The Magnificent Seven, and other matters…

Today we watched the trailer for The Magnificent Seven, a movie starring Denzel Washington, Chris Pratt, Ethan Hawke, and Lee Byung-hun. It's directed by Antoine Fuqua, who also directed Denzel Washington and Ethan Hawke in Training Day, for which Denzel got his second best actor Oscar.  He is one of my favorite actors, so I will certainly watch this movie. It is a remake of the 1960 movie of the same title and that was an adaptation of The Seven Samurai starring Toshiro Mifune.

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Rio: Learning to fly (Scholastic Popcorn ELT Readers)

A man and a white bird looked into the cage.
"Two Spix's Macaws," said the man. He put a chain on their legs. "We're going to be rich, Nigel."
"Very good, Marcel!" laughed the white bird.

Nigel, a white bird, is working with Marcel, a man who wants to become rich by stealing and catching the beautiful Spix's Macaws and selling them. Blu, Linda's Spix's Macaw, and Jewel, Tulio's Spix's Macaw, go to Rio to check the situation and try to rescue some of the Spix's Macaws. But, unfortunately, they are captured right away.

Fortunately, Blu uses his ability to open cages, and his newfound ability to fly, to escape.

This book is a Level 2 book in the Popcorn ELT Readers series from Scholastic. Like the other books in this series, it is based on a movie. I haven't seen Rio, but it sounds interesting. According to Rotten Tomatoes, it stars Jesse Eisenberg and Anne Hathaway. Rio 2, with the same voice actors, also looks interesting.


Davis, F. (2012). Rio: Learning to fly. London, UK: Scholastic.


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Snowden, and other matters…

Today we watched the trailer for Snowden, a new movie by Oliver Stone starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Actually, it has an all-star cast, with Shailene Woodley, Zachary Quinto, Tom Wilkinson, and Melissa Leo. Probably you have heard of Oliver Stone before. He was the director of JFK, Born on the Fourth of July, Platoon, and Wall Street. I'm not sure when it's coming to Kumamoto (if ever), but I hope to see it.

The summer vacation was quite interesting and busy. I went to Thailand and Korea and did lots of other interesting things. I saw the movie Jason Bourne. It was very exciting. It has been very hot this year, though, and today I heard it is going to be 33 degrees Celsius. The summers are getting longer and longer!

The 2016-17 Premier League season has begun. This year Manchester City seems to be very strong, and Stoke, West Ham, and Sunderland seem to be very week. But the season has just begun, so there may be many changes from now until the end.


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