Week(end) Movies: "Confessions of a Shopaholic"

Dear students,

this weekend seems to offer the best opportunity to watch a silly film (I guess you are going to think hard about voting, hehe, and don't want to distract you too much). As shopping is one of the main topics we are approaching this year, I would like to recommend Confessions of a Shopaholic. This film deals with a shopping addict who works for a magazine. At some point, she has to overcome some conflicts, experience romance and survive her own shopping habits.

Click here and play the video!

Weekend Movies: "Midnight in Paris" by Woody Allen

This week, I would likt to recommend "Midnight in Paris" by Woody Allen. The main characters of this film are Gil and Inez. They travel to Paris as a tag-along vacation on her parents' business trip. Gil is a successful Hollywood writer but is struggling on his first novel. He falls in love with the city and thinks they should move there after they get married, but Inez does not share his romantic notions of the city or the idea that the 1920s was the golden age. When Inez goes off dancing with her friends, Gil takes a walk at midnight and discovers what could be the ultimate source of inspiration for writing. Gil's daily walks at midnight in Paris could take him closer to the heart of the city but further from the woman he's about to marry...

Reading!!

Dear students,
as you know, reading is an activity by which you "magically" learn much English. Then, please, try to read as much as possible in order to improve your vocabulary (and not only that, your writing and oral skills will also improve). Something which I find useful and motivating is to read opinion articles. Browse, for example, The New York Times and find texts that you consider interesting. There are many perspectives, trendy topics, and discussions published by The New York Times. Besides, if you feel like watching a documentary about this famous newspaper, just click here: "Inside The New York Times". Enjoy!

Weekend Movies: "My Fake Fiance"

Well, this romantic comedy isn't exactly a work of art BUT it might be a bit entertaining and, of course, very useful to train your little Spanish ears. This is about a sham marriage that leads to genuine romance for a woman who lost everything and a guy who's in debt to a vicious loan shark. Her moving van stolen, Jennifer (Melissa Joan Hart) is left with nothing but three throw pillows and a cardboard box. Meanwhile, thirtysomething charmer Vince (Joey Lawrence) has racked up a rather serious gambling debt...

Weekend Movies: "Wrong Cops" by Quentin Dupieux

Dear students,

remember to do some extra listening whenever you have a bit of free time, and especially during this long long weekend, because a couple of didactic listenings per week won't be enough to train your ears before June. You need more. As you know, I have alredy posted some interesting links to this blog. You can find some of them on the right column of your screen. In addition, watching tv series and films is always a good option to get used to listening to different accents and jargons, so you will also find lots of options on this site.

This week, I would like to recommend a comedy. This is a film consisting of absurdist vignettes in which assorted officers of Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) do everything except police work—selling drugs on street corners (packaged inside of dead rats to “avoid suspicion”), harassing pedestrians, refusing to investigate a crime scene, and listening to lots of house music. Rules of space, time, and mortality are ignored... and the result is an hilarious film which I hope you enjoy a lot.

I am sorry there were no English or Spanish subtitles available. Anyway, I hope you undersand most of it and laugh until your belly hurts.

LOL

r

Weekend Movies: "Elephant" by Gus Van Sant

Do you feel like living a terrifiying experience based on actual events? The film that I recommend you watch this weekend shows the terrible tragedy of a fictional high school (based on the Columbine High School massacre) where students go through their daily routine as two others prepare for something more malevolent...

Weekend Movies: "The Secret of Nichola Tesla" by Crsto Papic

Have you heard the latest news on the development of a new battery that might power our homes in the future? It is said to require solar energy but it might free us  from our current electricity providers and, most important, from their extremely expensive electric bill (read here if you want to know more about it). If you feel curious about the inventor of such a thing, Nikola Tesla, you are welcome to watch the film The Secret of Nikola Tesla, directed by the Croatian director Crsto Papic in 1980, and starring a bunch of good actors, Orson Welles among them. Warning: the first minutes are an introduction in a different language: English starts at 1:20 and the movie starts at 7:42. Youtube provides subtitles if you click on one of the buttons below.

I hope you enjoy the film!

Weekend Movies: "Citizen Kane" by Orson Welles

Brief analysis:

The fresh, sophisticated, and classic masterpiece, Citizen Kane (1941), is probably the world's most famous and highly-rated film, with its many remarkable scenes and performances, cinematic and narrative techniques and experimental innovations (in photography, editing, and sound). Its director, star, and producer were all the same genius individual - Orson Welles (in his film debut at age 25!), who collaborated with Herman J. Mankiewicz on the script (and also with an uncredited John Houseman), and with Gregg Toland as his talented cinematographer. [The amount of each person's contributions to the screenplay has been the subject of great debate over many decades.] Toland's camera work on Karl Freund's expressionistic horror film Mad Love (1935) exerted a profound influence on this film.
The film, budgeted at $800,000, received unanimous critical praise even at the time of its release, although it was not a commercial success (partly due to its limited distribution and delayed release by RKO due to pressure exerted by famous megalomaniac publisher W.R. Hearst) - until it was re-released after World War II, found well-deserved (but delayed) recognition in Europe, and then played on television.
The film engendered controversy (and efforts at ruthless suppression in early 1941 through intimidation, blackmail, newspaper smears, discrediting and FBI investigations) before it premiered in New York City on May 1, 1941, because it appeared to fictionalize and caricaturize certain events and individuals in the life of William Randolph Hearst - a powerful newspaper magnate and publisher. The film was accused of drawing remarkable, unflattering, and uncomplimentary parallels (especially in regards to the Susan Alexander Kane character) to real-life. The notorious battle was detailed in Thomas Lennon's and Michael Epstein's Oscar-nominated documentary The Battle Over Citizen Kane (1996), and it was retold in HBO's cable-TV film RKO 281 (1999) (the film's title refers to the project numbering for the film by the studio, before the film was formally titled).

Source: http://www.filmsite.org/citi.html

Weekend Movies: "The Virgin Suicides" by Sofia Coppola

Dearest students,
here we are a new film for the weekend: The Virgin Suicides by Sofia Coppola (Francis Ford Coppola's daughter, have you heard of her before?). This film is a 1999 American drama starring Kirsten Dunst and Kathleen Turner, among others. IBased on the homonymous novel by Jeffrey Eugenides, the film tells of the events surrounding the lives of five sisters in an upper-middle class suburb of Detroit during the 1970s. After the youngest sister makes an initial attempt at suicide, the sisters are put under close scrutiny by their parents, eventually being locked as birds in their own cage, which leads to increasingly depressive and isolated behaviour... Would you like to know more about their misadventure? Well, watch the film! (no subtitles this time, sorry! But I am pretty sure you will understand the plot quite easily).
Enjoy!!!

Weekend Movies: "Million Dollar Baby"

Hey guys! Today I am going to recommend a superb movie that shows the dramatic life of a survivor, Maggie, a girl who decides to become a great boxer. Here you are a brief synopsis of the film:

Hillary Swank's character, Maggie, is a white-trash 31-year-old waitress in a diner. Clint Eastwood is Frankie Dunn, a boxing gym owner who has trained many promising fighters but has never been able to take them all the way to a title/money bout. Maggie decides to pursue her dream of becoming a boxer once she realizes she's in a real dead-end situation. Frankie is skeptical about women fighters, tells Maggie she's too old to start training, and tells her he won't train her... (read more...)

Weekend Movies: "American Psycho"

 

Dear students,
I must admit I am too sensitive to watch films like the one I would like to recommend this week. What I usually do is to cover my eyes as soon as a little bit of blood appears on screen. Gory bloody images are just too disgusting. My stomach can't digest them. However, I can enjoy and analyse "ideas" and this is why I think watching this film can be interesting. This is a psychological black comedy based on Bret Easton Ellis's novel of the same name about a successful banker from Manhattan. He seems to be very smart and kind but he hides a secret life: actually, he is a serial killer! Throughout the film, we the spectators tend to wonder how many psychopaths might be living near us. Where are they? Are they governing the world? Should we revise our scale of values and stop admiring succesful unempathetic people? Well, watch the film and tell me what you think.You only need to click here.

Do have a great weekend!

Weekend Movies: "Dr. Who"

As suggested by Emilia today, sometimes it is difficult to find time to watch long films, even during the weekend. Many of you have children to care about, friends to go out with or parties that can't really be successful without your presence. Thus, I would like to recommend something shorter today: a tv series that you might already know, Dr. Who. This is a British programme produced by the BBC from 1963 to the present day. The programme depicts the adventures of the Doctor, a Time Lord—a time-travelling humanoid alien. In my opinion, this series is quite entertaining, full of mistery and creepy moments. Definitely, Halloween is a good moment to start watching it. Besides, the actors have a nice British accent, which make it relatively easy to understand them. Well, if you feel like giving it a try, just click the link below:

DR. WHO -- FIRST CHAPTER (2005)

Enjoy!!

Weekend Movies: "Coffee and Cigarettes", by Jim Jarmush

This weekend, I would like to invite you to watch this independent film. Coffee and Cigarettes is the title by independent director Jim Jarmush. The film consists of 11 short stories which share coffee and cigarettes as a common thread. It might be a bit unusual but I hope you enjoy it anyway.

Weekend Movies: "Detachment"

Detachment is a 2011 American drama film about the high school education system directed by Tony Kaye, starring Adrien Brody. This is also a distressing film only recommended for spectators who feel on top of the world, because the story turns quite tragic at some points. Just click HERE if you feel like watching this film.

And if you feel like researching a little bit more after the film, there is an interesting interview with Adrien Brody available in The Observer. Click and read!