Email Author Michael Fox

2007 Stories by Michael Fox

• The Doc Is In

  published September 26, 2007

  The embrace of documentaries by popular culture is one of the most welcome trends of the past 25 years, even if Michael Moore isn't the guy you... More >>

• Big Time

  published September 19, 2007

  One evening last week, a woman on the street near Union Square had on a T-shirt that read "Size Matters." She and her companion were wearing... More >>

• No Man's Land

  published September 19, 2007

  The outspoken German director Helmut Käutner made his first movie in 1939, but he never toed the party line. As war raged and Germany roared,... More >>

• War is Hell

  published September 12, 2007

  Carnage season is in full swing in the film world, with Death Sentence, Exiled, 3:10 to Yuma, Shoot 'Em Up, The... More >>

• Women Call the Shots

  published September 12, 2007

  What, exactly, is a "chick flick?" To critics and studio execs, it's a movie that appeals to women, with the separate but equal assumption that... More >>

• Happy Birthday, Herzog

  published September 12, 2007

  Werner Herzog has never been what you would call the retiring type. The peripatetic German director marked his 65th birthday last week not with a... More >>

• Love, Israeli Style

  published September 5, 2007

  Eytan Fox is the hottest director in Israel. Until quite recently, that would've been the quintessential example of damning with faint praise. But... More >>

• Life During Wartime

  published August 29, 2007

  You say you want a revolution? Well, we all want to change the world, but where to begin with a population sedated by television, booze, casual... More >>

• The Last Action Hero

  published August 29, 2007

  Back in the ´70s, William Friedkin was the thinking man’s action director. He came out of television in Chicago, where he made... More >>

• Take the Cannoli

  published August 22, 2007

  There are masterpieces, and there is Federico Fellini’s 8 1/2. The peripatetic, one-of-a-kind plot centers on a successful... More >>

• Heart of Darkness

  published August 22, 2007

  Late August is not considered the optimal time of year to open a collar-grabbing social-issue documentary. The Bay Area, though, is one place... More >>

• Eve of Destruction

  published August 22, 2007

  Al Gore succeeded in ramming global warming into the frontal lobe of American consciousness, but he didn’t make it sexy. Fortunately,... More >>

• Cold War Fever

  published August 15, 2007

  James Joseph Dresnok calls himself a simple man, but he's got secrets to share -- or hide. Now in his mid-60s, the bulky, chain-smoking Virginian... More >>

• The Cho-sen People

  published August 15, 2007

  Margaret Cho is a funny dame, but it’s her gleefully vicious portrayal of the oddball outsider that’s won the stand-up comedienne... More >>

• Small Packages

  published August 8, 2007

  Short films, like short stories, get short shrift. Both are often dismissed as stepping stones to "serious" work rather than treated as... More >>

• Career Opportunities

  published August 8, 2007

  It's a bit of a shock to discover there's nary a song by the Sex Pistols or the Clash, the bands who denounced Margaret Thatcher's regime most... More >>

• Cinéma Vérité

  published August 8, 2007

  Watching old home movies is a bittersweet experience — one moment you're in stitches at some forgotten fashion faux pas and the next you're... More >>

• Body of Evidence

  published August 1, 2007

  Lucie and Pierre have a special bond. They do everything together, and we mean everything. When Pierre goes missing, and then turns up... More >>

• A Good, Clean High

  published July 11, 2007

  Once upon a time, only major historical figures like Thomas Edison or Earl Warren were considered worthy documentary subjects. Nowadays, it's... More >>

• Soul and Body

  published July 18, 2007

  The bloody Old Testament declaration "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" isn't what drove thousands of Jewish boys to take up boxing a... More >>

• Clothes Make the Star

  published July 25, 2007

  You may not look to movie stars for fashion ideas, but somewhere along the line you picked up a style tip or two at the movies. To put it another... More >>

• SFIFF Film Capsules

  published April 25, 2007

  Why Didnt Anybody Tell Me It Would Become This Bad in Afghanistan? (Cyrus Frisch, Holland) Filmmaker Cyrus Frisch... More >>

• Bay Area Filmmakers

  published April 25, 2007

  History is written by the winners, which in our culture means those with big bucks and media access. So George Lucas, a successful businessman... More >>

• Phone Noir

  published April 25, 2007

  When Irving "Bud" Levin launched the San Francisco International Film Festival in 1957, he had the field to himself. Sure, Market Street was lined... More >>

• Comedy of Power

  published April 18, 2007

  Isabel Huppert has made a brilliant career playing chilly, enigmatic heroines, so we're not surprised to learn before we meet her that Jeanne's... More >>