Everyone has a story about their first crush. I've got several.

As a kid, the first crush I ever confessed to was Leonardo DiCaprio - I suppose it would have been in Titanic, or did Romeo and Juliet come out first? I think he's probably the standard first crush for most girls my age - he's attractive, in a baby-faced, Non Threatening Boys Magazine sort of a way, and of course his pretty blonde face was everywhere when we were about thirteen.

Of course, just because it was the first crush I ever owned up to doesn't mean it was the first crush I ever had, or, for that matter, that I ever had a crush on Leondardo DiCaprio. It was more a question of politics: I had to have an answer to the inevitable 'Oooh, who do you like?' question, and everyone else was head over heels in love with him. Agreeing with everything anyone else said about how hot he was (I believe 'fine' was the term of choice at the time, thanks to an American exchange student) was much easier than thinking of anything original.

As an added bonus, it explained away my preoccupied expression during, you know, that scene in Romeo and Juliet, as I nursed lustful - but vague and confused - fantasies about Claire Danes. I may have given myself away at the end of Titanic, when I cheered as Kate Winslet pried Leo's cold, dead fingers from the raft - but nobody ever asked.

So, what was my real first crush? Johnny Depp - or more to the point, Edward Scissorhands.

How could you not love a face like that?

I do have another image - marginally, oh so marginally closer to the Non Threatening Boys Magazine ideal - here, but the image above is the one I tend to think about when I think about Johnny Depp (which is relatively frequently).

He and I have a long history - he's made my heart go pitter-pat ever since I first saw Edward Scissorhands, when I was about ten or eleven - but our relationship has certainly had its ups and downs. Most of his movies have left me cold. Donnie Brasco - which was the movie that he was most admired for among my high school crowd - was profoundly average (or at least I thought so. But I'm slightly odd). Chocolat was boring (maybe you need a sweet tooth to appreciate it - my mum and her ten thousand fillings certainly enjoyed it). And I thought I could never forgive him for the unmitigated awfulness that was Legend of Sleepy Hollow.

Of course, then I saw Pirates of the Caribbean, and fell in love all over again.

I guess there's just something about a man in eyeliner.

I sighed over that movie for months. Johnny even overshadowed Orlando Bloom, who blew me away as Legolas, with the long blonde hair, and the tights, and the ... well, I don't want to get carried away. And in all fairness, I like Legolas much much more than Orlando Bloom, who is just too fey for words when he tries to act manly. Boring - he would have faded into the background of Pirates of the Caribbean even if I weren't fixated on Captain Jack.

Captain Jack preoccupied me for a very long time, but I fell promptly back out of love again when I went with my brother to see Secret Window. Secret Window was quite possibly the worst movie I've ever seen, and I've seen (most of) Flesh Gordon and the Cosmic Cheerleaders. Just as a tip, David Koepp? Surprising Fight Club style twists aren't very surprising when you, just for example, quote pivotal fucking lines from Fight Club at pivotal fucking moments in your uninspired Stephen King film. (But to be fair, you did what you could with what you had. Worst. Novel. Ever.)

Anyhow, I'm back in love. I saw Ed Wood today, as part of a film studies course that I've decided not to do. It was excellent. You must all go out and see it immediately (and I'm going to rent it next week, if anyone's around and wants to watch it with me). It's a Tim Burton flick, and on the basis that I've never met a Tim Burton flick I didn't like, I'm going to assume that neither have any of you. It's full of fantastic B-grade science-fiction in-jokes (love it!), and has the greatest line ever in it: "No glitter! You're the ruler of the galaxy! Show a little taste!" It was also the only film I've ever seen in which Bill Murray has played anyone other than Bill Murray.

Above all else, though - Johnny Depp, in heels and an angora sweater? Hot like whoa.

While I've probably destroyed my reputation - or made it, depending on your own proclivities - with the confessions above, I'm going to attempt to salvage some straight credentials (yeah, I know it's something of a lost cause) by adding that I thought Johnny Depp was smoking hot in Ed Wood even when he was out of drag, which was most of the movie.

It did help that he was wearing eyeliner the whole way through, though.