Email Author Michael Fox

2011 Stories by Michael Fox

• Hit Me, Lord

  published December 28, 2011

  In simpler times, a crew calling itself the Church Team might have been found weeknights at the local bowling alley, wearing monogrammed shirts... More >>

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  FEATURED STORY

  Top 10 Stories in Bay Area Film 2011

  published Dec 30, 2011

  Change is the only constant, and every movie marquee provides incontrovertible visual evidence: new movies, promising debuts and fresh succes de scandales, as well as vintage revivals and retrospectiv... More >>

• Digging Up Santa

  published November 30, 2011

  If a virginal, wound-way-too-tight ballerina discovering her dark side isn’t savage (or hysterical) enough to offset the season’s... More >>

• Gallic Noir

  published December 14, 2011

  Say what you will about the French, but they were the first to seriously appreciate the sordid artistry of pulp fiction greats Cornell Woolrich... More >>

• Far From Home for the Holidays

  published November 30, 2011

  Midwest momma Molly Dardy pours herself a glass of white wine and starts plotting her evening. An empty-nester with empty hours to fill, Molly... More >>

• Preservation in Motion (Pictures)

  published December 7, 2011

  Where does the past live? (A wee hint: not on the Internet.) In books, yes, but primarily in movies, as Martin Scorsese reminds us in his 3-D film... More >>

• Von Trapped

  published November 23, 2011

  Don't underestimate the Hollywood musical. Just consider the turbulence of the 1960s – the civil rights movement, the pill, war protests,... More >>

• Sentenced to Life

  published November 30, 2011

  If Black Friday is simultaneously the kickoff and the lowlight of the holiday season — and who would argue otherwise? — World AIDS Day... More >>

• Detour to Nowhere

  published November 16, 2011

  It’s an unlikely — but nonetheless possible — scenario to wake up in a low-rent motel on the dusty outskirts of Las Vegas with a... More >>

• Serge, Mon Amour

  published October 26, 2011

  For a man who lived his adult life in public view — on stage, in the newspapers, in numerous sultry music videos, and on countless talk shows... More >>

• Multi-Cel Creatures

  published November 9, 2011

  Animation used to be the province of the fantastic and the impossible: dancing hippos, futuristic planets, talking rabbits, and psychedelic... More >>

• The City of Tomorrow

  published November 2, 2011

  Documentary filmmaker Gary Hustwit has carved out a nifty niche by focusing our eyes on the everyday stuff we either don’t see or take for... More >>

• Animation Has Grown -- and Grown Up

  published Nov 10, 2011

  Animation used to be the province of the fantastic and the impossible: dancing hippos, futuristic planets, talking rabbits, and psychedelic forests. We're still inundated with anthropomorphized anima... More >>

• Mooooove on Up

  published November 2, 2011

  Aspiring young directors have a choice these days: Drop a serious wad on film school, or put the dough into making a feature, where they get a... More >>

• Just Gimme Some Truth

  published October 12, 2011

  Remember the educational films you were shown in school? They celebrated great causes and great men (with the occasional great woman). No reason... More >>

• Out of This World

  published October 19, 2011

  Lars Von Trier’s latest patch on tormented human nature, Melancholia (opening next month), tests Kirsten Dunst with a planet on a... More >>

• Guilty Until Proven Innocent

  published September 28, 2011

  The engine of film noir isn’t lust or greed, as primal as those impulses are. It’s guilt. And not the weak-tea stuff they serve in... More >>

• Ghost Trip

  published September 21, 2011

  When infantryman McKinley Nolan went AWOL in Vietnam in the late 1960s, a number of rumors circulated to explain his vanishing act. He was... More >>

• Los Dios de la Cine

  published September 14, 2011

  It may come as a surprise to Mission-hoppers but it’s muy dificil to sustain a Spanish-language film festival in this town. Three groups (by... More >>

• Cruz Reynoso -- Son of Farmworkers, Former High Court Justice -- Inspires Latinos to "Keep Fighting"

  published Sep 23, 2011

  Abby Ginzberg can be a fighter or a diplomat, depending on what the situation calls for. For a lawyer (which she was, for a decade) and a documentary filmmaker (her calling for the past 25-plus year... More >>

• Tehran Calling

  published September 7, 2011

  Iranian filmmakers need to be adept at metaphor. But even that is no guarantee of career longevity, or freedom, as evidenced by the recent prison... More >>

• Mary Lou, Israeli Musical About a Teenage Drag Queen, Makes Its U.S. Premiere Saturday

  published Sep 14, 2011

  "Courage," declares the gay teenage protagonist in Mary Lou, "is sometimes nothing more than an outburst of great despair." Meir (Ido Rozenberg) plainly needs someone to tell him it gets better in Isr... More >>

• Ivory Hunters

  published September 7, 2011

  As calling cards go, Charlotte Lagarde’s Heart of the Sea couldn’t have been better. When Lagarde and fellow Bay Area filmmaker... More >>

• The Return of Archibald Leach

  published August 31, 2011

  Archibald Leach was a con man. Too harsh? He wouldn’t think so. But if you prefer, call him a self-made man. In Hollywood in the 1930s, Leach... More >>

• Working-Class Heroine

  published August 17, 2011

  Andrea Dunbar wasn’t a social critic so much as a painfully aware observer of her environment. She spent her entire short life in a housing... More >>