In this interactive lesson you can have a go at the online version of the popular TV quiz show, practice listening, vocabulary and idioms plus listen to the Beatles classic Can’t buy me love. Here you are!
Archive for January, 2007
The man who went to look for God: a story by Tim Bowley
This is the story of a man who was very unlucky and one day he decided to look for God and ask him why he had such bad luck.
On the way he met a thin and weak wolf and it begged him to ask God if he found him, asked him why the wolf was so thin and weak.
Then he met a sick tree and it asked him the same as the wolf.
And later he met a beautiful girl with a very big house and she asked him to ask God why she felt so lonely and sad.
Finally the man met God and he asked him his question, and God answered that he had luck very near but he had to look for it. Then he asked him the wolf’s question, the tree’s question and the girl’s question.
Then the man went on his way, he went to visit the beautiful girl and told her that God had said that she needed a lover. She asked him if he wanted to live with her in her beautiful house but he refused because he had to look for his luck. Then he found the tree and told it that God said he was sick because there was a treasure buried between its roots, the tree asked him to dig up the treasure but he refused because he had to look for his luck.
Finally he found the wolf and told it that God said it would be thin and weak until it ate a silly man, and it ate the man, of course.
I like a lot this story because it shows us how we really are because sometimes we have all the things that we need but we don’t see them. We complain instead about the things we don’t have.
Tim Bowley at Mieres EOI
Tim Bowley has been telling stories for a long long time. He started by chance, more than thirty years ago in a Music Festival in Britain. He was asked to tell a story while some friends of his played the accompanying music. They spent the night rehearsing and the following day gave their first performance. It was a huge success … and the beginning of his career as a story teller. Since then he has toured Europe and the States, he’s told his tales in schools, universities, theatres, pubs, living rooms, historical buildings, caves, churches… and last Tuesday we were lucky to have him with us in our school. We had a lovely time listening to his stories from around the world, didn’t we?
If for whatever the reason you missed it, you can still read the stories in his book Seeds in the Wind, that you can borrow from the school library.
Which of the stories did you like best? Tell us about it!
The Terminal
It can be surprising, but The Terminal (2004) is not just another blockbuster by the American director Steven Spielberg. Starred by Tom Hanks and Catherine Zeta Jones, the film is based on the true life story of Merhan Nasseri, an Iranian refugee who has been living at Charles de Gaulle airport (Paris) since 1988.
The plot centres on the story of Victor Navorski (Tom Hanks), who is a citizen from the fictional East European country of Krakozhia. Mr. Navorski lands at JFK airport of New York and he tries to go through passport control. However, the immigration authorities do not allow him to leave the airport because a civil war has started in Krakozhia in the course of his flight. Thus, the USA does not recognize the new government of his country and the validity of his visa. This is the reason why Mr. Navorski has to live in the airport.
The film is a fable that shows how bureaucracy can make people’s lives more difficult. It also shows other aspects of life, combining drama, romance and comedy. It can make you cry and, five minutes later, laugh.
In my opinion, The Terminal is an amusing and captivating film. It is true that the plot is not original since there is a previous film that tells the story of Merhan Nasseri. However, it seems completely different from most other films. I would like to highlight the excellent performance of Tom Hanks. My only reservation about this film is the ending. From my point of view, the ending is disappointing because there is not a conclusion or a moral. Despite this, it’s well worth seeing and I highly recommend it.
Aeon Flux
Based on a MTV animated series “Aeon Flux” is a futuristic thriller by Indian director Karyn Kusama
Set in the distant future, eight generations after 99% of the world’s population has been destroyed by a virus; the remaining humans live in what appears to be an enclosed Utopian society.
A band of rebels called Monicans are unhappy with the ruling Goodchild regime, so called for the man who developed the vaccine that kept their ancestors alive during the plague. They plan to unseat the current administration through assassination. A highly trained killer named Aeon Flux (Charlize Theron) is being sent into a heavily guarded complex where the society’s leader Trevor Goodchild (Marton Csokas) is planning a speech. When her opportunity arises, she hesitates. Something she doesn’t quite understand is troubling her and she decides, instead of killing Goodchild, to work with him to figure out what it is.
Aeon Flux has a strong cast, including Oscar winners Charlize Theron and Frances McDormand, and Oscar nominees Sophie Okonedo and Pete Postlethwaite. Despite that, there isn’t a good performance to be found. They’re doing the minimum necessary to collect their pay checks. Theron apparently put all of her efforts into doing her own stunts (she was seriously injured during the filming), leaving little room for emotions and other sensations.
In my opinion although Ms. Theron, in her tight-fitting wardrobe, does her best to distract the viewer from remembering just how many holes there are in the script, after 20 minutes watching the film you will discover that woman isn’t good for you and your health….Sometimes the book is better than the movie. Other times, the cartoon is better than the movie. Whatever format “Aeon Flux” was previously in – books, cartoons, video games– they had to be better than this movie.
Cold Mountain
A young woman (Nicole Kidman) and his father leave their city and go to Cold Mountain, a small village in North Carolina, where her life changes dramatically.
Based on Charles Frazier’s novel, the film is directed by Anthony Minghella, who is well known by his third film, The English Patient, which earned him 7 Oscars, including Best Film and Best Director. Most parts of the film were shot in Romania and only a few scenes in Virgina the USA with spectacular landscapes, as for instance the snow landscapes.
Ada Monroe, (Nicole Kidman) and his father start a new life in Cold Mountain where she meets Inman (Jude Law) and they fall in love very quickly. But the Civil War breaks up and Inman is made to enlist and go to fight. Then Ada promises that she will wait for him. Inman is wounded and he decides to desert and return with his love, in a hard journey escaping from the local militia. Ada´s father dies and she meets Ruby Thewes (Renée Zellweger) who helps her with the farm.
When finally they meet again they have changed a lot but they are still in love.
This is a very long film but it is quite entertaining, with an unexpected end. In this film we can see the horrors of war, the cruelty of the people but of course we can also see the triumph of love.
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
This movie directed by Gore Verbinski is an attempt to put long-forgotten pirate movies back on the spotlight. “Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl”, is the first movie of a trilogy.
After a pirates attack, Will Turner is rescued by the Governor’s ship. The Governor’s daughter, Elizabeth Swann, had to take care him, and she found a pirate’s necklace round his neck so she hid it to protect him. The years went by, and one day the Black Pearl attacked Port Royal looking for the necklace and kidnapped Elizabeth because they thought she was Tim Turner’s daughter. Will, who had fallen in love with her, with the famous Captain Jack Sparrow, who was going to be hanged, are persecuted by the Royal Navy while they were trying to rescue her.
The role of Jack Sparrow is played by Johnny Depp and he gives an excellent performance that makes the movie alive with humour. This new interpretation of a pirate movie revives the genre with magnific special effects, and marvellous landscapes.
Everyone should watch so as not to feel left out because everybody will be talking about it for years.
Meet the Fockers: A Clash Of Cultures
Meet the Fockers is a comedy directed by Jay Roach in 2004. It is the sequel of another film called Meet the Parents, where the happy couple, meet Pam’s parents creating a lot a funny situations. This film has a very good cast with very well-known actors like Robert De Niro, Dustin Hoffman, Barbra Streisand or Ben Stiller.
Greg Focker (Ben Stiller) and Pam Byrnes (Teri Polo) are still planning their future engagement and in this film they are going to meet Greg’s parents, an atypical couple who live in Florida. Greg’s mother, Roz (Barbra Streisand), is a sexual therapist, while his father, Bernie (Dustin Hoffman), is a househusband who gave up working as a lawyer when Greg was born.
Pam’s family are going to visit them there in a caravan and they will take their cat with them, what will be a problem because the Focker family own a sex obsessed dog. Because of those animals they will live very funny situations. Those families are very different and that is why they will have such quantity of problems. The Focker family is very proud of their son, and they have always given him a lot of love and they even have built a wall for Greg’s trophies. However, the Byrne family, especially Jack (Robert De Niro), think that the best way to bring up a child is by talking to him as if he were an adult and being hard and severe.
To sum up, I have to say that I have enjoyed this film very much because it is a very funny comedy which has made me laugh a lot. This film is in my opinion a bit better than the first and I will recommend it to everybody who wants to a have a good time watching a good comedy.
Napoleon Dynamite
Napoleon Dynamite is a high school film directed by Jared Hess and produced by Jeremy Conn, Chris Wyatt and Sean C. Covel in 2004. The film lasts 86 minutes. John Heder (Napoleon) plays the leading role. The premier in Spain was on the 25th February 2005 and in the United States of America on the 11th June 2004. It was released in DVD on the 26th April 2005.
Napoleon Dynamite is the story of an American teenager. Although his life is not enviable at all -he is bullied at school and there is a lack of affection at his home- Napoleon does not seem to be affected by it and goes on with his life trying to do his best to help people around him. He lives with his grandmother, who does not care about her grandchildren and is always with her friends having a good time, and his elder brother, who is lazy, simple-minded and unemployed. One day his grandmother has an accident and she has to be in hospital for some months, so his uncle comes to live with them but he does not help a lot. Napoleon has a new friend, Pedro who is rejected by the most popular girl at school, so in revenge, Napoleon decides to help Pedro to beat this girl in the election for the Student Body President.
Despite its audacity, imagination, and relentless innovation, we are used to and bored by stories about successful American teenagers. The development of the plot is very slow and we get bored to tears. People spend the second part of the film wondering when it is going to finish. It is an occasionally amusing film whose only good feature is the performance of the actors, who manage to make it a bit credible.
If you are thinking of going to see this film, do not expect a brilliantly inventive or an emotionally powerful story because it is a big let-down from start to end. Just watch it and go home thinking about your plans for the next weekend. It is a waste of time and money. In a word, it is eminently forgettable!!
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