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The Black Phone is a tight little thriller directed by Scott Derrickson and based on a short story by Joe Hill. I’m always a fan of movies made from short stories because an entire short story fits beautifully into the length of a movie, as opposed to a book where you have to either cut out half of it, rush through things, or make it a television miniseries. But a short story filmed has room to breathe.

Martin Scorsese once stated, “I used to think of Godard and Antonioni as the great modern visual artists of cinema—great colorists who composed frames the way painters composed their canvases.” While that can be true of Godard, many of his films also have a stripped-down feel that is still beautiful. With Antonioni, I find that it applies to him about as much as it does to any filmmaker of the second half of the 20th century.

There are many, many versions of Emma: there's Gwyneth's, Kate Beckinsale's, a couple of BBC miniseries, and, of course, Clueless. But the thing about Jane Austen, like Shakespeare, is that there is always room for a new version…

Italian director Luchino Visconti once stated, “I like melodrama because it is situated just at the meeting point between life and theater.” Visconti, who like Elia Kazan in America had his origins in theater, would then go on to begin his film career in the 40s, becoming one of the pioneers of Italian neorealism along with Vittorio De Sica, and Roberto Rossellini, and making such classics as Ossession, and La Terra Trema. In these films he provided us with the workings of everyday people - with casts consisting of non-professional actors - and he filmed on basic locations.

Mae West was very unusual for the time in that she was her own screenwriter, and was the complete creator of the Mae West character for 20 years in the theatre before she got anywhere near movies. Of course, she had to wait for the movies to not only be invented, but be talkies - she would not have fared well in the silent cinema.

When I was re-watching last year’s Licorice Pizza, something came across my mind that hadn’t on the previous viewings, and that’s the influence of Jonathan Demme on Paul Thomas Anderson. When Pizza was first released, I read one review comparing it to Robert Altman - as has happened with so many of his films - along with Martin Scorsese. These are two auteurs who have very distinct and obvious styles, and they’re two of his favorite filmmakers. But Anderson’s favorite is Jonathan Demme, whose style isn’t quite as overt.