C



C.U.D.A

Advanced English

Project:

“Movie Review”

Cinthia Bonfil

Noelia Gentili

-2005-

Introduction:

To do this project, we will choose two movies. The first one is “The Butterfly Effect” and the second one is called “10 Things I Hate About You”. We look for each one’s plot and also a positive and a negative critic about them.

Our aims with this project are:

• To identify which are the elements of a movie review.

• To find the words that allow us to express when a critic is positive or negative.

• To learn which lexical items give the review an evaluative character.

The Butterfly Effect: Plot

A young man (Kutcher) struggling with the psychological effects of sublimated childhood memories devises a technique of traveling back in time to inhabit his childhood body, but he finds that every trip back has unintended results on his present self, leading him to travel back again and again, trying to repair the damage that he's only making worse and worse.

Favourable Critic: “Surpising performance and amazing story”

First off, the story. The story was very well thought out. I don't think that the previews did justice for the movie. The movie was very deep and leaves the viewers think. It conveys ideas which most people have thought of at least in one time of their life. Everyone has wanted to go back in time to change something. This movie tries to tell us what could happen if we did have the power to change things in our lives.

Leaving the story for you to discover, who knew that a guy who said "DUDE!! SWEET!!" 5 times in a movie called "Dude, Where's my car" can deliver such an amazing performance. I did not once in the movie remembered how stupid Ashton kutcher's movies/roles were. He was serious in the movie and he was the perfect person for the movie.

Conclusion, go watch it and you'll see what a great movie this is. It will definitely make you think and ponder about what life could be like.

Unfavourable critic: “The Butterfly Defect”

This movie was a painful 2 hours of theatre experience. Not only was the story completely stupid, but the acting by Ashton Kutcher was fairly awful. I love him as Kelso on That 70's Show.. and he was great in Dude, Where's my Car? But Kutcher was wrong in trying to branch out into this psycho- thriller drama. It's very hard for him to pass a brainiac solving the deepest issues of the human mind. The story had several flaws as well. I left the theatre wishing that I hadn't come in the first place. A truly AWFUL movie.

|ADJETIVE |VERB |NOUN |ADVERB |

|Well |Love | |Definitely |

|Deep | | |Completely |

|Amazing | | |Fairly |

|Stupid | | | |

|Serious | | | |

|Perfect | | | |

|Great | | | |

|Awful | | | |

|Painful | | | |

|Hard | | | |

|Wrong | | | |

Rewrite a paragraph and change the negative words into positive and viceversa:

First off, the story. The story was very bad thought out. I don't think that the previews did justice for the movie. The movie was very superficial and leaves the viewers think. It conveys ideas which most people have thought of at least in one time of their life. Everyone has wanted to go back in time to change something. This movie tries to tell us what could happen if we did have the power to change things in our lives.

Leaving the story for you to discover, who knew that a guy who said "DUDE!! SWEET!!" 5 times in a movie called "Dude, Where's my car" can deliver such an ordinary performance. I did not once in the movie remembered how intelligent Ashton kutcher's movies/roles were. He was funny in the movie and he was the faulty person for the movie.

Translate this words to their antonyms:

|Well |Bad |

|Deep |Superficial |

|Amazing |Ordinary |

|Stupid |Intelligent |

|Serious |Funny |

|Perfect |Defective/Faulty |

|Great |Ordinary/unimportant |

|Awful |Beautiful |

|Painful |Beneficial |

|Hard |Simple |

|Wrong |Right |

|Definitely |Uncertain |

|Completely |Partial |

|Fairly |Unfairly |

|Love |Hate |

10 things I hate about you: Plot

'10 Things I Hate About You' is a movie we have seen so many times before, containing all the usual clichés, but somehow works because of its stars Julia Stiles and Heath Ledger. Loosely based on Shakespeare's 'The Taming of the Shrew' this is a high school comedy that understands you need to use the stars in a nice way to get away with the flaws. The movie introduces Kat (Julia Stiles) and Bianca Stratford (Larisa Oleynik). Kat is beautiful but hated by most people because of her strange "I hate it all"-attitude, her younger sister Bianca is beautiful too, and loved by pretty much every guy in school. Cameron (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is one of those guys and he wants to take her to the prom. There are two small problems. Macho Joey (Andrew Keegan) likes the girl too (1), and she can not go to the prom because her sister is not going (2). Their father has a rule that Bianca can go out only when her sister does that, the prom is no exception. Cameron and his friend Michael (David Krumholtz) make up a plan where they suggest to Joey that he has to pay someone to take Kat to the prom. Joey likes the idea and he hires Pat Verona (Heath Ledger) who, of course, falls in love with Kat for real. We know certain things will happen, we know who will end up with whom, but why bother if it is done in a nice way?

Favourable Critic:

What is nice about it? Well, some jokes are nice, but that is only one thing. I almost always like Stiles (just do not watch 'The Prince & Me') who is more like a normal girl than an actress and here I have to admire Ledger and the strange sweetness he brings to his smile. If I was a girl, I would probably like that guy. The Bianca vs. Joey vs. Cameron plot is another nice thing. In a way it is only there to support the main storyline that involves Kat and Pat, but it gets enough screen time to become nice itself. And then there are the supporting characters. Krumholtz does an accident job as Cameron's sidekick getting a lot of laughs. I also liked a study counselor played by Allison Janney and a teacher named Mr. Morgan (Daryl Mitchell). They have the scenes with the hardest laughs. In the end this is nothing more than a charming high school comedy. It is simple, yes, but if you have to pick one from this genre you might as well give this one a chance.

Favourable Critic:

Light, safe, enjoyable little tale of the teenage world, boasts a couple of charming and utterly convincing performances from its two stars, quite a few chuckle-as-you-go-along jokes, and a surprisingly believable component of depth within a few well-developed movie characters. Okay, so it's not perfect, I mean it still has a couple of the one-dimensional players that we find in all teenage flicks, along with the proverbially boring ritual of one guy introducing another to the various cliques in a high school (Wow, what a concept!), but overall, it plays well because of its non-stop pace, the interesting relationship between the sisters, and most of all, the enjoyable and engaging performances by stars-to-be Heath Ledger and Julia Stiles.

Little sister, Larisa Oleynik, also played her cutesy role to a tee, even managing to add some credibility to her first-thought-of-as-one-dimensional role. There were also plenty of romantic scenes in this movie, which are sure to set any girl's eyes a-flutter (Mrs. JoBlo almost fluttered her way out of her seat during the touching serenade in the soccer field scene). Having said that, I think that I could have done without another "prom scene" or some of the out-of-place eighties tunes playing during a party of sixteen year olds (Do any of them even know who the Thompson Twins are??), but all in all, this film managed to hook me into its net of romance, fluff, comedy and teenage shenanigans. Mix that in with an utterly entertaining presentation by the way of the overly cautious father, Larry Miller, and the funniest teacher to hit the big screen in a long while, Daryl "Chill" Mitchell, and you've got yourself a pleasant time at the movie garage, or a decent nite of home video.

|Verbs |Adverbs |Nouns |Adjectives |

|charming |utterly |light |safe |

|interesting |surprisingly |sweetness |enjoyable |

|Like | | |perfect |

|admire | | |boring |

| | | |engaging |

| | | |entertaining |

| | | |funniest |

| | | |pleasant |

| | | |well |

| | | |Nice |

| | | |simple |

Rewrite a paragraph and change the negative words into positive and viceversa:

What is unpleassant about it? Well, some jokes are disgusting, but that is only one thing. I almost always hate Stiles (just do not watch 'The Prince & Me') who is more like a normal girl than an actress and here I have to look down on Ledger and the strange unkindness he brings to his smile. If I was a girl, I would probably like that guy. The Bianca vs. Joey vs. Cameron plot is another nice thing. In a way it is only there to support the main storyline that involves Kat and Pat, but it gets enough screen time to become nice itself. And then there are the supporting characters. Krumholtz does an accident job as Cameron's sidekick getting a lot of laughs. I also liked a study counselor played by Allison Janney and a teacher named Mr. Morgan (Daryl Mitchell). They have the scenes with the hardest laughs. In the end this is nothing more than a charmless high school comedy. It is hard, yes, but if you have to pick one from this genre you might as well give this one a chance.

Translate them to their antonyms:

|charming |Charmless/disgusting |

|interesting |Depressing/boring |

|utterly |Incompletely/uncertain |

|surprisingly |Common/usually |

|light |Complicated/gloomy |

|well |badly |

|safe |unreliable |

|enjoyable |Displeasing/unsatisfying |

|perfect |defective/faulty |

|boring |Entertaining/absorbing |

|engaging |Repulsive/unattractive |

|entertaining |boring |

|funniest |The most serious/ hardest |

|pleasant |unpleasant |

|admire |Detest/look down on |

|like |hate |

|sweetness |unkindness |

|nice |Unpleasant |

|simple |Complicated/hard |

Conclusion:

We think this project was really useful for us because it let us learn how to identify the elements that we need to make a movie review. Also it showed us the different kinds of critics, favourable and unfavourable. We could realize which critics were positive or negative by recognizing the lexical items.

In addition, we could learn that the plot is written in a objetive way, while the critic is always subjective because it’s a personal opinion. That’s why the evaluation depends on what each one likes.

To make a movie review, we have to care about the story, the staff and their perfomance, the scenary, the music, and the other technical sources.

Sources:







.ar

Oxford dictionary

Encarta 2000

Merrian Webster`s Pocket Dictionary

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