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...

Peter Lovesey has died . That name may not mean much to a lot of you. That's fine. He was one of my very favorite authors, though I haven't found many people on this side of the pond who've heard of him. I was at our local Barnes & Noble last night, and saw that they have four of his novels (though not his latest, which was published in December). He wrote over forty books, as well as dozens of short stories. He was prolific, but it never seemed to impact the quality of his work. Reader, I can't adequately convey how much enjoyment I got from reading Peter Lovesey's work. While writing is something I've liked to do since I was 8-years-old, reading is something I've always been more particular about. There are a lot of books I've started, then abandoned because I just couldn't get into their rhythm. You see, the style has to be just right. It's not easy to explain, but a few authors who have consistently been on go-to status for me are: P.D. J...

It was the mid-1990s. I walked into the record store (aptly-named Record Service), and took stock of where I was. It was situated in an old building on Green St., in campustown. The immediate thought I have when remembering it is 'brown.' I remember the walls as being brown, the shelves were brown, it was just... brown. It felt cozy. There was a sign on one of the walls for a place upstairs called Figaro's. It specialized in classical music. My heart fluttered slightly, as I was partial to classical music, and so seeing that there was some place devoted to it seemed pretty awesome. But, I didn't go there, as I wanted to primarily focus attention on what was on offer at the main record store. It was my first time in that shop. I was familiar with classical music. I was not, it turned out, familiar with what a lot of what Record Service had to offer. There was so much to take in. A few items I remember that stood out were: the greatest hits collection (the best of...

Tonight I learned that Kevin Drum has died. He passed away on Friday, March 7th, from Multiple Myeloma (the same illness that took my uncle Paul several years ago). Drum's diagnosis came in 2014, and he talked about it openly on his blog , up to and including just a few days before his death. I knew of Kevin Drum through his blogging. During the early aughts, when I started to become more politically aware and involved, I began reading certain online musings by folks -- Andrew Sullivan and, on a local level, IlliniPundit, to name a couple. Drum's blog at that time was Calpundit . Eventually, he began blogging at Mother Jones . When they parted ways, he started what would be his final online venture. So, yeah, I've been reading Kevin's musings for over twenty years.

Longtime friends and followers of this blog know that every year I present what are known as The Matt Awards . These started in 1998 (for the 1997 year in film), and have continued on annually ever since. These are awards for the movies that I've watched and enjoyed. They're a sort of antidote to the often disappointing Academy Award nominees and outcomes. Typically, I would post a list of the nominees then, a few weeks later, post the winners. This year, since we're so late into awards season (and the Oscar are in just four days), I'm going to combine them into one post. I'll list the nominees, then list the winner of each category. So, without further adieu, here are the nominees and winners for the 2025 Matt Awards, honoring my favorite in cinema from 2024...

February 9th, 1985 was a Saturday. I know this because it was a special day in my life, and much of it has remained emblazoned upon my mind for decades. I also looked it up before writing this, so there's that. Why do I remember it so well? Why, I'm glad you asked. Let me tell you about it. As many friends and family know, Doctor Who has long been one of my favorite television shows. Specifically, its run from 1963 - 1989. The series was revived in 2005 and, while I've enjoyed parts of it, it just hasn't been the same as it was when I was a kid. The original show was serialized, with multi-part stories which always ended every episode (except the concluding one) on a cliffhanger. Classic Who was made on a shoestring budget, with tatty special effects, dodgy costumes, and sets that wobbled so much at times you wondered if they might fall down. And I loved it. The stories were engaging, and the circumstances of its production allowed one to use their imagination to fill...

I turned 49 twelve days ago. A few weeks before that, I experienced something new: Talking about my genetics, with professionals. As friends and regular readers of the blog know, my dad has been dead for a long time. He died in 1997 at the age of 52 from pancreatic cancer. Not a good way to go. Ever since then, I've been doing a sort of mortal arithmetic in my head. Even at his funeral, as I was sitting there watching the American flag being folded and then handed to my father's widow and their 2-year-old son, the thought was being tossed around in my mind of how, 'Okay, I'm 21. Dad was 52 when he died. That means I could have another 31 years left? Maybe?' At the time, 31 years sounded like a good, long while. I'm here to tell you that it went by quickly. And so, as I continued to near the age where my dad received his diagnosis (he was 51), I began talking with my primary care physician (PCP) about whether or not I should have some kind of genetic testing don...

Posted without comment. By publication date.

We're on the last day of 2024 and, in addition to that, we're also closing-out the first quarter of the 21st century. Twenty-five years (2000-2024) in the can. They've certainly been.... interesting. If there's one thing we can say about the 21st century so far, it's that it hasn't been boring. Personally, I could stand a little boredom for awhile, but ah well. The music of this century has also not been boring. I decided to choose my Top 25 songs of the first 25 years of the century so far, and it wasn't easy. I had to whittle-away a lot, having decided to include only one song per artist, and to exclude instrumental tracks (of which, I like several). Here, then, in alphabetical order, are my 25 favorite songs of the 21st century. Because I don't feel like writing essays about each song, I'm only going to leave them with one word or sentence. It could be about why I like the track, or it could just be a favorite quote from the lyrics. Ok, here we go...

            Entertainment pundit John Campea recently posted a video lamenting the increasing cost of going to the movies (ticket prices, concessions, etc.). He worries that it will mean fewer people going to the cinema. The guys over at CarEdge have long been disappointed in the rising costs of car purchases, with similar concerns that Campea has about moviegoing, that higher automobile costs will mean a decrease in sales. That situation may be resolving itself soon, though. Meanwhile, CNBC recently did a report about how Disney may be pricing some families out of visiting its theme parks.      The aforementioned folks lay out the mathematics of how the economy is supposed to work, that lower prices for goods often means more people purchasing them. A surfeit of consumers means an increase in sales which, depending on the margins, often means an increase in profit. In short, a business should always be looking to expand its customer...

You may not have heard, but there was a US presidential debate earlier this week. Kamala Harris (current vice-president) vs. Donald Trump (former president). I couldn't stomach to watch it, but of course I read news articles about it afterward, talked with a couple of people in-person the next morning who'd seen it, and of course there was the barrage of social media friends who were commenting on it. It's that last part I wanted to talk about. First, I'm obviously not against someone's debate performance being analyzed. Heck, there are classes in public schools that are all about debate. So, that isn't the issue. What bothers me is how the performances are analyzed. Like, yeah, sure, have a poll asking folks what they thought of the debate, and who they thought did better. That's fine. It's the reactions I've been seeing primarily on social media that are concerning. It's like I'm back in school. Except, these are adults (at least in chron...

Last night I saw an advanced screening of the new movie, My Old Ass . Terrible title, excellent film. It had an affect on me, which I wanted to write about. Be forewarned: there will be some spoilers to follow, so if you think you'll watch the movie at some point, perhaps it would be wise to stop reading now and come back to this later.

  "Be happy while you are living, for you're a long time dead."                                                                                          ---- Scottish proverb My dad died from pancreatic cancer 27 years ago today.  This year has been a bit different when thinking about his passing. It isn't because I miss him -- quite the opposite. It's because I realized, as the years have gone on, how I think about him less and less. Lewis is no longer present. That may sound like an obvious thing to take note of regarding someone who's been dead for almost three decades, but it's true that our deceased loves ones often continue to exist within our own psyche. We tend to think of them often, and it doesn't take much...

Apropos of nothing, here are a few observations /opinions / things I've come to learn over the years.

"I could tell by the way you looked at him." A few weeks ago, Ashley & I saw a new foreign film, Touch , and it got me thinking about the past. The movie centers around an older man, Kristofer, who is making the journey from Iceland to the UK, right as the world is shutting down in March of 2020. He soldiers on, as he is on a major quest. He is on the cusp of being diagnosed with a serious illness and, as he and his medical professionals await confirmation, his doctor advises him to tie up any loose ends and take care of unfinished business. We follow Kristofer in the 'present day' of 2020, and then approximately 50 years in the past, as a college student studying in London. He is an aspirational youth, determined to buck the system that he has become so disillusioned with. He drops out of school. and takes a job working in a Japanese restaurant. There he falls in love with the owner's daughter, Miko, who is about his same age. Events happen, and they lose con...