Left to my own devices

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.

It's that time again. Awards for the motion picture industry are flying fast and furious, and the Oscars are just a couple weeks away. In 1998, I began what has become an annual tradition known as The Matt Awards , to showcase what I consider to be the best in film for a particular year. The first awards honored the movies released in 1997. There was a particular reason I started the awards that year.... More on that later. Now, here are the best in film for 2015, as selected by yours truly:

It will soon be 100 years since the famed ocean liner Titanic struck an iceberg in the Atlantic and slipped forever under the waves. The subject of many books, television plots and films, arguably the most popular version of Titanic's sad story is the 1997 James Cameron film titled, well,  Titanic . And that film is gearing-up for a re-release next month, both to honor the 100th anniversary of the sinking, and to make the studio a bit more cash by having converted it into 3-D. In regards to the re-release, my local paper has a blog post up wanting folks to recollect the first time they saw Titanic .