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This week we’re going back to film directors. Michael Mann gave us the great Miami Vice television series. He has also given us a lot of great movies including Heat, The Insider, and Ali among others. In particular Heat is best known as being the first film where Al Pacino and Robert De Niro appear on screen together as well as being on all-around awesome movie.

Michael Kenneth Mann (born February 5, 1943) is an Emmy Award-winning and Academy Award-nominated American film director, screenwriter, and producer. For his work, he has received nominations from international organizations and juries, including those at the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, Cannes and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. He has produced the Academy Awards ceremony twice, first in 1999 with the 72nd annual Academy Awards and second in 2004 with the 77th annual ceremony.

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Ok, we have to get this one of the way. He’s an obvious famous Michael but most of us only want to remember the 80’s version of Michael Jackson. The Michael Jackson of today is quite literally a different person.

Michael Joseph Jackson (born August 29, 1958) is an American recording artist, entertainer, and businessman. The seventh child of the Jackson family, he debuted on the professional music scene at the age of 11 as a member of The Jackson 5 and began a solo career in 1971 while still a member of the group. Referred to as the “King of Pop” in subsequent years, five of his solo studio albums have become some of the world’s best-selling records: Off the Wall (1979), Thriller (1982), Bad (1987), Dangerous (1991) and HIStory (1995).

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Today’s famous Michael is the movie director you either love or hate: Michael Bay. Here’s my short review of Transformers. The robots were cool. Anything involving humans — especially Shia LeBouf — was extremely cheesy. If someone could edit that movie down to just the transformer fights then we’d have a solid film. I’m hoping Transformers 2 is a bit better but I’m not holding my breath.

Michael Benjamin Bay (born February 17, 1965) is an American film director and producer. Bay is best known for making large-budget action films, such as Transformers, Armageddon, The Rock, Pearl Harbor, Bad Boys, and Bad Boys II.

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I’m resurrecting the Famous Michaels idea I started a long time ago. The idea is to simply catalogue as many famous Michael’s as I can. Continuing where we left off I present one of my favorite famous Michaels — Michael J. Fox.

Michael J. Fox (born Michael Andrew Fox; June 9, 1961) is a Canadian actor. His roles include Marty McFly from the Back to the Future trilogy (1985–1990); Alex P. Keaton from Family Ties (1982–1989), for which he won three Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe Award; and Mike Flaherty from Spin City (1996–2000), for which he won an Emmy, three Golden Globes, and two Screen Actors Guild Awards.

Fox was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 1991, and disclosed his condition to the public in 1998. As the symptoms of his disease worsened he semi-retired from acting in 2000.

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The Famous Michaels post is coming a day early this week because I’ll be very busy tomorrow. This week’s Michael is one of the greatest athletes of all time: Michael Jordan. Here’s an excerpt from Wikipedia.

Michael Jeffrey Jordan (born February 17, 1963, in Brooklyn, New York) is a former National Basketball Association player, considered by most to be the most accomplished player of all time.

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In researching baby names we learned that Michael was the most popular boy’s name for many years. I thought it would be interesting to start a list of famous/noteable people named Michael. I’ll try to update this every Tuesday. I thought it would be a good idea to start with the biggest and baddest Michael of them all: Michael the Arcangel. Here’s some information taken from Wikipedia.

Michael is an archangel, who is only mentioned by name in the Persian context of the post-Exilic Book of Daniel. Only there in Daniel does Michael appear — as “one of the chief princes” who in Daniel’s vision comes to the angel Gabriel’s aid in his contest with the angel of Persia, and is also described there as the advocate of Israel (10:21, 12:1).

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