Lost in the Movies: Time Travel and Pretty Pictures (and a Fall Forecast)

Time Travel and Pretty Pictures (and a Fall Forecast)


New to The Dancing Image? An old friend? Either way, there are probably a lot of posts or features you haven't seen yet. If you're like me, you're always discovering new blogs and saying to yourself: "Wow, this site has an extensive backlog. Some of this stuff looks great. I'll have to go back and check it out sometime!" And then of course, we never do.

Well, this is my invitation to break that trend! Visit (or re-visit) these two central pages and you can navigate easily and entertainingly through all this site has to offer. You can also just enjoy these pages without following any links; they are both directories and features in themselves:



Year by year, from the silent era to the present, I've linked every single film discussed in original essays or through quotations from other critics, illustrated with screen-caps or sampled in appetizing clips. This is the best route for those who have a particular favorite era in movie history, or who, like me, just love surveying the whole crazy chronology, from silent slapstick to the glamorous Golden Age, from sexy black-and-white to dazzling Technicolor, from the raw "cinema verite" of the Sixties to the computer-generated universe of today. It's all there, with plenty of pictures to illustrate the incredible journey. Power up the flux capacitor.



This one's ALL pictures, for those who think a visual medium deserves a visual approach. Generally alphabetized by title of the film (or sometimes painting or actor, if it's a promotional still), each image doubles as a link. You'll be led back to the post originally featuring any image you click on. This is a great way to let your eye guide your mind and imagination. (Fair warning: there's a bit of NSFW stuff in the form of some very mild nudity and generally cartoonish carnage.) If your browser is slow, the Picture Gallery may take a little while to load - but it's worth the wait, I promise!


And of course you can always visit Top Posts for my highlights from four years of blogging, The Directory for a straight-up list of all the reviews I've written, or, my personal favorite, the Video Gallery for a guided audiovisual tour through the movies - with uninterrupted 30 to 60-second clips from my DVD collection as your guide. I hope if you find things you like along the way, you'll let me know. I always enjoy hearing back from readers, especially on older stuff.

As for the new...

With summer ending and my priorities shifting, I'm hoping to hunker down soon and create lots of fresh content for this site. That means short essays (and occasionally long ones, though this summer's marathon essays were mostly exceptions to the approach I want to take!). But it also means, hopefully, pictures, multimedia posts, video essays, interviews with young independent filmmakers and perhaps even a short film or two of my own within the next year. The more ambitious projects, of course, hinge on finally getting a computer again (I've been working off library monitors, friends' PCs, and my iPhone for a while now). I want to create at least a hundred or so fresh posts before returning which shouldn't take long if they're short, so wish me luck.

And in the mean time, enjoy exploring The Dancing Image!

2 comments:

Mike said...

Hey Joel, this is a great blog you got here, really. I enjoy the long essays, especially the one for Lawrence of Arabia- goddam! I dont really have much time with school and shit to read the longer ones now, but they are really insightful and make me wanna like movies I dont even care for! Whatever you do in the future I'll be checking for.

Joel Bocko said...

Mike, your check is in the mail. ;)

Seriously though, I really appreciate the kind words - that's exactly the response I'd hope for. Glad you're enjoying the old pieces and hope you continue to do so. Good luck with your studies!

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