时间:2019-01-04 作者:英语课 分类:2006年VOA标准英语(六月)


英语课

 By Alan Silverman
Hollywood
18 June 2006
 
  
  
A popular musical variety show on public radio in the United States is the inspiration for a gently funny new film directed by Robert Altman and written by the creator of the radio show, Garrison 1 Keillor.


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For more than 30 years, listeners tuned 2 in to hear guest stars join the regular cast for a potpourri 3 of live music and homespun humor with a mid-western twang. This show is different, though. The radio station has been sold and the new owners are pulling the plug on A Prairie Home Companion.


Garrison Keillor writes and hosts the real public radio show and in his script for the film he gave A Prairie Home Companion a host known by the initials 'G.K.' "I just always assumed there would be an actor playing me. I had hoped there would be ... and then he just didn't show up," he said.



Garrison Keillor, Lily Tomlin, Meryl Streep and Lindsay Lohan in A Prairie Home Companion   
  
A stellar cast did show up, however, including Lily Tomlin and Meryl Streep as a country music sister act, Lindsay Lohan as Streep's morose 4 teenage daughter and Kevin Kline as a rundown detective moonlighting as the show's security man. Much to Keillor's chagrin 5, these actors would often improvise 6 instead of just reading his script. "Here you are, you've spent weeks ... literally 7 hundreds of hours ... working on this and they, just in a twinkling of an eye," he says, "feel that they can improve on this? Where does that come from?"


The screen comedy is directed by 81-year-old Robert Altman and radio man Keillor appreciates what the veteran filmmaker did. "Robert Altman's contribution to the movie is making it move," he says. "There is motion. Things happen. My contribution is that people say words. Those are mostly mine. Robert Altman is a movie guy. I am an essayist."


Comic actress Lily Tomlin is paired with Oscar-winner Meryl Streep, who says, "I just love to sing and never get the chance."


As the action moves between backstage and the on-air radio show, there is always music and Streep says that made this film fun for her. "The hardest thing to get over in movie-making is the stop-start-stop-start, going out to the Winnebago [trailer], coming back an hour later when the lights are set and beginning again [and] to reintegrate into the story and the world and to feel like, when people see it, that it all is a breathing entity 8 [and] all makes sense. What this had was Rich Dworsky, this amazing musician, who has the band behind; and the music never, ever stopped. Even when the cameras were off, people would be noodling, somebody would go over, Kevin would sit down and play the piano, somebody would start singing a song ... and we never left the movie," she says.


Among the entertainers: rambunctious 9 and ribald singing cowboys Dusty and Lefty played by screen veterans John C. Reilly and Woody Harrelson. "It's so funny because I always think to myself. 'Woody, you just have to not go over the line in terms of the scene.' You have to be true to the scene. I try to caution myself. Man, you check out Meryl Streep and Kevin Kline and Lily Tomlin. I was in a room with some scene-grabbers you would not believe," he says. "These are classic scene-stealers. They have every trick in the book. So I thought 'okay, I don't feel so bad now.'"


All the music in A Prairie Home Companion was performed for the cameras on the stage of the Fitzgerald Theater in Saint Paul, Minnesota - home base of the actual radio show. The film's cast also includes Tommy Lee Jones as the heartless corporate 10 official; and Virginia Madsen plays a mysterious woman who lurks 11 backstage during the show.



n.卫戍部队;驻地,卫戍区;vt.派(兵)驻防
  • The troops came to the relief of the besieged garrison.军队来援救被围的守备军。
  • The German was moving to stiffen up the garrison in Sicily.德军正在加强西西里守军之力量。
adj.调谐的,已调谐的v.调音( tune的过去式和过去分词 );调整;(给收音机、电视等)调谐;使协调
  • The resort is tuned in to the tastes of young and old alike. 这个度假胜地适合各种口味,老少皆宜。
  • The instruments should be tuned up before each performance. 每次演出开始前都应将乐器调好音。 来自《简明英汉词典》
n.混合之事物;百花香
  • As tobacco cigarette burns,a potpourri of 4000 chemicals is released,including carbon monoxide and hydrocyanic acid.当烟被点燃时,融合了四千种化学品的气体被释放出来,其中包括一氧化碳和氢氰酸。
  • Even so,there is a slight odour of potpourri emanating from Longfellow.纵然如此,也还是可以闻到来自朗费罗的一种轻微的杂烩的味道。
adj.脾气坏的,不高兴的
  • He was silent and morose.他沉默寡言、郁郁寡欢。
  • The publicity didn't make him morose or unhappy?公开以后,没有让他郁闷或者不开心吗?
n.懊恼;气愤;委屈
  • His increasingly visible chagrin sets up a vicious circle.他的明显的不满引起了一种恶性循环。
  • Much to his chagrin,he did not win the race.使他大为懊恼的是他赛跑没获胜。
v.即兴创作;临时准备,临时凑成
  • If an actor forgets his words,he has to improvise.演员要是忘记台词,那就只好即兴现编。
  • As we've not got the proper materials,we'll just have to improvise.我们没有弄到合适的材料,只好临时凑合了。
adv.照字面意义,逐字地;确实
  • He translated the passage literally.他逐字逐句地翻译这段文字。
  • Sometimes she would not sit down till she was literally faint.有时候,她不走到真正要昏厥了,决不肯坐下来。
n.实体,独立存在体,实际存在物
  • The country is no longer one political entity.这个国家不再是一个统一的政治实体了。
  • As a separate legal entity,the corporation must pay taxes.作为一个独立的法律实体,公司必须纳税。
adj.喧闹的;粗鲁的
  • Their rambunctious son always got into trouble.他们那个不受管束的儿子老是惹麻烦。
  • It's not the chirping,rambunctious play that they did when they first arrived.他们现在已经不像刚开始见面那会儿,总是冲着对方乱叫,或者在玩耍时动作粗暴。
adj.共同的,全体的;公司的,企业的
  • This is our corporate responsibility.这是我们共同的责任。
  • His corporate's life will be as short as a rabbit's tail.他的公司的寿命是兔子尾巴长不了。
n.潜在,潜伏;(lurk的复数形式)vi.潜伏,埋伏(lurk的第三人称单数形式)
  • Behind his cool exterior lurks a reckless and frustrated person. 在冷酷的外表背后,他是一个鲁莽又不得志的人。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • Good fortune lies within Bad, Bad fortune lurks within good. 福兮祸所倚,祸兮福所伏。 来自互联网
学英语单词
agreed valuation
air displacement
albunea okinawaensis
all purpose communication system
Bagerhat District
beginning with
box-handling crane with grab
bulkhead deck
bunodophoron formosanum
channel plan
cocomposer
command mix
commuterdom
complexity editing
coronary artery disease
corrected thrust
cycle theory
demerara sugar
Deri motor
distributed architecture
drupa ricina ricina
Edison bridge
efferent(centrifugal)nerve
enjoy your meal
Erysiphe
exogenous disease
extruder screw
exudation
Farinales
filter bowl gasket
floating head exchanger
flood way district
flow sensing unit
freezing hole
fucosterols
future batch
gear pair with addendum modification
Georgian Orthodox church
glomerular epithelial cell disease
goacher
goodquality
grape-kernel oil
hedrich
image sensor type measurement instruments
interseptal structure
label mapping
lambsdorff
landing wheel
lay a cable
left common iliac artery
local prediction
magnolia delavayi franch.
makin' whoopee
McLennan County
methionine-enkephalin
Millett, Kate
na-na na-na na-na
nonprostatomegaalic
nuttle
outdoor pig keeping system
outest
Panolid
paper-filter
parasympathomimetic
parasyphilcsis
part-time farm household
pCF3
phytocoenosiumtype
pipe-bomb
poikilothermic
quebracho colorado
r. frontalis (n. frontalis)
rate of distance variation
rating of propulsion system
reiksguard
republics of bulgaria
respiratory centre
revolutionarity
rocket sciences
self-starting synchronous motor
short tunnel
sight feed gage
slipway with wedge type launching
solenoid-operated circuit breaker
spark proof
standard colorimetric system
subcurve
subensemble
sympathetic string
Synthetoceras
TCPIP
Thallobionta
Tintina
to proceed to a berth
tramegger
tuntun
unreduced oxide particle
upheave
volitional check
webspinner
wenningtons
winning run