Skip to main content

Leo and Me


Nearly all of us have had a celebrity crush (or two) in our day. For some it was James Dean, for others it was Farrah Fawcett. For yours truly it was Leonardo DiCaprio. Living alone during the early-to-mid-nineties, I would pine over the (many) photo shoots Leo had done as an up & coming young actor. So, yeah, I thought he was cute. Then again, a lot of actors are cute. Leo has always had something more.

Indeed, pre-Titanic DiCaprio has always been my favorite version of Leo. Before that supremely popular ship set sail (see what I did there?), Leo's resume was full of quirky, quality films. The likes of What's Eating Gilbert Grape, This Boy's Life, Basketball Diaries, The Quick and the Dead, Romeo + Juliet and Total Eclipse are enough for any actor to be proud of. His post-Titanic career is almost icing on the cake.

Consider the character of young Toby from This Boy's Life. Attached to his mom, he goes with her as she remarries, and is forced to endure an abusive step-father (Robert DeNiro). Seemingly heterosexual, he seems to take the advances of local gay teen in stride. The scene when he and his mother finally break free of the step-father is a cathartic experience I could relate to.

What of Leo's portrayal of Jim Carroll in the true-to-life Basketball Diaries? That was a difficult film to watch. To witness the character's descent into drug addiction and prostitution was uncomfortable and heartbreaking, but then it was supposed to be. It's a gritty, uncompromising performance.

And, of course, there's Leo's turn as poet Arthur Rimbaud in 1995's period piece Total Eclipse. Playing opposite David Thewlis as Paul Verlaine, the film unflinchingly follows Verlaine & Rimbaud's tumultuous relationship. Leo is young, arrogant, sexy and, at the very least, bisexual in this movie, and has a nude scene and a same-sex kiss. It's the sort of edgy role that he wouldn't really take-on post-Titanic.

Leonardo DiCaprio is one of my very favorite actors. He's cute, he's talented, and he served as my celebrity crush for a number of years back in the '90s. I've enjoyed nearly everything he's been in and, while he certainly needed no validation from the Academy Awards, it was still nice to see him have his moment last night. Truly well-deserved.





Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Yesterday's Restaurants

The local newspaper has a feature from one of Champaign-Urbana's most legendary restaurateur's, John Katsinas, on what his favorite area restaurants were that have now since closed (or will soon be closing).  It's a nice little read, and has made me stop and think about the restaurants that have come and gone that have left an indelible (and edible) impression on me throughout the years. Here we go....
Post a Comment
Read more

Watching The Hours

A Twitter friend named Paula has asked for folks to submit ideas for a blog-a-thon about what we think will be the classic films of the future. In other words, what relatively recent movies (namely, from the 21st century), do we think will be considered classics in the decades to come, possibly airing on such venerable stations as Turner Classic Movies ? While a number of films come to mind for such a category, one in particular stood out from the rest, and thus is my entry for Paula's blog-a-thon.
5 comments
Read more

She's Madonna

Today we're going to talk about something very important. We're going to talk about Madonna. "Madge," as she's affectionately known around the gay scene, has been making music for over thirty years. I grew up with her songs, many of them pop classics. In recent years, it can be arguably said that her popularity has waned a bit. During the past decade, Madonna has put out seventeen singles. Of those, three have charted in the US Top 40. Ten Failed to chart at all on the Billboard Hot 100. We now have at least one possibility offered as to why Madge's chart power is waning: Ageism. At least, that's what Diplo (just, Diplo), a producer of some of the tracks off her latest album, thinks . I know it's difficult to be objective about something you've worked on -- whether you were the producer or the artist -- but, as a listener/fan, I have to say that Madonna's most recent work has simply not been that good. Still, we'll hear what ...
Post a Comment
Read more