Blogging headquarters has moved from this site to a new location, The Sun's Not Yellow (here's one for all you Dylan fans out there: can you name what the sun is?) My new blog will provide me an outlet for short reviews, announcements and random notations, while reserving The Dancing Image for weightier pieces (as I hoped to do back in April). It should be a fun, light-hearted, and engaging endeavor, and I encourage all of you to add the new site to your blogroll - it will be a central statio... Read Full Story
This week my new, faster-paced approach on the Examiner begins. Tomorrow morning I'll put up a three-paragraph review of a film I saw recently; I'll follow with one in the evening and then attempt to keep up a pace of one or two "short views" a day (at least Monday through Wednesday), with about 8 to 12 pieces going up every week - including a "long view" once in a while.This morning, spurred by the cover story of a free subway newspaper, I shared my thoughts on the broad possibilities and ri... Read Full Story
Eventually I'll return to this blog with a full-fledged piece; I have quite a few ideas brewing but they'll take a little while to pull together. For the time being, take a look at this - it's certainly a childhood flashback for me, and I'm wondering if it brings back memories for anyone else. When I was in preschool, I rented all the videos in this series (originally a 1980s HBO show hosted by Shelley Duvall and featuring stars from Robin Williams to Mick Jagger, a sort of kiddie "Masterpiec... Read Full Story
Tony Dayoub has recently initiated a ten-day celebration of the bearded auteur (who just celebrated his 69th birthday) at his great blog Cinema Viewfinder. My entry has just gone up.The piece is a video tribute to Mr. De Palma and an examination of his thematic and stylistic obsessions, titled "directed by Brian De Palma." It runs about seven and a half minutes, and contains footage from my three favorite De Palma films: Hi, Mom!, Carrie, and Scarface, which were released, roughly, with seven... Read Full Story
This is a complete list of the reviews composed by me for Examiner.com, including quite a few classics which have not been discussed yet on The Dancing Image. I've also written about foreign film screenings, independent features (and faux-indies), and documentaries. And there's more coming: in the next week, I'm planning a piece analyzing Death on Venice (in book and movie form), and hopefully a review of the film For the Love of Movies, a documentary about film criticism which has engendered... Read Full Story
Welcome back to The Dancing Image. Summer is over, and with it, my "vacation" (from blogging, not from working, film-writing, or reading the blogs of others). I have a lot of ideas for the fall, and a new approach to posting - I would like to put up one "piece" (ranging from long essays to video tributes to nevertheless enjoyable "punts" like links or - see today - previously written material) every Sunday, at 5:00 pm Eastern time. Meanwhile I will still, of course, be writing in my capacity ... Read Full Story
One year ago today, I launched The Dancing Image. In honor of the first anniversary, I've compiled a master list of all my posts. It's organized alphabetically by category, with individual movie reviews comprising the vast majority. My hope is that this will encourage you to look at the blog free of chronology, and visit a post based on its subject matter rather than its time frame.So if you're reading this, consider yourself trapped. I want you to pick an entry below, and leave a comment on ... Read Full Story
A gathering of all the movie books that influenced, enlightened, and excited me, you, and everyone else - a diverse and highly personalized canon.First of all, welcome to The Dancing Image if you've never been here before, or if you haven't been in a while. Now is a peculiar time to invite people over, as my posting has been intermittent for a few months and for the next month or so will be suspended altogether. However, I plan to return to form in early August; while I'm "gone," you can catc... Read Full Story
With Jackson's face (or several faces) all over the news, one would expect that we'd be hearing a little more of the music and (especially) seeing a little more of the dancing. Sadly, this is not really the case. We get clips but rarely get to enjoy a whole piece - I understand MTV suspended regular programming for several hours after his death in order to play his old videos, but now they're back to reality shows.So I have embedded a You Tube clip, probably his most famous moment, below. I w... Read Full Story
[This review first appeared at Ibetolis' Film for the Soul as part of his great "Counting Down the Zeroes" series, which you should definitely check out. The review is quite long (including a lengthy quote from the movie as an introduction) and discusses crucial plot points, so beware. It begins after the jump.]25th HourDirected by Spike LeeWritten by David Benioff from his own novelReleased in 2002“Well, fuck you, too.Fuck me, fuck you, fuck this whole city and everyone in it.F... Read Full Story
