This A2 article is based on The Emoji Movie released on 18 October. Gene is an emoji who lives in Textopolis, a digital city inside a smartphone. While all other emojis express only one emotion, he can make ‘the wrong face’ because he was born without a filter, and he is desperate to become ‘normal’. … Continue reading “Emoji Time”
Worldwide, we send 6 billion emojis a day to accompany or replace text in messages. So it was only a matter of time till someone made a film in which emojis come to life. The Emoji Movie is based on the idea that each emoji can only have one facial expression and one tone. Smiler’s … Continue reading “Emoji Speak”
Twenty years after Mrs Brown, Judi Dench returns to cinema screens as Queen Victoria, in another true story of the Queen’s friendship with one of her servants: Abdul Karim. The story of the widow Victoria’s relationship with John Brown was well documented. He was the gamekeeper on her beloved Scottish Highland estate where she spent … Continue reading “Victoria and Abdul”
The 2017 Nobel Prize for Literature has been awarded to British-Japanese novelist Kazuo Ishiguro whose work includes The Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go. A more conventional choice than the 2016 winner, singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. Ishiguro, 62, was born in Nagasaki, Japan, but arrived in Britain at the age of five. His … Continue reading “Nobel Prize for Novelist Kazuo Ishiguro”
From 27 September to 1 October, Dinard will celebrate the 27th edition of its British Film Festival. The winners’ statuettes for the festival are “Hitchcocks”, and the trailer for the festival sets a suitably eccentric British tone with an Alfred Hitchcock lookalike participating in a Busby Berkeley-style synchronised swimming routine. The films in this year’s … Continue reading “Hitchcock’s Home in Dinard”
Al Gore’s Climate Reality Project site is a mine of materials to work on the environment. Many of them are regrouped under Climate 101. That is also the title of a downloadable 18-page booklet which would be perfect for use with B1-B2-level students. An excellent document for working on Education aux médias is this 5-minute … Continue reading “Climate Change Webpicks”
In 2006, the documentary The Inconvenient Truth made Al Gore into the most prominent ecologist on the planet. Gore won a Nobel Prize for its impact on public opinion about climate change. Ten years on, An Inconvenient Sequel shows the positive changes that have been made, and Gore’s tireless work in continuing to promote solutions … Continue reading “Al Gore: Still Saving the Planet”
After the Deauville American film festival and before the Dinard British film festival, Dieppe will host its fourth Canadian Film Festival from 20 to 26 September. Like the country it honours, the Dieppe festival is multilingual, with films in French, English and the Inuit language Inuktitut in competition. The festival trailer gives a taster of … Continue reading “Canada Comes to Dieppe”
“A Ghost Story”, “Brooklyn Yiddish”, “The Rider” win Prizes at 43rd Deauville American Film Festival. David Lowery’s A Ghost Story is the big winner of the 43rd Deauville American Film Festival winning three awards on 9 September : the Jury Prize the Revelation Prize the Critics’ Prize A Ghost Story is a supernatural drama with Casey Affleck and Rooney … Continue reading “2017 Deauville American Film Festival winners”
The cream of Hollywood talent will be on display once more on the Normandy coast from 1 to 10 September for the 43rd Deauville American Film Festival. The festival seems to expand every year and now includes not just the feature-film competition, tributes and premières, but a selection of documentaries on American themes and “Season … Continue reading “Hollywood on Sea”