It has been a pleasure to have the opportunity to improve my skills by means of this marvellous blog during these two years. We know that nothing lasts forever however happy you may feel and despite all the unforgettable experiences lived during such time. Now, I must “leave the floor” and let new students like you enjoy it.
And thank you to Carmen Peredo and her sister, Marta, for offering us the means to reach the sky when learning the language is concerned.
The film starts at 8.10, but we´ll meet ten minutes before so that we enter together, ok??
Have a look:
And…
http://multimedia.decine21.com/Multimedia/Entrevista/Nunca-es-tarde-para-enamorarse-Entrevista-con-Dustin-Hoffman–VOSE-1144.asp?Id=1144
Considered as being one of the most important films into noir genre, The woman in the window is another masterpiece you must not miss.
Out of Africa having been released in 1985 and now on the big screen again, not many times in life such an opportunity is granted to a film buff. Therefore, I recommend you to join us were you willing to enjoy so beautiful a film.
This is the film which has won more awards last Sunday. So, we must see it!! And remember, tell us if you are coming at least the day before, ok??
This is a thread created so that you can post everything related to cinema such as comments about films you have seen recently, the film you like it most, soundtracks or whatever.
We are looking forward to reading your opinions.
As you know, nominations for the 81st Annual Academy Awards have been already announced and we think it entertaining to organize a contest. We need your preferences and predictions about what film will win the chief categories (A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H).
The winner will be rewarded with two tickets to see the film getting the most number of statuettes.
Give your vote (e.g. 1A, 1B, 4C, 3D, 2E, 1F, 5G, 5H), your name and your class and when the ceremony should take place (February the 22nd) we will post the winner on this blog, the reading club, the theatre club and also on the department’s board.
Thank you for participating and Good luck!
Easy Virtue is a social comedy based on Noël Coward’s play of the same name. The play was previously made into the silent movie Easy Virtue (1928) by Alfred Hitchcock. This version is directed by Stephan Elliott, written by Elliott and Sheridan Jobbins, and stars Jessica Biel, Ben Barnes, Colin Firth, and Kristin Scott Thomas.
The film has been selected to screen at the Toronto Film Festival. It’s also scheduled for the Rio Film Festival, MEIFF, | Rome Film Festival and London Film Festival[1] prior to its November 7th release by Pathé in the UK. Jessica will also be making her musical debut singing two tracks which will be featured on the upcoming soundtrack to the film set to be released on the 3 November 2008.[2]
Plot
A glamorous American widow, Larita, marries a young Englishman, John, in the South of France. On the spur of the moment, they go to England to meet his parents; his mother, Veronica takes a strong dislike to their new daughter-in-law, while his father, Jim, finds something of a kindred spirit in Larita. A battle of wits ensues.[3]
Review
Easy Virtue is a very liberal adaptation of Noel Coward’s play. Director Stephan Elliot (The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert) has tried to make the film more contemporary and very distinct from the Merchant-Ivory school of film.
The story is set in the roaring twenties where John (Ben Barnes) from an aristocratic English family marries Larita (Jessica Biel), an American race driver, after a whirlwind romance in France. However his mother Veronica (Kristin Scott Thomas) is none too pleased while John’s father Jim (colin Firth) finds a soul mate in Larita. These relationships, including those with John’s sisters, make for a very intriguing and entertaining hour and a half, The acting, as could be expected from such a cast is uniformly excellent with perhaps Jessica Biel standing out a little more.
One of Stephan Elliot’s nice touches is an anachronistic use of such songs as Car Wash and Sex Bomb, done in a very twenties style. The addition of a hilarious “dog scene” is another nice touch. Fans of Noel Coward (and even Merchant-Ivory) won’t be disappointed.
See a more detailed review in www.futuremovies.co.uk/review.asp?ID=950
1. This is a thread created to encourage you to post comments about EVERYTHING you want to express related with films. Please, join us!
2. RESERVOIR DOGS. Some times I get surprised when listening people say that they don’t like Quentin Tarantino’s films, mainly because they associate his films with violence. However, all his films are full of gorgeous songs, dialogues, sequences, thrill, humour, and everything a good film should embrace to be considered a good one. Here you have a little example of his talent: the main titles of his first film as director, showing a perfect song, a perfect introduction, and a perfect tempo, thus, pure cinema.
Happy New Year to all!
As you can see, we (the Talking People people helping out your adorable teachers at the English Department of EOI Goya) have been introducing some changes today, because we had to adapt to some changes which have taken place in WordPress and some questions by students. If you have any feedback, post here, please!
We changed the Geometric Avatars for some kind of cartoons (those avatars are only for people who don’t have their own). If you don’t like them, just tell us. We have included a Search Engine, and at the bottom, a login link for our Authors/Contributors. We have sent out two invitations to students who want to become Contributors: to Lidia and to Alessandro. If anyone else needs to be able to start a thread, please get in touch by using the Question Page. To our Authors/Contributors: In case you noticed, WordPress has improved the control panel. It’s the same, but different! If you have any questions, post them on the Questions Page.
Have a nice day!
If you have seen it, post your comments!!
When will we go? January the 14th??
Casino Royal introduced us to a new James Bond, perfectly performed by Daniel Craig and showing a film much closer to Fleming’s vision.
His name is Bond, James Bond: just don’t expect him to introduce himself. For the first time in his 22 screen outings, Britain’s best- known secret agent will not utter the words of introduction that have thrilled fans and appalled master criminals for 46 years. Nor in his new adventure, does 007 utters the other classic one-liner – “shaken not stirred” – when ordering his martini, according to the director, Marc Forster.
Gone were the unfeasible gadgets on which he could always rely in a tight spot. The boffin who created them in the basement of the MI6 building, Q, played in the past by Desmond Llewellyn and John Cleese, was also therefore eliminated, along with Miss Moneypenny and her flirtatious banter. Bond even briefly abandoned his high-performance motor to drive a Ford Mondeo before reverting to an Aston Martin.
Every one loving cinema has to see this film. Besides, you will listen to British accent.
Evelyn Waugh’s classic novel of love and the British class system has been given a polished screen adaptation in this film version from director Julian Jarrold. Charles Ryder (Matthew Goode) was raised in a middle-class household and though he’s never known want and is fortunate enough to have been accepted into Oxford, the life of the upper class is foreign to him. While serving in the British Army during the waning days of World War II, Charles is assigned to a temporary base set up on the estate of the wealthy and aristocratic Flyte family, where he strikes up a friendship with twentysomething Lord Sebastian (Ben Whishaw). Sebastian enjoys the pleasures his privileged life has afforded him, but he also senses that something is missing, and he tries to drown his frequent episodes of depression in alcohol. Charles is captivated by the splendor of Sebastian’s life, and he finds himself drawn into a web of decadent comfort, while also developing an infatuation with Sebastian’s sister, Julia (Hayley Atwell), even as Charles senses his relationship with Sebastian is something deeper than simple friendship. The idyllic days at the Flyte estate come to an end with the arrival of Sebastian’s mother, Lady Marchmain (Emma Thompson), a fierce Catholic who objects to her son’s free and easy life and has become increasingly bitter since her husband, Lord Marchmain (Michael Gambon), has left her to live in Italy with the lovely Cara (Greta Scacchi). This was the first cinema adaptation of Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited, though it was the basis of an acclaimed miniseries produced for British television in 1981.
I have been looking for a good film we could see together in Original Version, without finding it. By the moment, the Film Club is at a standstill…
I strongly recommend you this beautiful story. The film not being good enough, in some moment the plot goes slowly, the book must be much better, for sure. That´s why I recommend you a “story” and not a film. I´ll try to find it to read it, though I don´t like to know the end… My advise: Read it before watching it.
Atonement, by British writer Ian McEwan, tells the story of Briony Tallis’s terrible mistake and how it changes her, Cecilia Tallis’s and Robbie Turner’s life’s forever, and consequentially her effort to find atonement.
At last we may enjoy the new film of Woody Allen’s.
We are meeting next Wednesday (24th) at Renoir Cuatro Caminos Cinema. I have chosen this time, 20:00 so that we might have a chat after watching the film in order to keep improving our speaking.
Please, be punctual.
20-year-old Sophie (Seyfried) is preparing to marry her boyfriend Sky (Cooper) at her mother’s hotel on an island in Greece. She seemingly has it all -a carefree life, a loving fiance, and happy friends- but one thing has been missing all her life: a father.
Her only wish now is to be given away by her dad at her wedding. By reading her mother’s diary she discovers that she has three possible fathers. Sophie then secretly invites all three men to the wedding in a desperate bid to discover which of them is her father before the wedding bells start to chime!
But not all goes according to plan: old loves are re-kindled, new loves are formed, and Sophie risks everything to discover the true identity of her father.
Featuring the songs of ABBA, and based on the world’s number one musical comedy which has people dancing in the aisles every night, this movie is sure to be the hit of Summer 2008!
M E R Y L M E R Y L !!!!!!!!!
Kill bill is my favourite action film and I want you to watch this scene, it being a very good example of the statement I have just written. If you have not seen it yet (I can not believe it!), the story is about this girl betrayed by her boss. She is thought to be dead, but she is alive, actually. In this sequence she is going out a coma.
Perfect mixture of music, shooting and tempo.
PLEASE WATCH THE VIDEO FULLY!!
I think “Last chance” (traducida por “La asesina”, para desgracia de la humanidad hispanohablante!) is the only Action Movie I absolutely love. I watched this movie on TV ages ago, but lately I’ve seen they’ve created a TV series, Nikita, based on this movie, or something like that. The problem is, I’ve looked for it on the Net, and it’s NOWHERE TO BE FOUND! Another movie, about single people I think, comes out in its place!!! Isn’t it weird???
Anyway, in case you find it (it’s an FBI movie, about a girl who is sentenced to death after killing her mum I think, and then wakes up in a secret operations place), I have to clarify something important – the movie has a French version, but – it might surprise you – the French version has no trace of the poetry of the US American version (it’s a typical action movie, no interest!), which is absolutely poetic and moving and beautiful. This is because of Nina Simone’s (music) role, because of the main character’s solitude, including some childhood memories of a barefoot girl riding a horse (if I remember correctly) and her beautiful feel of what freedom is about, of how beautiful it is, and a bit because of the relationship – above all of understanding, eventually – with the main actor. But it’s an action movie, with tons of undercover operations!
Emotional Arithmetic tells the story of three people who formed a life-long bond while housed at a detention camp during World War II that are reunited some 35 years later after being separated from one another. Jakob Bronski, a young Jewish man, took a shine to two youngsters, Melanie and Christopher, while they were interred, by the Nazis, at Drancy, a housing complex on the outskirts of Paris that was used as a detention camp for Jews. Drancy operated as a way station; once there, having your name put on the wrong list meant relocation to a death camp. Their separation inflicts deep emotional wounds that grossly impact their lives in differing ways in the years leading up to their life-altering reunion. Now a beautiful woman in her 50’s, Melanie Lansing Winters, wife of David Winters, balances her precarious emotional state with an innate sharp, deprecating wit. Jakob, now a senior citizen, is a heroic dissident and veteran of a Soviet psychiatric hospital. And her childhood friend, Christopher Lewis, a British novelist who has long carried a torch for Melanie, is haunted by the eternal question survivors ask themselves – “Why was I saved?” Melanie invites Jakob to stay with her at her home in Canada. Christopher accompanies Jakob there. With Melanie’s marriage to David in shambles due to his compulsive infidelity, the pair’s presence in the Winters’ home revitalizes Melanie, but arouses unexpected reserves of jealousy in David, who is estranged from his and Melanie’s grown son, Benjamin, a father himself to a young son, Timmy. On a balmy summer evening, the past explodes into the present in an unexpected and tender love story and its fatal consequences. The ‘emotional arithmetic’ of the title refers to the characters’ struggle to face the past and move on.
I’m not a film critic, but I like a lot this movie and I decide that may be a good idea write about it because you won’t watch it on commercial cinemas. It is a north American production but it has the special taste that only independent films gave. There aren’t big scenarios, but a good plot support an interesting comedy. Really, I’m not sure if that film is a comedy or a drama. It was all the time crossing a fine line that seems to have between comedy and drama, between laughter and tears. You are smiling about the situation and a moment after you feel sad. The difference in this film is that you feel like the characters and believe their situations rather than laugh at them. That is the key to this smart film.
So what’s it about? Lars Lindstrom (Ryan Gosling) is a not so much socially man who spends his days in a cubicle at work and his nights hiding out in the garage (turned apartment) he calls home. Ryan’s sister-in-law, Karin (Emily Mortimer), is worried about him, but Lars’ big brother, Gus (Paul Schneider), doesn’t think it’s something to be worried about. He changes his mind when Lars brings home a girlfriend. For Karin and Gus was a shock when they “meet” her. She’s Bianca, a life-sized and anatomically correct sex doll. Lars treats her exactly as he would a real woman, although that she doesn’t speak much English, is in a wheelchair, and is shy. Dr. Dagmar (Patricia Clarkson), the local psychologist, believes that the best approach to Lars’ delusion is to play along with it. Soon, the entire town is treating Bianca with respect, including Margo (Kelli Garner), a girl who is hoping Lars will dump Bianca for her…..The rest, it’s better you would go to see the film.
Only a curiosity. I don’t know who built the doll for the movie, but I went to www.realdoll.com to find her (you have to be 18 to go to that site…..), and the best I could come up with is that she’s something like a cross between the “Stephanie” and the “Stacy”.
Just thought, wow, isn’t it funny? So many! (None of them women, though!) Let me mention the name of the TV series and link to some info on that. Here are these grumpy yet lovable TV doctors!
Becker Actor: Ted Danson playing a white atheist doctor, and a smoker, working in The Bronx. The two nurses he’s got are great. And then there’s some more interesting characters at the diner where they meet.
Northern Exposure Actor: Rob Morrow playing a New Yorker who’s sent to Nowhere Land to set up his doctor’s office. Some secondary actors are very interesting, at least, unknown prototypes in Spain! They include two Indian characters, his nurse and a very handsome boy who is mad about movies! Then there’s an ex astronaut, and a woman pilot whose boyfriends keep dying, and an anarchist old lady who is really witty! You should watch it some day. It’s kind of different for us in Spain.
House - well, you probably know about this one. Funnily enough, the main character, Hugh Laurie, is British, so if you’ve got him in the British TV series he took part in “A bit of Fry & Laurie“, you’ll be able to compare his accents, because in “House” he uses a US American accent! Watch this wonderful YouTube interview on US TV!
All of them are mavericks and grumpy as hell!
Here’s a movie I watched the other night on digital channel. I think we can’t get it in a European format, though. The main character is the main actor in “Becker”, one of my favorite TV series! (a grumpy doctor too, like Dr. House, but different, as usual! – at least he’s a smoker! hahahah – I’m saying that because there are tons of grumpy doctors on TV series… Wonder why!). Let me copy a movie review on this one, so we get some extra practice! It’ll be the first message we post on this thread. Enjoy!
Here’s the beginning of the review I’m posting below: “Under-funded schools with a large percentage of poverty-ridden students often find it difficult to provide a high quality education, but sometimes it just takes one special teacher to spark the interests and intellects of an entire classroom of children.”
Puzzled as the audience feel by watching any film of David Lynch’s, he is able to create such unforgettable scenes that they keep in your mind for long. His admiration shown for Roy Orbison, he being one of the best American singers, is a good example.
Everyone has ever listened to Blue Velvet main song (“She wore blue velvet..”), however Roy Orbison and his song called In dreams offers us a beautiful moment.
I´ve had to watch this documental about how media empires, led by Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News, have been running a “race to the bottom” in television news. This film provides an in-depth look at Fox News and the dangers of ever-enlarging corporations taking control of the public’s right to know.
Ten years ago great Frank Sinatra died. So I think that we could speak a little bit about him, the one who was a good actor, a better singer, simply a myth.
We’re starting this thread on behalf of Lady Silence. Lady Silence, you already appear as an Author (well done! you followed the instructions of the email you got, didn’t you?), so you should be able to start threads too. The “Edit” link is a different matter. It’s just to modify existing posts and it comes at the end of that post. To start a thread, you should sign in (username and password at wordpress.com) and on your dashboard (or control panel) you should look for “Write Post“, or something like that. After typing the info, you need to click on “Publish“. Hope this is useful!
By the way, congratulations for your Film Review!
“RABBIT-PROOF FENCE” is the name of a film, I has watched recently, whose plot and photography really caught me.
It’s a 2002 Australian drama film diected by Phillip Noyce and filmed by Christopher Doyle both Australian.
It was filmed on location in Australia and stars for Aboriginal actresses.
It’s based on a book written by Doris Pilikintong Garimara. It’s about the author’s mother and two other young Aboriginals girls, who ran away from a native settlement to return to their Aboriginal families, after being placed there in 1931.
The film follows the girls as they walk for nine weeks a long 1.500 miles of the Australian rabbit-proof fence (a pest-exclusion fence, constructed between 1901-1903 to keep the rabbits pest of Western of Australian pastoral areas), to return to their community while being tracked by a white authority figure, the protector of Aborigines responsble for removing the girls from their families, and a black tracker.
The film formed a part of a major debate in contemporary Australia over the stolen generations, where Aboriginals children separated from their parents by the State were taken to residencial schools, forced to learn English languange and then compelled to work for white families like slaves.
The soundtrack was composed by Peter Gabriel and called it “Long Walk Home”
On the 13th of February 2008 Australian government offered a fomal apology to the stolen generations.
Hello everybody!
Listen, I’ll be getting back to work towards the end of this month, and I was thinking we should meet up in the Computer Room one day to try to see if we all learn the basics about using this blog. I’m sorry we are not answering your queries daily, but at the moment we’re somewhat overwhelmed with work. This message is for all teachers and for all the students who are Authors and for the new students who wouldn’t mind becoming, or would love to become, Authors. So post here your suggestions of date and time to meet. Students have exams, but that’s only a couple of days. Teachers, on the other hand, have Exam Month, a whole month giving and checking exams, so I suppose we should have teachers first making the proposal of a date and booking the use of the Computer Room for that date… What do you all think? Gotta fly!
This is probably the best film shot by the Marx brothers. With no more than one hour in length, it is full of comical scenes, they being absurd most of the time and making us laugh on account of the lack of manners and scruples they show towards everyone.
Summing up the story, it tells how two countries next to each other keep quarrelling and by choosing Groucho as the governor everything turns worse. Chico y Harpo develop the role of spies under the service of Groucho’s command.
Let’s enjoy it!
http://es.youtube.com/watch?v=lMjQOKS3zdI
Welcome María! Good to have you with us! 
María, an Intermetiate 1 student, sent a wonderful Film Review. Well done! We corrected some minor mistakes, so read it all again!
María’s film review:
I’ve seen several films this year but nohing really fantastic. So I have chosen one of them because it is my favourite one.
The film is called Into the Wild. It is directed by Sean Pen and the main actor is Emile Hirch. It is set in California, Dakota and Alaska (three different places), and it was filmed in the real places, not in a studio, and the actor originally spoke in English.
The film is based ON a real story.
The plot is about a good student who finished his degree and everybody thought that he would have a brilliant future but he decided to leave his comfortable life and he went to look for adventure.
He gave away all his money to charity. He wanted to be free and he wished to know the wild. Then he travelled a lot over the prairies and deep trees, the mountains and the rivers. In his trip he met lots of people who didn’t agree with the society of the USA.
In the end he goes into Alaska where he dies of hunger. This scene made me cry but I really enjoyed the whole film.
I hope everybody enjoys this film like I did!
Hello, everybody, this is, teachers and students! Congratulations for your amazing participation. We know we don’t know how to manage yet! But… do you all remember that apart from posting we need to see how this blog works and create explanations to help people and finish designing the blog? Do you? OK. So… We haven’t finished doing some of the basic things, so please:
* “Authors” should click on the links called “Pages” and read it all. You need to know what it says there.
* “Authors” need to post on their corresponding “Page” (students’, teachers’) a comment with their description (remember this is the Net, an international public space).
* Missing “Authors” and “Contributors”. Now, there are some teachers and some students who are not “Authors” but should be, wouldn’t you want to? This means we need to make you “Authors”. When you are an Author you can edit your posts, start new threads and pick your personal avatar (graphic image). See our section “Pages” for more info. Well, these people seem to be so far: Carmen, Marta, Ana (teachers), Elena and Lady Silence (michelle’s students). If there are other students or teachers who want to register as “Authors” or “Contributors” of this blog, please, post here or on the “Page” called “Questions about this blog”. Only people we know can become “Authors” so get in touch with your teacher so that your teacher tells the blog admin who you are, whatever.
Greetings and keep having fun!
This is one of my all-time favorite novels (written by Harper Lee in the sixties), and I do think the movie is an awesome version (very literal, not experimental, but that’s fine with me in this case!). Atticus Finch (Gregory Peck) is a lawyer, and Scout (Mary Badham) is his smallest daughter. Then there’s Jem, her elder brother, and a little friend who visits in the summer (inspired in writer Truman Capote). They go on lots of adventures together, and the 120 first pages of the book (Part I) is absolutely wonderful, on chilhood. The second part deals with The South and its racism. Tom Robinson, a Black man is accused of raping a white woman, and Atticus decides to defend him. Well, imagine. They get into a lot of trouble.
One of the most powerful scenes is one where the mob wants to drag Tom out of prison to lynch him and hang him, and Atticus stands in front of them, trying to talk them out of it. And then, the kids get in the way, and… Scout addresses one of the men who were wanting to lynch the prisoner… (You’ve got that scene in the TP link above).
I was looking for stuff on YouTube, and I found a little video dedicated to the main character: Scout, a girl played by Mary Bantham. The music playing in this video is a version of one of the most beautiful songs by Stevie Wonder, “Isn’t She Lovely?”, which was dedicated to his baby daughter, or something.
The 100 best film quotes by The American Film Institute:
1 Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn. GONE WITH THE WIND 1939
2 I’m going to make him an offer he can’t refuse. GODFATHER, THE 1972
3 You don’t understand! I coulda had class. coulda been a contender. I could’ve been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am. ON THE WATERFRONT 1954
4 Toto, I’ve got a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore. WIZARD OF OZ, THE 1939
5 Here’s looking at you, kid. CASABLANCA 1942
6 Go ahead, make my day. SUDDEN IMPACT 1983
7 All right, Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my closeup. SUNSET BLVD. 1950
8 May the Force be with you. STAR WARS 1977
9 Fasten your seatbelts. It’s going to be a bumpy night. ALL ABOUT EVE 1950
10 You talking to me? TAXI DRIVER 1976
11 What we’ve got here is failure to communicate. COOL HAND LUKE 1967
12 I love the smell of napalm in the morning. APOCALYPSE NOW 1979
13 Love means never having to say you’re sorry. LOVE STORY 1970
14 The stuff that dreams are made of. MALTESE FALCON, THE 1941
15 E.T. phone home. E.T. THE EXTRATERRESTRIAL 1982
16 They call me Mister Tibbs! IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT 1967
17 Rosebud. CITIZEN KANE 1941
18 Made it, Ma! Top of the world! WHITE HEAT 1949
19 I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore! NETWORK 1976
20 Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship. CASABLANCA 1942
21 A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti. SILENCE OF THE LAMBS,THE 1991
22 Bond. James Bond. DR. NO 1962
23 There’s no place like home. WIZARD OF OZ, THE 1939
24 I am big! It’s the pictures that got small. SUNSET BLVD. 1950
25 Show me the money! JERRY MAGUIRE 1996
What do you think?
(To be continued – NB: Roberto added the 100 quotes but the post was so long we decided to cut it to 25 and delete the space between each quote, the blank line in between, OK, Roberto? You can then add the other 3 posts with the remaining quotes, if you like. Is it OK?)
“Smoke Signals is the first feature film written, directed, and co-produced by Indians to ever receive a major distrituion deal.
There have been many other Indian filmmakers, our elders, who made wonderful films taht have been wrongfully ignored or dismissed.”
(Smoke Signals. A Screenplay, by Sherman Alexie, 1998)
On my blog, Dakota in Spain, there’s more info on this movie, in case you are interested, plus links to some YouTube videos with bits of the movie.
On the TP forum, I just started a thread on this too. The more places that mention it, the more chances more people may learn about its existence!
A hurray for independent movie makers!
The director of the Academy Award-winning 2006 crime drama Tsotsi returns to the helm with this tale of a Middle East CIA operative who begins to have doubts about his latest assignment after witnessing the interrogation of a suspected suicide bomber by secret police. When Egyptian-born chemical engineer Anwar El-Ibrahimi (Omar Metwalli) mysteriously vanishes on a routine flight from South Africa to Washington, his wife Isabella (Reece Witherspoon) embarks on a frantic international search for her missing husband. At the same time, a CIA analyst (Jake Gyllenhaal) arrives at a clandestine detention facility outside of United States. As the interrogation of El-Ibrahimi gets underway, the CIA analyst is profoundly shaken by the unorthodox methods used by the man’s captors, and quickly begins to reevaluate his assignment. Peter Sarsgaard, Meryl Streep, and Alan Arkin co-star in a topical political thriller penned by Kelley Sane and produced by Steve Golin.
Perhaps you want speak about some film you don’t find in our threads. Please do it here. You can do it in English or in Spanish, it is the same, the only important thing is having your opinions and speaking about them. You can make a review or simply tell us whatever you want about a film.
Quizá quieras hablar sobre alguna película que no está en nuestros hilos. Por favor hazlo aquí. Puedes hacerlo en ingles o en español, es lo mismo, lo único importante es tener tus opiniones y poder hablar sobre ellas. Puedes hacer una crítica o sencillamente contarnos lo que quieras de la película.
To post a comment you don’t need to write in the box website.
Para publicar un comentario no necesitas escribir en la casilla en que te pide la página web.
Espero leeros pronto.
Year 2006 / running time 124 minutes / Director: Jonh Curran
Cast:
Edwuard Norton / Naomi Wats / Live Schreiber / Toby Jones
Plot: Walter Fane is a bacteriologist working in Shanghai. On leave in England he falls in love with Kitty, the daughter of a rich family. Although she does not return his feelings, she agrees to marry him to get away from her mother. In China, to relieve the boredom she starts an affair with the British vice Consul, Charlie Townsend. When Walter discovers her infidelity he decides to punish her and offers her a choice: a divorce with the inevitable public scandal or accompanying him to a remote village where there is an outbreak of cholera. When Charlie shows that he has no intention of leaving his wife, her only option is to go with Walter.
Commentary: The title, a quotation from Shelley, “lift not the painted veil which those who love call life”, refers to the journey of self-discovery made by the two central characters, particularly Kitty. As Norton says, “she is a person who has never really looked at the world outside the narrow confines of herself and her social circle. China blows her vision of the world wide open and forces her to get engaged in things that are bigger than she is”.
The backdrop is the countryside in the south, whit its peculiar hump-backed mountains. There is an ironic contrast between the lush green landscape and the terrible epidemic with its repulsive symptoms. Of course, it is not only the landscape that has been included; the film tells us about the political struggles going on in China at the time and makes a neat job of conveying the fragile balance between tradition and modernity, the struggle against ignorance and reaction , the power of the local warlords and the weight of foreign interference.
Stuart Dryburgh’s cinematography is beautiful, not only as it takes in the gorgeous landscapes but also in its clever lighting of the interiors. Curran’s direction and Nyswaner’s script provide the material the actors need and they take full advantage of it. IV Schreiber is excellent as the smooth-talking Charlie, the classic opportunist who takes what he wants from life and dodges the consequences. Toby Jones is particularly good as the other kind of expat, speaking the language and living with a Chinese woman, the one who really tries to hold everything together. And full credit to the leads, who keep us interested in two not very likeable characters.
I enclose the list made by The American Film Institute showing the 25 best scores:
Have you listened to all of them?
What are your favourite ones?
A thread suggested by Ana Otto! We’re pasting her text here:
Has anyone seen “This is England”? I was amazed to learn about skinheads in the 80’s. I mean, today racism, neo-nazism and all the other forms of anti-social behaviour associated with skins have become the snap-judgements most people make but it wasn’t always like that. I was also touched by the protagonist, Shaun, whose need to find someone or something to believe in leads him into violent adulthood.
Soooooooo happy to see we have great people volunteering for the new blog! Congratulations!
My husband and I went to see “The Band’s visit”. The film is in three different languages: Hebrew, Arabic and English (with a strong accent). It is supposed to be a comedy but, in spite of having some funny moments, it isn’t really funny. We had heard good reviews about the film and as a result, we were a little disappointed. Both of us expected “more”. Neither the music, nor the photography is anything special. When the film finished I asked myself: What has happened? because the point is that nothing happens. The plot is about some Egyptian musician who goes to Israel to give a concert but they get the wrong village. We saw the film in V.O. and sometimes I wasn’t able to distinguish when they were speaking in their native languages or in English, because of their strong accent. Nevertheless, it’s not very difficult English. I don’t want to tell you more about the plot or the locations just in case you are going to see the film.
A new film by Isabel Coixet. Will this film be the next we see? It would be good!! Post your opinions babies!
Our first film:
Last week we watched The Family Savages, starred by LAura Linney and Hoffman (I don´t remember the full name, but he won the Oscar two years ago for his role of Truman Capote). I watching the film, two actors made me remember king Lear´s story but a little changed. Laura and Hoffman are brothers and his father went ill. They moved away from their father, but their “must”, as sons as they are, made them join themselves, in spite of thinking of their lives and loving their father in a completely different way… I could tell you more details, but it would be better you watch the film before. So, in these wet afternoons you alredy know what to do!
“I don’t want to achieve immortality through my work… I want to achieve it through not dying”
“Interestingly, according to modern astronomers, space is finite. This is a very comforting thought– particularly for people who can never remember where they have left things”
I got your email, eoigoyainglés. I clicked on the link it had. It took me to a wordpress webpage with a form. I filled in the form, and below the “I agree to this fascinating terms of service” there were two round things: one for “just gimme (give me) a username” and “gimme a free blog”, or something like that. I don’t want a free blog, so I checked out the other option, to get a username. You can also get a blog and I suppose what follows applies, anyway. Then I panicked and left. Then I went to our blog, scrolled down and clicked on the worpress.com link.
When I got to the wordpress.com webpage:
1. I looked for the two empty slots where you type your nick and then your password (the ones I typed in when I filled in the form). Sometimes those slots are on your right, others they’re scrolling down down, on the left.
2. I did that, I typed my username and my password. Then…
3. and here I am. I have access to a control panel, so the 4 students who are Authors on this blog should have access too. I see the same things Dakota sees.
How can we, Authors, use this?
Well, if we just want to COMMENT on an already existing thread, we don’t need to go to the wordpress.com page, and type our username and password. We can just use this blog like we were using the other two, to comment. BUT…
If we want to pick an avatar (graphic image) and/or we want to start a thread, we need to sign in at wordpress.com. If we do, we have access to the control panel.
What do we do then?
After signing in…
If we want to pick an avatar, we’ll click on “Profile” on the top right corner.
If we want to start a thread (Authors, do so! to see if we all manage – later on we can delete them, no problem), we need to click on “Write” (top left corner) and then on “Post” (just below “Write”). Then we get the box to type a title and our message. Remember the title should be thematic, so we know what it is about.
Then we need to scroll down a bit till we see “Categories“, open that by clicking on the left-side grey/white arrowhead, then click on the light blue text that says “All Categories” and then tick one of the boxes with the names of the categories.
Then we scroll to where we were typing our message and look on the right. We’ll see “Save” and “Publish“. We click on “PUblish” and that’ll be it!
Then you can scroll a bit further up and click on “Visit site” to see our Blog and if our post is there.
Is this helpful? Cheers!
I’m Dakota. I’ve been granted the status of “Editor” and I’ve just signed in to see what this means. I have access to the Control Panel, which is a place that doesn’t look like the Film Club. Under the title “EOI Goya Film Club”, on the left, there are 4 things I can click: “Write” (I can “write” posts, pages, links), “Manage”, “Comments” and “Upgrades”. On the right, I see “Profile” and if I click on that, I can add info about myself. Below this message I’m writing I can tick the category I want to file this post under: if I click “All categories” I see them all and I’m going to pick “1-News & Chit Chat” to file this there. Now I’m going to click on a black box on my right which has two options “Save” and “Publish”, so I’m going to click “Publish”.
PS: I cannot see the control panel where there is a list of all the authors on this blog, only my own profile.
We’re all learning together how to use this sophisticated blog, so any questions you have and any explanations you can give of how to manage will be warmly welcome!
This thread will be edited whenever we wish to add here other links suggested in the comments… (Well, it’s an idea)
Reading about Film-making can allow us to pick some very useful vocabulary and phrases, both for talking about films and for writing our film reviews! Check out this wikilink: Filmmaking
Dear explorers,
This blog is just a project in its exploratory stage!
You can post here your first comments, questions, suggestions…
AMAZING NEWS: BABY HUMAN. DESARROLLO Y COMPORTAMIENTO has just been released!!! We can buy it and watch it both in Spanish and English!!! The 2 DVDs contain the 6 episodes. The company seems to be DIVISA HOME VIDEO 2006. As you can see, they’ve changed the title, but it’s the same collection we were referring to.
—
The 6 episodes of this documentary are about the development of human intelligence from 0 to 2 years old. We cannot get the DVD yet because it’s only for Region 1 (America), but Canal+ showed it years ago and then you can find it on the Net.
The episodes are: To Walk, To Talk, To Relate, To Belong, To Feel, To Think.
At Talking People there are some activities for the episode “To Belong”
From the Back Cover
Imagine you’re suddenly thrust into a world where you can’t speak, can barely move, and must unravel the meaning behind a maze of sounds and sights in order to survive. This is the world of the baby. For the first time, experience the first two years of a child’s life just as they do. This groundbreaking program reveals what only the little ones know. What is their most profound need? How do they really see their parents? What does it feel like to struggle to walk or learn or speak? It’s an incredible journey each of us has taken–but none of us remember. Get a carpet-and-crib eye view of the baby’s world as they take their first humorous, death-defying, wondrous steps into life.
A special movie, Bagdad Cafe, and Jevetta Steele singing “Calling You”
A desert road from Vegas to nowhere
Some place better than where you’ve been
A coffee machine that needs some fixing
In a little café just around the bend
I am calling you
Can’t you hear me
I am calling you
A hot dry wind blows right through me
The baby’s crying and I can’t sleep
But we both know a change is coming
Coming closer, sweet release
I am calling you
I know you hear me
I am calling you
Supposing you cannot start a thread yourself, you can post here your proposals. Then we will start a thread on that and you can paste your comment or comment there. Do you agree with this system, or is there any other idea to deal with this?
Chico, Harpo and Groucho in… ”A Night at the Opera” (1935)
You tube video here…
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