all the time. That changed recently when I was putting together a playlist of my favorite film scores. Anyone who knows me knows I love movies. Anyone who knows me even better knows that I am also enamored with certain film scores: the Cocoon movies, scored by James Horner; the brash, clashing music for Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (also scored by James Horner); the Star Wars films, composed of course by the great John Williams; many of the Bernard Herrmann collaborations with Alfred Hitchcock; the score for Cloud Atlas , by Tom Tykwer, Johnny Klimek and Reinhold Heil; and, of course, nearly anything by my favorite film composer, Jerry Goldsmith. Another maestro of movie music I quite enjoy the work of is the late, great John Barry. He is probably best known (or at least most heard) for scoring eleven James Bond movies from 1963 - 1987. He also arran...

Ashley & I drove to St. Louis on Friday April 3rd, to attend a book talk that evening. It was being put on by The Novel Neighbor (a pretty awesome independent bookstore in Webster Groves), and was held at the Keating Center for the Performing Arts. The book being discussed was  Who Needs Friends ? Or, to cite its full title: Who Needs Friends? An Unscientific Examination of Male Friendship Across America . The author, Andrew McCarthy, was there on-stage to discuss his book for about an hour, and then he signed autographs and took pictures (ahem). And yes, those of you of a certain age may recognize the name and the appearance as THE Andrew McCarthy, an actor who is probably most well known for his work on popular 1980s movies such as St. Elmo's Fire, Pretty in Pink , and Weekend at Bernie's . It was an interesting talk. As you might surmise, the book is about male friendships. and McCarthy has stated that it was kicked-off by his then-21-year-old son asking him if he had ...

Now that the Oscars ceremony has come and again, and most folks have gotten their Monday morning quarterbacking regarding what they liked and didn't like about who won and lost out of their systems, it's now time for the main event!   Without further aideu, here are the winners of the 2026 Matt Awards...

Those of you who really like movies and follow awards season probably have your own ideas about what were the best (or at least your favorite) films of the past year.  Yours truly does, as well. Enter The 2026 Matt Awards! Like the Oscars, these nominations and awards are for movies from the year before (so the 2026 Matt Awards are honoring films from 2025). This all started in 1998. I was a huge fan of Leonardo DiCaprio at the time (still appreciate his work to this day).  Titanic  was released in December 1997, and I saw it 5 times at the theater. In early 1998, the Oscar nominations were announced, and Leo was nowhere to be found. Salty at the perceived snub of my  crush  favorite actor, I decided I could do better than the Oscars, and so the first Matt Awards were born. DiCaprio was nominated for  Titanic  and, of course, he won. Over the years, the Matt Awards have allowed me to recognize (if only for myself) the best in cinema of the preceding ye...

    I'm not a big fan of recent buzzwords such as "trauma" and "closure." I dunno, it just seems like they're so much pop-psycho-babble that have been used so much as to become annoying. Those words have, however, seemed appropriate for how I've been feeling the last couple of weeks. Allow me to explain. I turned 50 on December 27th. It was a great birthday -- probably my favorite -- and has left me feeling all sorts of positive emotions in its wake. One aspect of it did, however, send me on a particularly deep emotional journey, one which I've oddly found to be quite healing. Where to begin? I've been thinking about this a lot, and don't really know the best way to frame it, or how to begin describing it, so... here we go.   

A few years ago I was walking around the St. Louis Galleria during June. It was Pride Month and, as I made my way past the mall stores, noting how so many of them had pride flags in their windows, I became a tad misty-eyed marveling at how far we'd come. I couldn't help but think of younger Matt, back in the 1990s, who was terrified at the prospect of coming out, and wondered how much stronger he would have felt if he'd been able to see pride flags displayed at public places. A gay friend I was with at the Galleria (and, honestly, I can't remember who it was now) scoffed at the displays, and his reaction caught me off guard. He bitterly remarked that it was just some hollow corporate show, put on because being gay was in vogue. I didn't really understand that because my mind was still cast back decades earlier to when seeing such an exhibition -- hollow or not -- just wouldn't have computed for me. I responded to the friend with something like, "Well, I sti...