Common Talk Weeklyshuang yu zhou kan

Editor's words
Bumped into a fantastic movie, read an absorbing book, or listened to a great CD recently? If you are still seething with excitement, then why not drop us a few lines and enable our readers to share your feelings? Do it right now! Send your English review to vivi@xmrb.com (400 words or less) and receive some cash once it has been printed.

编者的话
最近是否欣赏到精彩的电影,书籍,或是CD? 如果至今还令你回肠荡气不能平静的话,不妨把感受写下来与我们的读者共享. 现在就开始行动,往vivi@xmrb.com里发英文短评吧(字数在400字内). 一经采用,必有稿酬.

 

Hidalgo
By Lily Yang



"Hidalgo" is the name of a mustang(野马). The word comes from Spanish, which means mixed breed horse. "Hidalgo" is also a film. It tells us a story about a multiracial cowboy that is a brave racer, and his loyal mustang, Hidalgo.

The hero, Frank T. Hopkins, won many long-distance horse races in America. He made a name for himself as an excellent endurance horse racer. His trusty mustang Hidalgo was his great partner. In the movie, he is invited to take part in a horse race, "The Ocean of Fire", a noble but treacherous(暗藏危险的) 3,000-mile horse race across the Arabian Desert. In the horse race "The Ocean of Fire", the horse racers not only fight against treacherous weather, but also a bunch of conspiring competitors, who want to win the prize and are willing to take any action, even illegal, to win.

The sponsor of the competition is a noble sheikh(族长). One of the racers, a prince from another Arabian tribe, also enters the competition. If he becomes the champion, he will marry the sheikh's lovely daughter. Like in many movie plots, the prince is wicked, so the beautiful princess isn't willing to marry him. She chooses Hopkins to help her. She supplies some essential desert food and useful advice for the hero. In return, our hero saves the princess's life in a bloody clash. You can image what might have happened. However, their love is forbidden so nothing happens. The princess could only remove her veil and show her pretty face to Hopkins.

The desert storm, the invisible enemies, the high temperature and the lack of water make the difficulty of the race unimaginable. All of these factors test the racers' strength of will and also the horses' loyalty to their lords. In the end, our hero Hopkins wins the competition, of course. However, it is a pity that he cannot win over the princess because of their whopping(异常大的) differences in societal position and religious beliefs.

At the end of the movie, Hopkins sets his mustang Hidalgo free. Hidalgo runs freely and fast among a flock of wild horses. What a spectacular scene it is! And it is very touching; especially for those animal rights protectors. I am also one of them.

By the way, the actor of Hopkins is Viggo Mortenson (Aragorn in "Lord of the rings"). I like him very much because he is very handsome and so cool.

 

 

Somebody like you
By 厦门音乐广播 高翔



欢迎阅读阳光调频Sunshine FM,今天的短文里我们来认识Keith Urban(凯斯·厄班). 他是第47届格来美奖最佳乡村男歌手的5个获提名者之一. 获提名的专辑是他去年的那张"Be here", 有一首很舒缓的歌曲 "Making memories of us",很受听众的欢迎.

第一次听到Keith Urban是在2002年的年底,听到他当年的那张专辑《Golden Road(金光大道)》,里面的一首歌叫做"Somebody like you",真好听啊!属于比较城市化的乡村歌曲,节奏很快,电吉他的编排无比好听. 听起来很阳光,很振奋,很舒服,感觉是那种特别适合用来为自己加油鼓劲的音乐. Keith Urban的嗓音也很特别,不同于美国"千人一嗓"的乡村歌手(很多美国乡村男歌手的嗓音听起来大同小异).

Keith Urban是来自澳大利亚的乡村歌手,1967年出生,准确地说,是来自新西兰,因为他出生于新西兰,6岁的时候家人送他到澳大利亚,开始学习吉他演奏,后来在澳大利亚发展他的乡村音乐爱好. 他的爱好来自于父亲的影响,他的父亲对美国音乐有着浓厚的兴趣. 1997年,他移师到美国田纳西州的Nashville(纳什维尔),乡村音乐之都来拓展他的乡村音乐生涯,发表了他来到美国后的第一张专辑《Keith Urban》.

Keith Urban的吉他弹得相当了得,你从他的音乐中就可以感受到. 而他的吉他得到了两个著名吉他手的真传,一个是Fleetwood Mac乐队的吉他手Lindsay Buckingham,另一个是"恐怖海峡"的主唱/吉他手-Mark Knofler.

 

 

Kinship, friendship & love
By Yajun Wang



A friend once said to me, you can not get tired of watching Forrest Gump even after several times. Each time you watch it, you get a new perception of it. Awarded as the best movie of the 67th Oscar Awards, it has attracted audiences all over the world through its themes of kinship, friendship and love.

We can see the strong kinship shown in this movie. Born with a very low I.Q. score of only 75, the main character of this movie, Forrest Gump, was refused from entering ordinary school. However, his mother did not lose heart. She tried her best to let her son enjoy equal opportunity with other children. And this great tough mother finally succeeded in bringing her son from primary school to university.

The second theme is friendship. After entering the school, "stupid" Gump was disliked by almost everyone except a girl with the "sweetest voice in the whole wide world"-Jenny. And it was Jenny, his only good friend throughout his childhood, that let him know what friendship was. While Gump was a soldier he went to the battlefield in Vietnam and got along well with a black soldier, Buba. The theme of friendship culminated when Gump stood before Buba's grave and told Buba of his success in realizing Buba's dream of buying a shrimp boat.

The third theme of this movie is love. Jenny and Gump in the end got married. Their love is the most common one, but the dearest and greatest in this world. Forrest Gump, who was a "stupid" man, became the happiest man in the world with his mother's affection and his friends' friendship and love. And Forrest Gump's life experience reminds me of three famous proverbs: "blood is thicker than water", "a friend in need is a friend indeed", and "it is love that makes the world go around ".

 

 

 

The Stepford Wives 《复制娇妻》
Director导演: Frank Oz 弗兰克·奥兹

Starring主演:Nicole Kidman 妮可·基德曼 / Matthew Broderick马修·布罗德里克

Genre 类型: Comedy / Drama / Thriller 喜剧/剧情/惊悚

Plot outline: What does it take to become a Stepford wife, a woman perfect beyond belief? Ask the Stepford husbands, who've created this high-tech terrifying little town, in a very modern comedy-thriller.

 

Resident Evil: Apocalypse 《生化危机2》
Director: Alexander Witt 亚历山大·维特

Starring:Milla Jovovich 米拉·乔沃维奇 / Sienna Guillory 西娜·盖尔勒

Genre类型: Action / Horror / Sci-Fi 动作/恐怖/科幻

Plot outline: After an outbreak in a top-secret facility, Umbrella ponders on covering up their mistakes by releasing the deadly Nemesis to eliminate surviving STARS members in Raccoon City.