We asked several teachers and authors who attended Festival America book festival in Vincennes in September to give us their favourite picks amongst the authors and books they encountered. Isabelle Brefort, who teaches at Lycée Jean-Baptiste Corot, Savigny-sur-Orge (91), recommends: The Mothers by Brit Bennett Can a secret ruin lives? Can our choices shape our … Continue reading ““The Mothers”, a Coming-of-Age Story”
We asked several teachers and authors who attended Festival America book festival in Vincennes in September to give us their favourite picks amongst the authors and books they encountered. Cécile Sempéré-Brun, who teaches at Lycée Raynouard, Brignoles (83), recommends: The Verdun Affair, by Nick Dybeck A novel about love and loss, forgetting and remembering. Reading … Continue reading ““The Verdun Affair”, Love and Loss in WWI”
We asked several teachers and authors who attended Festival America book festival in Vincennes in September to give us their favourite picks amongst the authors and books they encountered. Gerald Kenny, who teaches at Lycée Saint-Sernin, Toulouse (31), recommends: The Barrowfields by Phillip Lewis Nobody gets the parents they deserve, and Henry Aster is no … Continue reading ““The Barrowfields”, a Haunting Family Tale from North Carolina”
Jean-Michel Basquiat, one of the most remarkable American painters of his generation is the subject of an exhibition at the Fondation Louis Vuitton, from October 3, 2018 to January 14, 2019. From 1980 to 1988, Jean-Michel Basquiat managed to impose his underground style in the streets of New York, a city where hip-hop, graffiti and … Continue reading “Basquiat by Vuitton”
Well known for slow-burn, humanistic character study films, who would have thought that for his English-language debut, Jacques Audiard would have chosen one of the most characteristically American of genres, the Western? Adapted by Jacques Audiard and Thomas Bidegain from Patrick deWitt’s 2011 novel, The Sisters Brothers reinvents the Western in a sensitive story about … Continue reading “Brothers Out-laws…”
A Star Is Born is so popular with Hollywood that the new version with Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper is the fourth feature film based on the “rags to riches” fame story. We thought it would be interesting to compare the trailers for the four versions. The first two versions of the story are set … Continue reading “Teaching with Trailers: A Star is Born”
A Star is Born stars Bradley Cooper and music superstar Lady Gaga, in her first leading role in a major film. Cooper makes his directorial debut with this third remake of a classic Tinseltown story. In this new take on the tragic love story, Bradley Cooper (“Very Bad Trip “, “Happiness Therapy”, “American Sniper”, “American … Continue reading “Born Again”
The House with a Clock in its Walls is the new film adaptation of a well-loved American children’s book. With witches, warlocks, ghosts and a haunted house, it’s perfectly themed for Halloween. In classic children’s-fiction style, the hero of The House with a Clock in its Walls and the 11 books that followed is an … Continue reading “Haunted House for Halloween”
The House with a Clock in its Walls is a new film adapted from a classic of American children’s literature. This sequence uses one of the film’s trailers to work on Halloween vocabulary and revise clothes vocabulary with A1+ students. Language and structures : a/an plural of nouns pronunciation of the plural “s” ending invariable adjectives … Continue reading “The House with a Clock in its Walls”
Aretha Franklin, dubbed “the Queen of Soul”, was one of the most influential musicians in the U.S. charts. She won 18 Grammy awards but also made a massive contribution to the civil rights movement: her songs would become their anthems. Aretha Franklin grew up in the 1950s in Detroit, where her father was a popular … Continue reading “The Soul of Civil Rights”
