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The old quip goes that we and our English cousins are separated by a common language, but there's little doubt that the movies have actually brought us together.

Born Eldred Gregory Peck in 1916, San Diego’s most glamorous native son evinced in life the very qualities that made his movie roles icons of strength and integrity.

Why, one has to ask, is it not pure megalomania whenever directors direct themselves? Simply put, this is a breed of actor (and director) who understands the vision so completely that the need to control every element, even their own performances, overrides all doubt. Of course, this could look quite a lot like megalomania, or it could simply be pure genius. Or perhaps a bit of both.  For many auteurs, it feels perfectly natural. Orson Welles started out with the Big Bang of "Citizen Kane," his first feature film — with credits for directing, producing, co-writing, and starring — crafting what many critics agree is the best movie of all time.  

Even though much of the appeal of horror movies lies in their power to tap into primal fears, I’d like to think our cerebral cortexes have evolved to the point where we want our thrills to test our minds as well as our nerves. After all, horror movies often leave the greatest, and most lasting, chill when they hinge on psychological, rather than fantastical, terrors.  The higher the intelligence of the piece, the harder it is to dispel that chill, and the more elegant the premise, the more likely it is to stay lodged in our psyches. Smarter scary movies just seem more believable, even when they are set in space, or when ghosts crawl out of the television. Not surprisingly, a large percentage of such titles are adapted from works of fiction. The “interior” aspect of fiction reminds us that the worst nightmares are often conjured not by reality but by our own imaginations.

 Life is full of weird coincidences: The first time Brad Pitt’s star power really hit me was in a film directed by...Robert Redford. The movie, of course, was Brad’s big breakthrough, 1992’s “A River Runs Through It”, in which Brad plays the more rebellious of two brothers growing up in 1920’s Montana. Watching it over twenty years ago, I vividly remember thinking that Redford was directing a younger version of himself. Think about it: they look alike, they talk alike, and a generation apart, each would be considered for the same kind of roles. Each in their younger days had the fair, clean-cut quality commonly referred to as “All-American”.

You can’t help but be moved by the tragic life of actress Gene Tierney. Though endowed with astonishing beauty and talent that won her early fame, a series of misfortunes would eventually bring her to the brink of suicide.

Horror may be the only genre of film that some people categorically can’t watch. I’ve met quite a few people, mostly women, who admit to this sad condition. They simply don’t like being scared, and a really good horror movie can transform them into nervous wrecks for weeks. I’m in fact married to such a person. Two things I wish we could do together that we can’t: eat sushi and watch horror movies.

The movie’s interest in itself is not as self-serving as it might seem. How these magical and mysterious creations come into being is a subject that fascinates audiences as well as filmmakers, and we are endlessly interested in what goes on behind the camera.

Intermingling genres can be a risky move — just ask the makers of 1964’s kiddie/sci-fi film “Santa Claus Conquers the Martians,” which IMDB users voted as one of the worst movies of all time. (I’ve seen it; it makes Ed Wood looks like Stanley Kubrick.)  Sometimes, however, the mixing-and-matching really pays off.  Look no further than the current box office champ, “Guardians of the Galaxy”, a sci-fi comedy that’s received as many solid critical reviews as it has audience raves. With its success, “Guardians” joins a small but noble band of films that deliver all the conventions of a dramatic sci-fi film, while keeping its tongue planted firmly inside its green-skinned alien cheek.