Email Author Michael Fox

2007 Stories by Michael Fox

• Hungarian Rhapsody

  published December 26, 2007

  Miklos Rozsa had Old World values, a benefit of being born and raised in the waning years of the Old World. As a conservatory student in Budapest... More >>

• The Gift of Reading

  published December 19, 2007

  Shortcomings By Adrian Tomine ($19.95) Bay Area comic artist Adrian Tomine collected a fan base over the past 15... More >>

• It Takes a Village Person

  published December 19, 2007

  For more years than anybody wants to count, a chunk of the population has woken up on Christmas morning hoping to find Randy Jones under the tree,... More >>

• Reading the Leaves

  published December 12, 2007

  Until pretty recently, Lipton's Orange Pekoe was the only variety of tea most Americans had ever tasted. Basic black may be considered appropriate... More >>

• Cries and Whispers

  published December 12, 2007

  The Mexican director Carlos Reygadas has made just three films, beginning with Japon and Battle in Heaven, but he's already giving... More >>

• Burt, Baby, Burt

  published December 5, 2007

  The '70s were all about big hair. TV star Farrah Fawcett's golden shag shone from thousands of suburban bedroom walls, while movie star Burt... More >>

• Resident Experts

  published December 5, 2007

  In the post-Warhol world, artists are defined by their image and celebrity far more than by talent or originality. So how to relate to an... More >>

• Sonic Outlaws

  published November 28, 2007

  Unless you're a musician or a lawyer, the ongoing donnybrook between proponents of fair use and copyright infringement may not have you riveted.... More >>

• Cut Me Some Slack

  published November 28, 2007

  If you missed it while you were out thrift-store shopping, the semi-esteemed New Oxford American Dictionary picked mumblecore as one... More >>

• True West

  published November 14, 2007

  The world sees the U.S. these days through the prism of ostentatious, explosion-packed superhero and disaster movies. But there was a time when... More >>

• Bombay Calling

  published November 14, 2007

  With Pakistan all over the news, the fifth San Francisco International South Asian Film Festival seemingly arrives at a perfect time. Alas,... More >>

• Kartoon Korner

  published November 7, 2007

  News flash: Bambi's mother did not, in fact, die a painful, horrible death. She was made out of paint and celluloid, not flesh and blood. That's... More >>

• Love, Italian Style

  published November 7, 2007

  When Sophia Loren received a lifetime achievement award from the Rome Film Festival last month, it was the first career honor she'd ever received... More >>

• Cinema Caliente

  published October 31, 2007

  When the Oscar nominations were announced last January, the trend-obsessed American press heralded directors Guillermo del Toro (Pan's... More >>

• Blood Feast

  published October 31, 2007

  When we last saw Herschell Gordon Lewis, he was fielding questions and accepting kudos after a typically irreverent presentation at the Direct... More >>

• Somebody Hit the Lights

  published October 24, 2007

  Bruce McClure isn't a filmmaker so much as a conjurer and a catalyst. Every McClure show — or "projector performance" — is a hands-on... More >>

• Celluloid Tricks and Treats

  published October 17, 2007

  No great cinematic skill is required to scare the bejesus out of people. As Hollywood demonstrates on a biweekly basis, any caffeinated hack can... More >>

• Dispatches from the Street

  published October 17, 2007

  Like most ethnic or identity-oriented events, the Arab Film Festival was created for a core constituency fed up with being misrepresented... More >>

• Battlefield Poet

  published October 17, 2007

  First-person documentaries, especially those with a messy confessional streak, are all too often the cinematic equivalent of brain-dulling junk... More >>

• Down in the Valley

  published October 10, 2007

  If it’s true that you’ve got to suffer if you want to sing the blues, as David Bromberg proposed in one his best tunes, then how to... More >>

• Well, Fuck Me

  published October 10, 2007

  Remember those clinically boring films describing the human reproductive system that we were force-fed in school? The ones that were allegedly... More >>

• Oswald's Ghost

  published October 10, 2007

  The murder of John F. Kennedy — the unsolved murder, according to an overwhelming majority of Americans — has never lost its... More >>

• Steal a Pencil for Me

  published October 10, 2007

  Michele Ohayon's graceful and moving portrait of elderly survivors Jacap (Jack) Polak and Ina Soep boasts two advantages over almost every... More >>

• Jacques Boyreaus 'Supertrash Peepshow' Offers the Low Life

  published October 3, 2007

  Jacques Boyreau, along with every other collector of fringe, underground, or outsider art, finds the low life infinitely more interesting than the... More >>

• Settling Scores

  published September 26, 2007

  Over the course of a remarkable 54-year career that encompassed radio, television, and (most memorably) the movies, composer Jerry Goldsmith... More >>