Email Author Michael Fox

2008 Stories by Michael Fox

• The Killer Tramp

  published December 31, 2008

  The rap against Charlie Chaplin, voiced by fans of fellow silent-screen comic giants Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd, is that he was sentimental to... More >>

• Parent Trap

  published December 31, 2008

  Curse the day — Halloween 1993 — that River Phoenix OD’d. Not only did we lose a gifted and sensitive young actor, but also the... More >>

• Don’t Disappoint the Governess

  published December 24, 2008

  This holiday season, the hills are alive with the sound of Nazis. A real-life eye-patched patriot (Tom Cruise) executes a failed hit on Hitler in... More >>

• Bells Are Ringing

  published December 24, 2008

  In a blessedly inspired pairing of venue and program, Lon Chaney makes the heavy church bells chime twice tonight in the skyscraping religious... More >>

• If Not Now, Zen?

  published December 24, 2008

  You’re primed to greet 2009 with a new attitude and a fresh plan; all you need is an inspiring role model. Consider the Tibetan iconoclast... More >>

• The High Notes

  published December 24, 2008

  After Audrey Hepburn saw the finished Breakfast at Tiffany’s with Henry Mancini’s score and her rendition of “Moon... More >>

• Elusive Existence

  published November 26, 2008

  The groundbreaking French novelist and filmmaker Alain Robbe-Grillet, who died in February, was a sly and good-natured provocateur. His screenplay... More >>

• Quebec Mon Amour

  published November 26, 2008

  Director Léa Pool’s suburbia abounds with absentee parents, cruel children, ominous neighborhood characters, and incipient tragedy.... More >>

• Just Jarman

  published November 19, 2008

  The main takeaway from Milk -- don’t worry, we’re not going to spoil the ending -- is the importance of gays and lesbians... More >>

• Cinema Paradiso

  published November 12, 2008

  It wasn’t all that long ago that The New York Times was running stories lamenting the precipitous decline of Italian cinema. The... More >>

• Sinner, Saint, Martyr

  published November 12, 2008

  Harvey Milk was a 42-year-old nobody, a wisecracking Manhattan worker bee, when he moved to San Francisco in 1972. In fact, in his mind a... More >>

• A Passage to India and Beyond

  published November 5, 2008

  Even the most intrepid movie hounds have been known to throw up their hands in frustration at the sprawling programs of the larger local... More >>

• Blink of an Eye

  published October 29, 2008

  Perhaps ADD has finally overrun the country, after years of dire predictions. Or maybe the near-universal arrival of broadband, catapulting... More >>

• Primitive Medicine

  published October 29, 2008

  The elections are over, thank Jah, but that won’t stop the conniving cabal of religious fundamentalists and right-wing culture warriors... More >>

• Mind Candy

  published October 15, 2008

  Halloween exists — in theory, and sometimes in practice — to provide a socially acceptable, once-a-year outlet for the citizenry to... More >>

• When Hell Boils Over

  published October 15, 2008

  Leslie Thornton’s father and grandfather worked on the original atomic bomb, which just may have contributed to her nagging anxiety about... More >>

• Behind the Caftan

  published October 15, 2008

  Even in the best of times, the American view of Arabs is steeped in stereotypes, prejudice, and sensationalist headlines from abroad. In the... More >>

• Let’s Taiwan On

  published October 15, 2008

  Every year at the Lantern Festival in eastern Taiwan, half-naked men honor the god of Handan by submitting to a half-hour barrage of bottle... More >>

• Blood Money

  published October 1, 2008

  ’Tis the month of All Hallows Eve, when things go bump in the night. The chills and thrills started a bit early this year, or perhaps... More >>

• Indiewood North

  published September 24, 2008

  Yes, the Mill Valley Film Festival caters to the moneyed crowd living the good life in Marin County. But festival programmers Mark Fishkin... More >>

• Wait Until Next Year

  published September 17, 2008

  Even the most pin-encrusted, garlic-fry-huffing San Francisco Giants fan must concede that this has been a dismal year for the home team.... More >>

• Warhol Superstar

  published September 17, 2008

  In the sprawling scrapbook of Warhol divas, the legends Nico, Edie Sedgwick, Candy Darling, and Holly Woodlawn still hold sway over lesser... More >>

• Daughters of Ida Lupino

  published September 17, 2008

  According to the venerable distributor Women Make Movies, just six percent of the 250 top-grossing films last year were directed by women. That... More >>

• I Love Rock ’n’ Roll

  published September 10, 2008

  Turned on (in more ways than one) by the brassy inspirations of Chrissie Hynde, Patti Smith, and, yes, Joan Jett, thousands of girls picked up... More >>

• A Black and White World

  published August 27, 2008

  Raise a tall glass as another bombastic Hollywood summer comes to an end, not with a bang but with a bomb: After four months of crassness and... More >>