时间:2019-01-17 作者:英语课 分类:2016年NPR美国国家公共电台8月


英语课

Kids' Movies Stand Out This Summer


ALLISON AUBREY, HOST:


It's the dog days of August, a time when the excitement of summer vacation gives way to boredom 1, baking in the heat and waiting for the next school year to start. So we thought it would be a good time to talk movies, specifically kids' movies.


Joining us is Kristen Page-Kirby. She's senior features writer for The Washington Post Express paper. Hi there, Kristen.


KRISTEN PAGE-KIRBY: Hi.


AUBREY: So, Kristen, going into the summer of 2016, we were hearing a dire 2 forecast. The word was it was not going to be a very good year for summer films. Well, some of them turned out to be OK, actually pretty good, but maybe not the ones that we adults would have expected. So tell us more about that.


PAGE-KIRBY: Well, yeah, I mean, it - coming into it, you had the tent-pole films, the superhero films to look forward to. And so you had "Captain America: Civil War" and you had "X-Men: Apocalypse" and you had "Suicide 3 Squad 4." And they were supposed to carry the summer, and they turned out to be almost uniformly terrible. But the bright spots really tended to be the kids' movies. It really got kicked off with "Zootopia," which came out in March.


AUBREY: Right.


PAGE-KIRBY: And then "Finding Dory" and then "Pete's Dragon," which came out just this week, just turned out to be in this terrible, terrible time - the end of August is usually just awful for movies - just this really beautiful piece of film.


AUBREY: What made, for instance, "Dory" stand out as being pretty good?


PAGE-KIRBY: Well, I think it's better than pretty good. I think that what was great about "Finding Dory" is that it routed its problems in real life, even though we're dealing 5 with talking fish. The basic conflict was what if I lose my family?


(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "FINDING DORY")


LUCIA GEDDES: (As Dory) Hi. I've lost my family.


UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character) Where did you see them last?


GEDDES: (As Dory) I forgot.


PAGE-KIRBY: And the answer that the kids got was, first of all, you can form a new family, second of all, your family's going to keep looking for you. And I think that also really resonates with adults because losing people is something that we go through probably more often than we'd like, and so the basis of that film was a very human concern.


AUBREY: Everything's going to be OK.


PAGE-KIRBY: Everything's going to be OK at the end, but it also really recognized that things can be terrible. And things can be terrible when you're a kid. Things...


AUBREY: And I guess that's always a theme in kids' movies. Something horrible happens right in the beginning, and there's a sense, I guess, that, you know, through movies, kids can experience these traumatic things. And it's sort of a proxy 6 or a good training for when something really does happen to you in real life.


PAGE-KIRBY: Right. And I think that's part of it, but I think what's been interesting kind of beginning with "Toy Story" is that kids' movies have started anchoring their problems in the real world. So with "Snow White," for example, you might have a stepmother who doesn't like you or who you don't like. The chances of her being an actual witch that is out to kill you...


AUBREY: (Laughter).


PAGE-KIRBY: ...Is...


AUBREY: Not so real.


PAGE-KIRBY: ...Hopefully pretty small. And so why those movies can function as proxies 7 - and I mean, I think a lot of times we forget that kids are actually human beings and experience a lot of the same emotions that adults - they just don't process it the same way. And so to have these movies that are based more on the human experience, rather than a fairy tale, I think makes for a much more rewarding film.


AUBREY: One of the films I want to talk about is "Pete's Dragon." It opened this week. I saw it in a theater in Silver Spring, Md. The crowd loved it. Kids were laughing. Kids were crying, but not just the kids, also adults. Give us a little thumbnail of what happens in this movie.


PAGE-KIRBY: So it's a boy named Pete. His parents are killed in a car accident in the very beginning of the film, and he is found and protected by a dragon named Elliot. He eventually is discovered by some other people, and he kind of has to make a choice about, you know - Elliot doesn't fit into this new world. There are people that don't believe Elliot exists. There are people that want to capture him, and then, of course, it's, you know - everybody ends up happy at the end.


(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "PETE'S DRAGON")


OONA LAURENCE: (As Natalie) Is Elliot your imaginary friend?


OAKES FEGLEY: (As Pete) What's imaginary?


OONA: (As Natalie) Well, it's where you make someone up in your head, so that you have someone to talk to. It keeps you from being lonely.


OAKES: (As Pete) Are you my imaginary friend, too?


OONA: (As Natalie) I'm real.


OAKES: (As Pete) So is Elliot.


AUBREY: It seems to me that this was really a movie about belief in optimism 8. I loved this line that you wrote in your review this week. You wrote that (reading) our real-life Elliots - Elliot being the dragon we just heard about - aren't dragons. They may be friends or family or maybe our real-life Elliotts is just a sense of optimism, and a world fueled by negativity.


Is that why this movie is resonating with kids and with us, their parents?


PAGE-KIRBY: You know, I think that's part of it. I think part of the beauty of this movie is that it really captures what it's like to be a kid. Think of all the things that you knew when you were a kid that turned out not to be true but helped you cope in a world that didn't make a lot of sense. We like to pretend that we leave those things behind, but our world still doesn't make a lot of sense.


AUBREY: So we need these stories in our lives is what I hear you saying.


PAGE-KIRBY: Oh, yeah. I think I can't imagine living in a world where we can't even just two hours believe in dragons.


AUBREY: Well, listen, thank you so much for joining us. Kristen Page-Kirby is senior features writer for The Washington Post Express.


PAGE-KIRBY: Thank you very much.


(SOUNDBITE OF THOMAS NEWMAN SONG, "FIRST DAY")



n.厌烦,厌倦,乏味,无聊
  • Unemployment can drive you mad with boredom.失业会让你无聊得发疯。
  • A walkman can relieve the boredom of running.跑步时带着随身听就不那么乏味了。
adj.可怕的,悲惨的,阴惨的,极端的
  • There were dire warnings about the dangers of watching too much TV.曾经有人就看电视太多的危害性提出严重警告。
  • We were indeed in dire straits.But we pulled through.那时我们的困难真是大极了,但是我们渡过了困难。
n.自杀,自毁,自杀性行为
  • The number of suicide has increased.自杀案件的数量增加了。
  • The death was adjudged a suicide by sleeping pills.该死亡事件被判定为服用安眠药自杀。
n.班,小队,小团体;vt.把…编成班或小组
  • The squad leader ordered the men to mark time.班长命令战士们原地踏步。
  • A squad is the smallest unit in an army.班是军队的最小构成单位。
n.经商方法,待人态度
  • This store has an excellent reputation for fair dealing.该商店因买卖公道而享有极高的声誉。
  • His fair dealing earned our confidence.他的诚实的行为获得我们的信任。
n.代理权,代表权;(对代理人的)委托书;代理人
  • You may appoint a proxy to vote for you.你可以委托他人代你投票。
  • We enclose a form of proxy for use at the Annual General Meeting.我们附上委任年度大会代表的表格。
n.代表权( proxy的名词复数 );(测算用的)代替物;(对代理人的)委托书;(英国国教教区献给主教等的)巡游费
  • SOCKS and proxies are unavailable. Try connecting to XX again? socks和代理不可用。尝试重新连接到XX吗? 来自互联网
  • All proxies are still down. Continue with direct connections? 所有的代理仍然有故障。继续直接连接吗? 来自互联网
n.乐观,乐观主义
  • Don't pour cold water on their optimism.别给他们的乐观态度泼冷水。
  • Optimism made him alive through the hard days.乐观主义使他在艰难的岁月里活了下来。
学英语单词
'Eid ul-Adha
american-traineds
amidocaproic acid
assay-dish
backstairs
banki
blear
brattery
Bursa suprapatellaris
caps and lower case
carcenet
Cassia agnes
catseye
characteristic poly-nomial
chaumontel
class organization
colobomas
cytogenous gland
data tracks
deciduous dentition
dimensional method
distribution of fertilizer by aircraft
double auction market
druze
dry-sump lubrication
Elatine ambigua
electrolytic growth
ethnic dance
exiters
floor covering
floor head
fully-automatic switching system
game-ball
gamfexine
genus charronias
graphite brick work
hanging dryer for fur
holographic tranducer
hop,skip,and jump
house style
inactive zone
Jaggarnat
Joutseno
jugomaxillary points
Kharāju
labilise
lambiness
lance type burner
low-pressure cylinder
magnetic-flux meter
Mohometanism
mucino-
natural wonder
naydra
North Tyneside
OGRS
oleandrin
Ouija boards
outer-arc ridge
outlawries
over great distances
oxychalcophile elements
oxygenated
passive filter
permaphase
photo electromagnetic cell
phyllocaerulein
Phytodiniaceae
pre-Socratics
program model
pure oscillation
push-through die
quasi-international law
rami collateralis
Rana swinhoana
reflown
reignition voltage of arc
relational tree
relative blade temperature
resistor termination
retention money
rhabdospheres
rotational brownian motion
smiter
smith-god
space launcher
stepped attenuator
subdiffusive
Sânpaul
teindable
tetramethylpyrazine
time vernier
tradescants
tropidopheid
Turkoman carpet
two-pass horizontal regenerator
units in operation
Venezuela mahogany
video telephone set
Western Abnaki
whiskey tango foxtrot
width of point