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Today the concept of someone writing and directing their own films is, if not commonplace, hardly unusual. A quick Google search yields many prominent names. So it’s hard to imagine that way back in the thirties, during Hollywood’s Golden Age, there was no such animal. Writers and directors were kept in different silos, and never the ‘twain met.

“Orson Welles lists ‘Citizen Kane’ as his best film, Alfred Hitchcock opts for ‘Shadow of a Doubt’, and Sir Carol Reed chose ‘The Third Man’ - and I'm in all of them.” Those are the words of Joseph Cotten, perhaps the finest screen actor never to be nominated for an Oscar. The more time passes, the more it feels like a serious oversight.

Why were so many of our very best actors born in April? It’s an unanswerable question, of course, but intriguing nonetheless. And in the rarefied world of movie stardom, the concentration of April birthdays is pretty remarkable.

As the weather warms, in our house the Brazilian tracks start playing, mainly those glorious sixties samba tunes from Antonio Carlos Jobim, Joao Gilberto, Stan Getz, and so many others. The music is sexy, sad, and impossibly romantic, like the country itself.

In the days before films relied on computers to entertain us, Billy Wilder used a movie camera to tell us stories. His stories might be funny or sad, but all held some grain of human insight, with even hard observations tempered by an underlying affection for his fellow man. At the closing titles, this made his many fans feel not only satisfied, but edified.

A recent visit to Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, where it all began back in 1903, started me thinking about all the classic movies that explore the risk, adventure and excitement of aviation. Whether in the context of war or peace, the airplane has been very good for movies, and vice versa.

For a truly memorable holiday movie night, it’s hard to beat 1947’s “The Bishop’s Wife,” starring Cary Grant, Loretta Young and and David Niven.