Movie Vocabulary

director (n.) The director of The Dark Knight Rises is Christopher Nolan.
direct (v.) Dark Shadows was directed by Tim Burton.
star (n.) Johnny Depp is the star of Edward Scissorhands.
star (vi.) Johnny Depp starred in Ed Wood, Dead Man, and Donnie Brasco.
star (vt.) Dark Shadows stars Johnny Depp as Barnabas Collins, Michelle Pfeiffer as Elizabeth Collins Stoddard, Helena Bonham Carter as Dr. Julia Hoffman, and Eva Green as Angelique Bouchard.
cost (v.) Inception cost $160 million to make.
earn/make (v.) Inception earned/made more than $825 million at the box office.
tell the story of (v.) Pirates of the Caribbean tells the story of a pirate called Jack Sparrow who has many adventures at sea.

Movie Expressions

trailer (n.) 予告編
star (n.) Johnny Depp is the star of Dark Shadows.
star (v.) Brad Pitt stars in Moneyball; The Dark Knight Rises is an action movie starring Christian Bale.
direct (v.) Like Inception, The Dark Knight Rises is directed by Christopher Nolan.
cost (v.) Inception cost $160 million to make.
make (v.) Inception made more than $825 million at the box office.

Sports Day and the Euros 2012

Yesterday was my daughter's last sports day at elementary school. As usual, I went to the school at 4:30am to get a place to sit in the shade. My daughter appeared in 4 events, and I managed to get more photos than usual, by using the "rensha" function on my camera. But I wish my camera had a stronger optical zoom!

The football scene is heating up, with many international friendly matches going on as preparation for the Euros 2012, and also the final World Cup qualifying rounds starting, too. On Saturday, England played Norway in Oslo, in the first match of the Roy Hodgson era, winning 1–0. The best point of the match was that Andy Carroll and Ashley Young looked good in attack, and probably the worst point was that the midfield looked weak.

Brave

Brave is a new movie from Pixar. I think it will come to Japan quite soon (probably a movie for the summer vacation). It's set in Scotland. It looks like a lot of fun. You can see the trailer on the Apple movie trailers site.

"The villains have taken over," [says Pinocchio]. He points to a poster for a play. The poster shows Charming defeating Shrek.

Shrek the Third is the 3rd movie in the Shrek series. To accompany and promote the movie, several books summarizing the movie or telling us about some aspects of it were introduced. A Good King is Hard to Find is one of them.

Shrek, Donkey, and Puss in Boots set off together to find Artie, who is supposed to become the next king of Faraway. They find him to take him to Faraway and fight the evil Prince Charming.

Hapka, C. (2007). Shrek the Third: A good king is hard to find. New York: HarperCollins.
 (108 words)

Shrek the Third: A Good King Is Hard to Find (I Can Read Book 2)

Catherine Hapka

HarperCollins

発売日：2007-04-03

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Black & White

Black & White is a movie starring Reese Witherspoon, Tom Hardy, and Chris Pine. It's a romantic comedy with some action thriller elements. The chief plot line is that Tom Hardy and Chris Pine both fall in love with Reese Witherspoon, and things are complicated by the fact that they are best friends and also by the fact that they are CIA agents. They use their tricks as CIA agents to sabotage each other's attempts to woo Reese Witherspoon.

Snow White

As you probably know, there is a very famous movie of Snow White from Disney. It was made in the 1930's. The new Snow White movie, however, stars Kristen Stewart as Snow White and Charlize Theron as the evil queen.

Spider-man: Everyday Hero

Every day, I am on the lookout for danger.
I keep people safe from harm.
I keep good people out of trouble.

Spider-man: Everday Hero is a book in the 2nd level of the I Can Read series. It was one of the books published to mark the release of the Spider-man 2 movie. It is very short, and it gives a brief introduction to Spider-man himself, his Aunt May, and the main villain, called Doc-Ock. Other books in the series give more details of other characters.

Spider-Man 2: Everyday Hero (Festival Readers)

Acton Figueroa

Harperfestival

発売日：2004-06

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Champions League

On Saturday night, the Champions league final was held. It was a surprising match-up, between Chelsea (England) and Bayern Munchen (Germany), surprising because the teams had met Real Madrid and Barcelona in the semifinals, and most people had expected the Spanish teams to win their semifinals and meet in the final. Chelsea, especially, was a big surprise, because they had defended through nearly all the semifinal and won by not allowing Barcelona to take shots in the final quarter of the pitch. The final was the same, with Chelsea getting only about two shots in 90 minutes. Unfortunately for Bayern, one of those shots, in the 88th minute, became a goal for Chelsea.

Neither team was able to get a winner in the 90 minutes or in the extra 30 minutes, so finally there was a penalty shootout. Chelsea's goalkeeper, Cech, saved a couple of kicks very well, and Chelsea were champions, for the first time ever!

(156 words)

Movies in May/June

The last few weeks have been a quiet time for movies. But over the next few weeks several interesting ones are due to start. The Ideas of March is starting at the beginning of June. This movie is about the American presidential elections, and it stars Ryan Gosling, George Clooney, and Mr Tomei's sister.

Later in the month, Midnight in Paris, a film by Woody Allen, is due to start. You may know Woody Allen from his classics such as Annie Hall or Manhattan, or more recent movies such as Vicki Christina Barcelona.

At the end of June, the movie that I have been looking forward to the most is due to come: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. This is a tense spy movie based on the John le Carre novel.

All these movies are due to be shown at Denkikan.

Stone Soup

Have you ever tried Stone Soup? Today I read Stone Soup in the Folk & Fairy Tale Easy Readers series from Scholastic. A man visited a village and said he would make stone soup for everyone, but that it would taste even better if someone could bring a cabbage…an onion…some carrots…some beans. So everyone got to share a delicious meal!

Einhorn, Kama. (2006). Stone soup. New York: Scholastic.

Last day of the season

The last day of the Premier League season was yesterday. Like much of the season, it was very tense and up and down. Manchester United and Manchester City were level on points at the start of the day, but Manchester City were ahead on goal difference, so Manchester City would win the league if they won the match. If they didn't win the match, then they would have to hope that Manchester United didn't win theirs.

Most of the matches started at the same time, and I followed them on the Guardian web site. It looked as if City were going to lose the match until extra time, when City scored two goals in the 92nd and 94th minutes, to win City's first league title in 44 years!

Golden Week

Golden Week was lots of fun this year. In the first half we went to Amakusa, and during that trip we went walking in Tenjiku, which was very beautiful. In the middle of Golden Week, I worked for three days, and then we went camping in Misato-machi. The weather was very good, and we had a relaxing time.

Premier League & F.A. Cup in early May

The Premier League season is almost over. Most teams finished their 37th (out of 38) match yesterday. Both Manchester United and Manchester City won their matches, so now both are equal on points going into the last week of the season, with Manchester City ahead on goal difference. That means that Manchester City will win the league if they win their last match. Their opponent will be Queens Park Rangers, who nearly always lose away from home. But this match is likely to be rather special, because QPR are at risk of being relegated if they don't get some points from the game. In addition, their manager, Mark Hughes, used to be the manager of Manchester City, but was sacked a couple of years ago; and Joey Barton, QPR captain, also used to be a Manchester City player. (138 words)