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The world’s truly great cities have their own DNA:  their distinct characters and moods, strengths and weaknesses.  They say London is a masculine town, Paris a feminine one. Is it true? Regardless, it’s fun to debate. For those of you like me, who are unnerved by the sound of crickets, and who crave the energy and color of urban life, here’s a batch of capital titles, and the capitals that inspired them.

As a kid, my favorite screen actor was Spencer Tracy. Like his close friend Bogart, the Ohio-born Tracy was not leading-man handsome, but became a star by projecting a unique and very human quality that viewers could readily access and admire: an everyman’s solidity masking an underlying sensitivity. He was known in Hollywood as the foremost “actor’s actor”— the player other actors measured themselves against. It’s easy to see why.

How often we wish we had a crack team of screenwriters scripting our lives, especially when the moment calls for a tart tongue. One of the many pleasures of the movies is that we can watch as others tackle the smack-talk for us, and revel in idealized comedowns delivered with serious relish.

When we think of movie heroes, soldiers always rank high, particularly those on the front lines. Bradley Cooper's Oscar-nominated turn in last year's "American Sniper" is just the latest example. These men face the prospect of death most every day, leading or working with other men to accomplish seemingly impossible objectives.

Ah, that eternal question: which is better, the book or the movie? Though such comparisons are natural, even inevitable, they’re also kind of pointless, since the conventions of each medium differ so markedly. Books explore the dense inner lives of characters in a way movies can’t, while films use sight, sound and motion to create an immediacy books can’t.

I’ll never forget the segment on “60 Minutes” a couple of years ago, when Morley Safer interviewed our most famous living historian, David McCullough.

James Brown, the "Godfather of Soul," will finally get his due in director Tate Taylor’s "Get On Up," out this week some 12 years after Brian Grazer (who co-produced it with Mick Jagger) first tried to get the project off the ground.   Early reviews champion star Chadwick Boseman’s kinetic performance as "The Hardest Working Man in Show Business." Congrats, Chadwick: those are very big (and very active) shoes to fill. This is just the latest addition to a treasure trove of music biopics that have made some serious box office noise over the decades. Below are ten that deserve a debut or encore performance on your home screen. Pick one, and give your eyes and ears a treat.  

Here’s a bold statement: Giving your children the chance to watch classic films can be just as vital as anything they learn in school. 

Over the years, some film directors have had their own so-called stock companies. We’re not talking Wall Street stocks, folks, but rather groups of actors they felt so comfortable working with that they cast them in their projects time and again. The great John Ford’s stable of thespians was perhaps the biggest and most prolific in Hollywood history. In fact, some of its members appeared in the iconic director’s films over twenty times; bit player Jack Pennick worked with the filmmaker a whopping 41 times, although several of his roles were uncredited. Of course, starting in the forties, John Wayne was Ford’s favorite star. “The Duke,” who also had an abiding off-screen friendship with “Pappy” Ford, could be seen in 24 Ford enterprises, all starring roles in some of Ford’s most iconic work (you can see some of these movie titles at the end of this article).