Interesting films

Here are some interesting films that you might like. There’s a list with vocabulary to make it easier to understand.

WALL-E

Hundreds of years into the future, mankind have abandoned Earth because we polluted it so much and left so much rubbish lying around.

WALL-E is the last remaining robot, whose job it is to clean up after us. He works all day and watches musicals by night, with only a cockroach for a friend.

That’s until EVE arrives, a robot who has been sent to see if any life has returned to Earth. She’s sleek, speedy and much more glam than a cockroach. WALL-E falls for her, but suddenly, she’s taken away from him…

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Pride and Prejudice (Orgullo y prejuicio)

Pride and Prejudice Listen to this interview with Keira Knightly! You also have the text below if you prefer to read it.

The film adaptation of Jane Austen’s clssic novel Pride and Prejudice, has a stellar cast. Keira Knightly has the lead role:

Keira Knightly: (Standard British accent): Yeah, there is huge pressure taking on a role like Elizabeth Bennet. You know, I think she’s one of the best roles in literature, as far as… for girls, so if you’re an actress and you get a chance to play her, you defenitely can’t say no.

Elisabeth is one of the five Bennet sisters, whose purpose in life* is to find a suitable* husband:

Keira Knightly: What I never got* from the book- and maybe it’s because I didn’t understand the period and and… where women, particularly, sat in the period, their role- was that the only choice girls, of certainly upper middle class, middle class, any girl, really, family… girls had, was to marry. That was it*, that was the job that they had to do, that was the only way that they could survive, the only way they could better themselves, was the kind of marriage that she takes.

Elisabeth Bennet eventually marries Mr Darcy. This part is usually associated with Colin Firth, who played fim in the BBC’s 1995 mini-series, in addition to playing a character called Darcy in Pride and Prejudice-inspired Bridget Jones’s Diary. Yet for this version, director Joe Wright chose Matthew McFadyen, who seems to have enjoyed the social formality of Jane Austen’s England:

Matthew McFadyen (Standard English accent): Yes, it was very defined, very clear: you stand up when a lady walks into the room and you bow*, and you, you know, there’s rules and they’re all observed, all the time, and I think nowadays we think of it as very sort of repressed, or over-formalised. I quite like that, I think it… it gives it something else, I think it’s actually quite releasing ’cause you know abaout status: nowadays we don’t know.

The cast includes several stars of an older generation. Canadian actor Donald Sutherland, for example, plays Elizabeth Bennet’s father:

Donald Sutherland (Canadian accent): There’s that joke in New York, where they say that the difference between a good actor and a great actor is an English accent!

Pride and Prejudice was first published in 1813, and, almost 200 years later, it appears to be as popular as ever. Tom Hollander plays the unbearable* Mr Collins:

Tom Hollander (Standard British accent) : When you say to girls, you’re doing Pride and Prejudice, they go, “Oh, really, and who’s playing bla bla bla?” Because they all feel that they own it*. “Oh, who’s playing sort of?” Oh, well, that’s completely wrong, oh, no, no, no, that’s not good!” as if it’s their story and they wrote it!

Veteran actress Judi Dench plays another difficult character, Lady Catherine de Bourgh:

Judi Dench (Standard British accent) : It’s a great love story, I think she (Jane Austen) was so young when she wrote it; something like 21 or… put it in a drawer* and left it and it was, you know, it’s a masterpiece*.

Glossary:

Whose purpose in life: el propòsit del qual… Suitable: apropiat

What I never got: El que mai vaig entendre That was it: i ja està.

To bow: fer una reverència Unbearable: insoportable

They feel that they own it: penses que és obra seva

Drawer: calaix Masterpiece: obra mestra

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The Break-Up (Separados)

One day at a ball game in Chicago, Gary Brobowski catches sight of Brooke Meyers. He is a tour guide in a business run with his two brothers. He approaches her and before long they move into a beautiful apartment together.

Some time later, things have turned sour*. One evening when both families are coming to dinner to get to know each other* better a row begins* over a trivial shoppping oversight* by Gary. The row escalates into a demand for separation by Brooke, though* in fact* she is hoping that it will shock gary into changing his ways. But the problem is that neither of them wants to leave the condo*, so they split it up into two hostile territories with few common areas. Love, funny story.

Vocabulary:

Turn sour: espatllar-se

To get to know each other: conèixer-se l’un amb l’altre

Row /pronunciated ‘rau’/: discussió acalorada

Shopping oversight: un descuit en la compra

Though /dou/: però

In fact: de fet

Condo: (from condominium) apartament