LADY BIRD, and other matters…

Saoirse Ronan
Greta Gerwig

Today we watched the trailer for Lady Bird, a new movie starring Saoirse Ronan. It is directed by Greta Gerwig, who has become very popular over the last few years as an actress and more recently as a writer and director.

Have you been watching the World Cup? Both England and Japan will play their first matches tomorrow (Japan Time). Please get up at 3 tomorrow morning to watch England!! Japan is playing at 9 in the evening, I think. Go, Okazaki!

I think Spain will win the World Cup. Their first match against Portugal was very exciting.

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Notes on the rest of the semester

1. Remember that there is no class next week.
2. To get a credit, you need at least 10 posts in June and 10 posts in July on your blog (NOT including Speaking posts).
3. Make sure that you have the tags (labels) Book Reviews, Gofun ha Juubun, My Diary, and Trio Writing on your blog.
4. Please finish your list of errors. (Later, we will talk about how to classify and prioritize them.)

Lady Bird, and other matters…

Greta Gerwig
Saoirse Ronan


Today we watched the trailer for Lady Bird, a movie directed by Greta Gerwig and starring Saoirse Ronan. It will come to Denkikan in the middle of next month. Greta Gerwig has been very popular for the last few years as an actress and now as a director. The movie is kind of about her life, and Saoirse Ronan is kind of a young version of her. I like Saoirse Ronan. Recently, I saw her in Brooklyn, and I'm looking forward to seeing her in Lady Bird.

Has anyone been following the World Cup. Spain 3 – 3 Portugal seems to have been a great match! I'm looking forward to England's and Japan's first matches.

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Listening errors

I like watching movie.               movies                singular/plural
I have big family.                       a big family        articles

Unlocked, Isle of Dogs, and other matters…

Unlocked
spy thriller
Noomi Rapace
Orlando Bloom

Isle of Dogs
stop-motion animation
Wes Anderson
Bryan Cranston

Today we saw two movie trailers. The first was for Unlocked, a movie playing now at Denkikan. It stars Noomi Rapace, Orlando Bloom, Michael Douglas, and John Malkovich. It's a spy thriller featuring some kind of plot to attack an American military site in the UK. Rapace's character Alice finds out that there's a mole somewhere in the CIA.

Isle of Dogs is a Wes Anderson stop-motion animated film. Most of the characters are dogs who can talk. It reminds me of his movie from a few years ago, Fantastic Mr. Fox. If you haven't yet seen that movie, I recommend that you check it out. Isle of Dogs is playing now at Hamasen.

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The Ugly Duckling

That made the ugly duckling curious. He looked into the shiny water. Wow! He had grown into a beautiful swan, just like them! (pp. 14-15)

Today, I read The Ugly Duckling, in the Folk & Fairy Tale Easy Readers series from Scholastic. The series features 15 titles, with five copies of each title packaged in a nice, colorful box. Check out the whole series!

The Ugly Duckling is a well-known story written by Hans Christian Andersen. I find the message of the story a little confusing. On the one hand, it seems to celebrate superficial beauty: if you look like a swan, you're going to be fine, but if you look like a duckling, you will be the target of ridicule. On the other hand, it does seem to celebrate self-confidence and also kindness:

From that day on, the once ugly duckling lived happily ever after. And he was always kind to all living things, from peacocks to potato bugs. (p. 16)

The set of books comes with a teacher's guide, with some background and activities to use in class.
Although it's good to read stories with which you are familiar, I recommend that you use this series to familiarize yourself with stories that you haven't read before. Another series that's also good for that is Usborne First Reading. Here are links to levels 1, 2, 3, and 4.

Folk & Fairy Tale Easy Readers: The Ugly Duckling 著者 : Scholastic Teaching Resources 発売日 : 2006-03-01 ブクログでレビューを見る»

Unlocked, and other matters…

Unlocked
Noomi Rapace
Orlando Bloom



Today we watched a trailer for Unlocked, a new movie starring Noomi Rapace, Orlando Bloom, John Malkovich, and Michael Douglas. It's a thriller about a terrorist plot against an American military target in the UK. It's playing at Denkikan now (at 11:10 and 18:30!). It looks rather exciting, and I want to go and see it!

Another movie I want to see is Isle of Dogs, still playing (but only once a day) at Hamasen.

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Some good recent movies

Recently, I watched Deadpool 2. After enjoying Deadpool very much, I was looking forward to it. But I got tired of the metacommentary and wanted to leave early. Some better recent movies are The Shape of Water and Darkest Hour. Darkest Hour stars Gary Oldman, who is also famous for Leon, the Harry Potter movies, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, and so on.

Damascus Cover, Red Sparrow, and other matters…

spy thriller

Jonathan Rhys Meyers

Jennifer Lawrence

Today we watched two movie trailers, both of them spy thrillers. The first one was Damascus Cover, starring Jonathan Rhys Meyers. It's coming out in the U.S. in summer, so will probably come to Japan in winter. The second one was Red Sparrow. That was a Jennifer Lawrence movie that played in Japan a month or so ago. I enjoyed it very much. Actually, I like spy movies very much. Another one that's worth watching is Spy Game, starring Brad Pitt and Robert Redford. A more recent one was Atomic Blonde. And a good old one is The Little Drummer Girl.

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Damascus Cover, and other matters…

Jonathan Rhys Meyers
spy thriller

Mossad agent

Today we watched the trailer for Damascus Cover, a new spy thriller starring Jonathan Rhys Meyers. I don't know Jonathan Rhys Meyers so well, but I think he was in the Woody Allen movie Match Point starring Scarlett Johansson.

The World Cup will be here in a week or so. Who do you think will win? I think Spain will win, but Germany and Brazil are also very strong.

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