LEARNING TASK M4 LA 4: REVIEW
Task 1
Read these two movie reviews, then analyze
them by comparing the social function, generic structure and language features
between those reviews!
Movie
Review 1
Peace of Autumn
Cliff
(Joseph Arnone) is a suicidal war vet.
Kora
(Daniella Alma) is a street artist with a penchant for truth-telling and
meaning.
When
their paths cross, they change each other's life forever within the short span
of a unique yet believably authentic friendship. It's a friendship that leads
them down a path they could have never anticipated.
A Peace of
Autumn is
an intellectually satisfying and emotionally resonant film that tackles the
challenge of two quite substantial characters within the span of a short film
running just over seventeen minutes in length. Both characters end up being
people you want to know, Cliff's despair obvious and real and filled with the
kind of rage that intimidates yet compels. It's also easy to understand exactly
what draws Kora into the situation, perhaps something within herself as both a
human being and an artist - if, indeed, one can actually separate those two
anyway.
Joseph
Arnone, who stars in the film along with serving as writer and director,
creates such a multi-layered character that you're never completely clear where
everything is going, while Daniella Alma's Kora oozes compassion and
vulnerability. Together, the two create a story that draws you in even when you
think, and I stress think, you have everything figured outArnone also lenses
the film and he does so with an eye toward the awkward intimacy that exists
between these two, a friendship borne out of what is both spoken and unspoken
between the two A Peace of Autumn has only recently been finished
and should have no problem finding a home on the indie and underground film
fest circuit where its heartfelt story will companion a program of dramatic
shorts quite nicely
Movie Review 2
A Beautiful Silence
It was only a year or so ago that I found myself reaching yet another
crossroads in my faith journey. After having attended seminary and grown in
ministry within my Anabaptist denomination, I found myself disillusioned by not
just belief systems but how those belief systems were being lived out within the
life of the denomination.
The more I grew in leadership, the more it bothered me. So, I turned in
my ministry license and moved away from a ministry path that I I found
conflicting even as I loved the many people I'd gotten to know over the years.
I thought about this faith journey often while watching Steven Adam
Renkovish's meditative and thought-provoking short film A Beautiful
Silence, a film that he professes was at least partially borne out of
his own disillusionment with the church and the legalism contained within.
What A Beautiful Silence projects so beautifully is that
divine awkwardness found between faith and doubt, an awkwardness that longs for
authenticity yet reaches and too often finds artificial expressions of the
divine experience.
While it may sound like A Beautiful Silence is a
faith-based film, it is not a faith-based film. While it may very well resonate
most deeply with progressive Christians, I'd also dare say that those who've
led a more disciplined spiritual life will identify with the doubts and fears
and anxieties expressed by Brittany Renee Smith in the film. Smith, who also
co-wrote the film, gives a relaxed, natural performance that feels less like
performance and more like we've become observers to a journey deep within her soul.
While some who've praised A Beautiful Silence have
mentioned Malick and Von Trier, I found myself contemplating the works of Van
Sant, especially films such as Gerry and the recent The
Sea of Trees, the latter being a film a good majority of the world seemed
to hate yet I adored.
A Beautiful Silence is a refreshingly
honest film, not entirely devoid of hope yet also refusing to create a false
sense of hope for the sake of somehow honoring the faith journey. The film has
already been an official selection at over a dozen indie film fests, while it
Renkovish picked up the prize for Best Director at the Franklin County
International Film Festival. The film has also been nominated for prizes at the
Blackbird Film Fest and Smoky Mountain Film Festival.
Filmed in and around Greenville, South Carolina, A Beautiful
Silence captures the simple beauty of the surroundings yet also
captures the wounded soul of a young woman struggling with God, faith, meaning
and the world around her. It's an experience that is likely familiar to many
persons of faith, yet an experience not often portrayed with such honesty on
the big screen.
A Beautiful Silence doesn't project easy
answers. Indeed, that appears to be an intentional choice as the journey itself
isn't easy and the answers you may discover will be uniquely your own. If
there's a divine purpose behind A Beautiful Silence, it's
the realization, perhaps, that we are not alone in our faith and we are not
alone in our doubts and wherever we go there's at least a sliver of hope that
we can discover somewhere, someway within that beautiful silence.
© Written by Richard Propes
The Independent Critic
The Independent Critic
http://theindependentcritic.com/a_beautiful_silence
Complete
the Following Table Analysis
Component
|
A
Peace of Autumn
|
A
Beautiful Silence
|
|
1.
|
Social Function
|
to appreciate
or to critic a movie.
|
to appreciate
or to critic a movie.
|
Generic
structure
|
Orientation/Introduction:
Cliff (Joseph
Arnone) is a suicidal war vet.
Kora (Daniella
Alma) is a street artist with a penchant
for truth-telling and meaning.
When their paths
cross, they change each other's life forever within the short span of a
unique yet believably authentic friendship. It's a friendship that leads them
down a path they could have never anticipated.
Evaluation:
A Peace of Autumn
is an intellectually satisfying and emotionally resonant film that tackles
the challenge of two quite substantial characters within the span of a short
film running just over seventeen minutes in length.
Interpretative
recount:
The two create a
story that draws you in even when you think, and I stress think, you have
everything figured out.
Evaluative
summation:
Arnone also
lenses the film and he does so with an eye toward the awkward intimacy that
exists between these two, a friendship borne out of what is both spoken and
unspoken.
|
Orientation/Introduction:
It was only a
year or so ago that I found myself reaching yet another crossroads in my
faith journey.
Evaluation:
A Beautiful Silence is a refreshingly honest film,
not entirely devoid of hope yet also refusing to create a false sense of hope
for the sake of somehow honoring the faith journey.
Interpretative recount:
A Beautiful Silence captures the simple beauty of
the surroundings yet also captures the wounded soul of a young woman
struggling with God, faith, meaning and the world around her. It's an
experience that is likely familiar to many persons of faith, yet an
experience not often portrayed with such honesty on the big screen.
Evaluative summation:
A Beautiful Silence doesn't project easy answers.
|
|
3.
|
Language features
|
Adjective:
Clear, awkward.
Complex Clause :
When their paths cross, they change each other's life forever within the
short span of a unique yet believably authentic friendship.
Metaphore:
A friendship
borne out of what is both spoken and unspoken.
Tense:
Present simple and past simple
|
Adjective:
Faith, doubt, good, hate, honest, easy.
Complex Clause :
·
I thought about
this faith journey often while watching Steven Adam Renkovish’s meditative
and thought-provoking short film A Beautiful Silence.
·
While it may
sound like A Beautiful Silence is a faith-based film, it is not a faith-based
film.
·
While it may very
well resonate most deeply with progressive Christians, I’d also dare say that
those who’ve led a more disciplined spiritual life will identify with the
doubts and fears and anxieties expressed by Brittany Renee Smith in the film.
·
While some who’ve
praised A Beautiful Silence have mentioned Malick and Von Trier, I found
myself contemplating the works of Van Sant.
Metaphore :
An experience not
often portrayed with such honesty on the big screen.
Tense:
Present simple and past simple
|
Task 2
Read
the movie review text entitle Round Trip then answer the questions!
Round
Trip
The Rover meets Groundhog Day with a touch of
Mad Max in this short Australian comedy, written and directed by Ren
Thackham. Round Trip is a
blisteringly funny journey into the wild where anything can, and does, happen.
Danny Bolt plays Constable Rose, a charming and
likeable cop hoping for the easy transport of a prisoner in the back of his
police car. Said prisoner, Ned (Lee Priest), is anything but cooperative
though, and seeks escape at his first opportunity. However, their current
location is in the massive unknown that is the Australian outback, where
strange things start to happen.
Brilliantly filmed, wickedly funny, and
intelligently paced, Thackham steers with both hands on Round Trip for a thrilling and controlled
viewing experience. The laughs come when they are supposed to, especially from
the banter between Priest and Bolt. One of my favourite moments is when Bolt’s
police officer talks about wanting a tattoo to the largely inked Ned. It was a
perfect example of great timing and characterisation.
The location is used spectacularly. With the
unforgiving sun a constant menace, contrasting wonderfully with the
breathtaking landscapes and endless horizons. There are also some pretty
impressive stunts thrown in for good measure, with Constable Rose’s cop car
being flipped a couple of times.
It was fantastic to see Thackham’s script hold
up to the strain of attempting multiple genres. The coalescing elements of
comedy, action, mystery and horror could so easily have been too much for
another filmmaker to hold their balance, but Thackham holds the reins tighter
than Ned’s skin-tight vest against his bulging muscles. The lines are funny
throughout and there is a genuinely compelling degree of peril and intrigue
from the storyline. To say much more would spoil it but you should most
definitely seek this film out.
I would perhaps have liked a little bit more
exposition than is given. Only to help me invest more into the two characters
and the dangerous situation they find themselves in. That being said, the
charisma of the performers goes a long way to assist this. The performances are
excellent, Priest playing the unstable criminal with impressive amounts of
humour. Bolt is utterly hilarious as the Aussie officer, delivering some of the
most memorable moments in Round Trip.
Everything I have said in this film review goes
a way to attest to the splendour of Thackham's short film, but two words come
to mind if you are looking for a more concise conclusion. Fair dinkum.
Answer the following
questions!
Questions
|
Answer
|
1. What is the genre of this movie?
A.
Science fiction
B.
Drama
C.
Action
D.
Tragedy
|
C.
Action
|
2. Which one of these statements is true according to the
text?
A.
The performance
is great but it is ruined by the unstable criminal played by Priest
B.
The set of
location is comfortable for the movie actors
C.
The characterization
is not precisely characterized by the director
D.
The most
memorable scene is played by Bolt
|
D.The most
memorable scene is played by
Bolt
|
3. The word ‘Throughout’ in the paragraph 5 has the
closest meaning with …
A.
Passing
B.
All over
C.
Exclude
D.
In the certain
time
|
B.
All over
|
4.
What is the
reviewer true intention in giving the review about the movie?
A.
To tell that the
movie is hilarious
B.
To describe about
the spectacular set of location
C.
To prove how
excellent the movie is
D.
To describe the
character in the movie
|
C.
To prove how excellent the movie is
|
5. What is main idea of the fifth paragraph?
A.
The good
steadiness of the multiple genres in the movie
B.
The multiple
genres in the film
C.
The multiple
genres that is awfully executed by the director
D.
There are too many
genres in one short film
|
A.The good
steadiness of the multiple genres in the movie
|
6. What is the story about?
A.
A cop and a
prisoner who did something fun in the journey to the prison
B.
Two men that
found something strange in their journey
C.
A prisoner that always
tries to escape from the back of the police car
D.
A cop that
struggling in guarding the prisoner at the back of his seat
|
C.
A prisoner that always tries to escape from the back of the police car
|
7. Which one of these words that has the closest meaning with
‘splendor’?
A.
Awful
B.
Spell
C.
Majesty
D.
Drought
|
D.
Drought
|
8. These statements are true according to the text except
…
A.
The writer cannot
handle the compilation of the genres in this movie
B.
The actor is
acted like the way director want it to
C.
The actor assist
the movie with his charisma
D.
The set of the
location is extremely hot
|
A.
The actor is acted like the way director want it to
|
9. How is the way of the reviewer giving the review?
A.
The reviewer talk
only about his experience in watching the movie
B.
The reviewer gives
a piece of the scene and then gives a review about it
C.
The reviewer only
tells about his feeling towards the movie
D.
The reviewer talk
about how great Thachkam is
|
A.
The reviewer only tells about his feeling towards the movie
|
10. Below here are things that is reviewed by Olson except
…
A.
The filming
location
B.
How Thachkam
managed to balance all the genres
C.
The
characterization followed by a piece of scene
D.
The summary of
the movie
|
A. The filming
location
|
Task
3
Read the following novel reviews, Identify the reviewer,
the topic and the social function of each novel!
Review 1.
A BROTHERHOOD OF SPIES
Book Page Top Pick in Nonfiction,
May 2018
The Cold War between the
U.S. and Russia was at its iciest from the early 1950s until well into the
1960s. Neither side knew a great deal about the other’s military capabilities
and even less about any grand designs for world supremacy. The information the
two superpowers did possess came mostly from spies, diplomats, gossip and news
reports. Although securing reliable intelligence was clearly in the Pentagon’s
interest, its chief focus was on improving its weaponry. However, the nascent
Central Intelligence Agency was interested in experimental aerial
reconnaissance projects.
Into this jurisdictional
minefield entered four inordinately talented civilians who took it upon
themselves to build and test technology that might reveal what was actually
happening in Russia: Edwin Land, the inventor of the first Polaroid camera and
a genius in the field of optics; Kelly Johnson, an engineer who zeroed in on
designing lightweight, high-flying aircraft that could photograph the Russian
landscape while, ideally, evading radar detection; Richard Bissell, a
Connecticut blue blood the CIA assigned to oversee and facilitate the hush-hush
project; and Francis Gary Powers, one of the daredevil pilots selected to test
the new spy plane, which they called the U-2. Powers would later be shot down
over the Soviet Union in the U-2, sparking even more saber-rattling.
Among the more colorful
characters traipsing through this wide-ranging narrative are the bulldoggish
General Curtis LeMay, J. Edgar Hoover, the influential and socially well-connected
columnists Joseph and Stewart Alsop, the surprisingly restrained and canny
Nikita Khrushchev, John F. Kennedy and Ian Fleming, the creator of James Bond,
who regarded Powers as a coward and traitor because he didn’t kill himself
before being captured by the KGB.
A story as well told as
Monte Reel’s A Brotherhood of Spies is
an irresistible call to binge-reading.
https://bookpage.com/reviews/22569-monte-reel-brotherhood-spies#.Wus7-siFPIV
Review 2
THE
MAP OF SALT AND STARS
Two
lives, a thousand years apart
Among the many things
the violence of war obliterates, perhaps the most malicious is history. Now in
its seventh year, the civil war that has turned Syria into the site of one of
the world’s worst humanitarian crises has also corseted one of the oldest
societies on earth into a kind of perpetual infancy. Syria, it sometimes seems,
only began to exist seven years ago, as a place defined only by its current
calamity.
In many ways, The
Map of Salt and Stars is at once a testament to the
brutality of the current Syrian conflict and a reverent ode to ancient Arabian
history. Syrian-American writer Jennifer Zeynab Joukhadar has crafted an
audacious debut, ambitious and sprawling in both time and space.
The book follows the
story of Nour, a Syrian-American girl living in New York. In 2011, after Nour
loses her father to cancer, her mother decides to move the family back to Homs
to be close to their extended family. But Nour’s arrival coincides with Syria’s
slide into civil war. Amid grotesque violence, Nour is made a refugee, a
traveler through Syria’s neighboring lands.
Almost a thousand years earlier, another
girl’s story unfolds. Rawiya, seeking a better life for her mother, disguises
herself as a boy and joins a legendary cartographer on a quest to map the known
world.
The two stories unfold
side by side, split by time but joined by a common geography. Because the
modern part of Joukhadar’s narrative carries the urgency of the present tense,
but the ancient half reads like an old Arabian fairy tale, the dual story
structure is at first jarring. But soon the book finds its pace, and the
intertwining tales complement each other in ways a single narrative could not.
A swooping bird of prey that threatens to devour the ancient story’s traveling
companions finds its modern-day analogy in the form of Syrian fighter planes
dropping bombs on besieged cities.
There is a heartfelt
quality to the story, evident in the meticulous historical research that must
have gone into the creation of the ancient part of the book. The
Map of Salt and Stars presents an Arab world in full
possession of its immense historical and cultural biography, marred by its
modern tragedies but not exclusively defined by them.
https://bookpage.com/reviews/22549-jennifer-zeynab-joukhadar-map-salt-stars#.Wus9vMiFPIU
Review 3
WARLIGHT
Growing
up in the wreckage of war
Learning who you are
and, perhaps more importantly, who you are meant to be isn’t easy. Nathaniel
Williams, the young hero of Michael Ondaatje’s latest novel, Warlight,
spends much of his adolescence and later years pondering this.
The author of the
Booker Prize-winning The English Patient, Ondaatje
confounds his 14-year-old protagonist from the outset when the boy’s parents
announce they are going away for a year and that he and his 15-year-old sister,
Rachel, will be left in the care of a strange acquaintance known as the Moth, a
man they are certain is a criminal. In 1945 England, at the end of World War
II, Nathaniel and Rachel must adjust to their newfound parental abandonment and
accept the Moth’s warning “that nothing was safe anymore.”
As narrated through
Nathaniel’s intimate firsthand perspective, the siblings test their new
guardian by rebelling at school. But instead of meeting a stern lashing for
their behavior, they are surprised by the Moth’s calm understanding and
protective demeanor. Equally surprising is the cast of unusual characters
associated with the Moth who wind up staying at their house, including Norman
Marshall, better known as the Pimlico Darter, a smuggler and racer of greyhound
dogs.
The siblings drift
further from each other as Nathaniel finds a surrogate father in the Darter and
Rachel is drawn closer to the Moth. Events cascade with the surprising return
of their mother, Rose. But this isn’t a cheerful reunion, as her abandonment
and silence about her secretive service in the war have a profound effect on
her children and leave more questions than answers—questions that plague
Nathaniel well into adulthood and long after his mother’s death.
Contemplative and mysterious, Warlight is
utterly engrossing.
Complete the following table based on the
review texts 1,2, and 3
The Identification of the reviewer, the topic and the social function
of each novel
Review 1
A Brotherhood of Spies
|
Review 2
The Map of Salt And Stars
|
Review 3
Warlight
|
|
Name of
Reviewer
|
Edward Morris
|
Omar El Akkad
|
G. Robert Frazier
|
Topic
|
A thrilling dramatic narrative of the top-secret Cold War-era spy plane
operation that transformed the CIA and brought the U.S. and the Soviet Union.
|
The story of a contemporary girl's flight into exile from the Syrian
civil war is deepened by the parallel tale of a 12th-century girl.
|
A story tells us about 14-year-old Nathaniel and his sister Rachel whose
parents having moved to Singapore near the end of World War I.
|
Social Function
|
to appreciate or to critic a
novel.
|
to appreciate or to critic a
novel.
|
to appreciate or to critic a
novel.
|
Task
4
Read
the following novel reviews, Identify the reviewer, the topic, and the social
function of each review
Review 1
THE
MARS ROOM
Woman
behind bars
BookPage Top Pick in Fiction, May
2018
Much of the action of
Rachel Kushner’s brilliant new novel is set in California prisons. She has done
her research, and the novel is filled with distressing factual details like
death-row inmates sewing sandbags and prison staff using a powerful, probably
toxic disinfectant called Cell Block 64. And of course there are the
stultifying, dehumanizing prison routines.
But the moral scope
of The Mars Room is really too large for it to
be considered a prison novel. Through its vividly rendered characters, it asks
the reader to ponder bigger questions—Dostoyevskian questions—about the system
of justice, the possibility of redemption and even the industrialization of the
natural landscape.
The novel’s central
character is Romy Hall. We meet her as she is being transported from a Los
Angeles jail to Stanville, a prison in California’s agricultural heartland
where she is to serve two life sentences. She is 29, born to a cruel mother in
a San Francisco neighborhood that bears little resemblance to the high-tech
mecca of today. She is the mother of a young son she worries about obsessively.
Until she fled a stalker by moving with her son to Los Angeles, she hustled as
a lap dancer at a place called the Mars Room in downtown San Francisco. We
don’t learn the details until late in the novel, but we know that because of
her ineffectual lawyer, she ends up in prison for killing her stalker.
Kushner (Telex from Cuba, The Flamethrowers)
is both tough and darkly funny in writing about her characters’ situations, and
she writes not so much for us to empathize with them, but rather to understand
them. The Mars Room is a captivating and beautiful
novel.
Review 2
MY
EX-LIFE
As
we stumble along
Stephen McCauley’s
bittersweet seventh novel gives the lie to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s
pronouncement that there are no second acts in American lives. Because for all
their missteps, the angst-ridden characters that populate My
Ex-Life seem determined, in their endearingly flawed ways,
to make the best of their unique circumstances.
Most of the novel’s
action unfolds in the slightly shabby seaside resort of Beauport, just north of
Boston. It’s home to Julie Fiske and her restless daughter, Mandy, who’s on the
cusp of high school graduation. In the midst of a fractious divorce and
pressured by her husband to sell the rambling home they once shared, Julie
reaches out to her first ex-husband, David Hedges, a college admissions
consultant, in a desperate bid to help her daughter and bring order to the
chaos of her life. David left Julie three decades earlier after discovering his
true sexual orientation, and he now lives in San Francisco, where he faces his
own real estate crisis—an impending eviction.
McCauley seasons the
novel with a liberal helping of the anxieties of contemporary American life,
chief among them upper-middle-class parents’ apprehension about their
children’s futures and aging baby boomers’ regret that life’s brass ring will
always be just out of reach. He excels in some wickedly funny scenes that
depict Julie’s fumbling efforts to turn her home into an economically
productive Airbnb, as well as a tender portrayal of the odd sexual tension that
bubbles up during Julie and David’s reunion. They’re the sort of people who
know their lives possess all the ingredients for happiness, but who seem to
have lost the recipe. For all the idiosyncrasies of McCauley’s creations, it’s
likely many readers will see aspects of their own lives reflected in these pages.
https://bookpage.com/reviews/22552-stephen-mccauley-my-ex-life#.Wus_pMiFPIU
REVIEW 3
MR.
FLOOD'S LAST RESORT
Watch
your step
What do you get when a cantankerous
old hoarder in a decrepit mansion collides with a world-weary caregiver who has
a reluctant talent for communing with the dead? The answer is Jess Kidd’s
imaginative second novel, Mr. Flood’s Last Resort,
an enchanting thriller that disarms and delights.
When Maud Drennan is
assigned to look after Cathal Flood, all she knows is that he has managed to
run off his previous caregivers through a combination of psychological warfare,
booby traps and outright hostility. However, Maud is made of stronger stuff
than her relatively plain appearance would suggest, and she arrives at Cathal’s
doorstep ready for a fight. With dogged determination, Maud slowly enters into
an uneasy truce with the inscrutable old man, but she also comes to realize
that there is more to Cathal—and his property—than meets the eye.
While the moldering
manor house is filled with decades-old detritus and an army of slightly feral
cats, it is also a mausoleum of secrets, potentially lethal ones. When Maud
learns about the suspicious circumstances surrounding the death of Cathal’s
wife—and the house begins to offer up clues regarding a cold case that eerily
echoes memories from Maud’s traumatic childhood—she knows it is up to her to
uncover who Cathal Flood truly is and to appease the restless spirits that
haunt the halls of his home.
Unique and
unconventional, Mr. Flood’s Last Resort is
an unforgettable mystery that will appeal to fans of Tana French and Sophie Hannah, as it
charms and unsettles in equal measure. Kidd (Himself)
deftly balances whimsy and humor with a genuine sense of malice and danger.
Savvy readers will question who can be trusted, as nothing—not even Maud—is as
it initially seems.
The
Identification of the reviewer, the topic, and the social function of each
review
Component
|
REVIEW 1
THE MARS ROOM
|
Review
2
MY
EX-LIFE
|
Review
3
MR.
FLOOD'S LAST RESORT
|
Name of Reviewer
|
Alden Mudge
|
Harvey Freedenberg
|
Stephenie Harrison
|
Social Function
|
To appreciate
novel
|
to appreciate
a novel
|
to appreciate and to critic a novel
|
Generic structure
|
Orientation/
Introduction
Much of the action of Rachel Kushner’s brilliant new
novel is set in California prisons.
Evaluatioan:
The moral scope of The Mars
Room is really too large for it to be considered a prison novel.
Interpretative recount:
The novel’s central character is Romy Hall. We meet her
as she is being transported from a Los Angeles jail to Stanville, a prison in
California’s agricultural heartland where she is to serve two life sentences.
She is 29, born to a cruel mother in a San Francisco neighborhood that bears
little resemblance to the high-tech mecca of today. She is the mother of a
young son she worries about obsessively. Until she fled a stalker by moving
with her son to Los Angeles, she hustled as a lap dancer at a place called
the Mars Room in downtown San Francisco. We don’t learn the details until
late in the novel, but we know that because of her ineffectual lawyer, she
ends up in prison for killing her stalker.
Evaluative summation:
The Mars Room is a
captivating and beautiful novel.
|
Orientation/
Introduction:
Stephen McCauley’s bittersweet seventh novel gives the
lie to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s pronouncement that there are no second acts in
American lives.
Evaluatioan:
The angst-ridden characters that populate My Ex-Life
seem determined, in their endearingly flawed ways, to make the best of their
unique circumstances
Interpretative recount:
Most of the novel’s action unfolds in the slightly
shabby seaside resort of Beauport, just north of Boston. It’s home to Julie
Fiske and her restless daughter, Mandy, who’s on the cusp of high school
graduation. In the midst of a fractious divorce and pressured by her husband
to sell the rambling home they once shared, Julie reaches out to her first
ex-husband, David Hedges, a college admissions consultant, in a desperate bid
to help her daughter and bring order to the chaos of her life. David left
Julie three decades earlier after discovering his true sexual orientation,
and he now lives in San Francisco, where he faces his own real estate
crisis—an impending eviction.
Evaluative summation:
For all the idiosyncrasies of McCauley’s creations,
it’s likely many readers will see aspects of their own lives reflected in
these pages.
|
•Orientation/Introduction
What do you get when a cantankerous old hoarder in a
decrepit mansion collides with a world-weary caregiver who has a reluctant
talent for communing with the dead?
Evaluatioan:
The answer is Jess Kidd’s imaginative second novel, Mr.
Flood’s Last Resort, an enchanting thriller that disarms and delights.
Interpretative recount:
When Maud Drennan is assigned to look after Cathal
Flood, all she knows is that he has managed to run off his previous
caregivers through a combination of psychological warfare, booby traps and
outright hostility. However, Maud is made of stronger stuff than her
relatively plain appearance would suggest, and she arrives at Cathal’s
doorstep ready for a fight. With dogged determination, Maud slowly enters
into an uneasy truce with the inscrutable old man, but she also comes to
realize that there is more to Cathal—and his property—than meets the eye.
While the moldering manor house is filled with
decades-old detritus and an army of slightly feral cats, it is also a
mausoleum of secrets, potentially lethal ones. When Maud learns about the
suspicious circumstances surrounding the death of Cathal’s wife—and the house
begins to offer up clues regarding a cold case that eerily echoes memories
from Maud’s traumatic childhood—she knows it is up to her to uncover who
Cathal Flood truly is and to appease the restless spirits that haunt the
halls of his home.
Evaluative summation:
Unique and unconventional,
Mr. Flood’s Last Resort is an unforgettable mystery that will appeal to fans
of Tana French and Sophie Hannah, as it charms and unsettles in equal measure
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Language feature
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Adjective:
Brilliant, dehumanizing,
worries, captivating, beautiful.
Complex
Clause :
Until she fled a stalker by moving with her son to Los
Angeles, she hustled as a lap dancer at a place called the Mars Room in
downtown San Francisco.
Metaphore:
She is the mother of a young
son she worries about obsessively.
Tense:
Present simple and past
simple
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Adjective:
Best, divorce and pressured,
funny.
Complex Clause :
He excels in some wickedly funny scenes that depict
Julie’s fumbling efforts to turn her home into an economically productive
Airbnb, as well as a tender
portrayal of the odd sexual tension that bubbles up during Julie and David’s
reunion.
Metaphore:
In their endearingly flawed
ways, to make the best of their unique circumstances.
Tense:
Present simple and past
simple
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Adjective:
disarms and delights,
charms and unsettles,
malice and danger.
Complex Clause:
-When Maud Drennan is
assigned to look after Cathal Flood, all she knows is that he has managed to
run off his previous caregivers through a combination of psychological
warfare.
-However, Maud is made of
stronger stuff than her relatively plain appearance would suggest, and she
arrives at Cathal’s doorstep ready for a fight.
-While the moldering
manor house is filled with decades-old detritus and an army of slightly feral
cats, it is also a mausoleum of secrets, potentially lethal ones.
Metaphore:
There is more to Cathal—and
his property—than meets the eye.
Tense:
Present simple and past
simple
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Part 2: Constructing Review
Reading Review
1.
To read Review text
Writing Review
1.
To determine the social function of the review text
2.
To write the background and summary of the book or movie
3.
To write the evaluation and intrepetation
4.
To write the Evaluative Summation : The last opinion consisting the appraisal or the
punch line of the art works being criticized.
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Task 5
Choose one of
your favorite novel then write your review briefly!
Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, & the Wardrobe
C.S. Lewis
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The Lion, the
Witch & the Wardrobe. What an interesting name to those who
may not have heard it before. I will not spend much time summarizing the plot
of this fairy tale, which has threads of Christian theology throughout. It
tells the tale of four siblings—Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy– who leave for
the English countryside during air raids in London during WWII. They
stay at the large house of a distinguished professor and find a magic
wardrobe during a game of hide-and-seek that leads them to another world, the
world of Narnia.
Narnia is a
magical world, with fauns, talking animals and centaurs and a white witch
holding the whole of the realm under her dictatorship. The white which, who
represents Satan, tricks the young boy Edmund into betraying his siblings and
all of what is good in Narnia. In the story, there is a lion named Aslan (who
represents Christ) who comes to save Edmund—and all of Narnia–from the
clutches of the white witch.
There is no
way to capture the power of the story without reading it. Even theatrical and
movie depictions cannot do justice to the way Lewis brings the character of
Christ to life, as well as the meaning of his atoning death.
In an age
that admires non-Christian fantasy books, parents, children and people of any
age would do better to read this first installment of the Narnia series. Not
only is it well written, it turns our hearts to eternal matters. Skeptics who
have their guard up against any preaching or ordinary ministry may find that
they can best hear God’s voice where they least expected to – in a children’s
book.
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Task 6
Choose one of your favorite film then write your review
briefly!
The Greatest Showman (2017)
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Inspired by the ambition and imagination of P.T. Barnum, The Greatest
Showman tells the story of a visionary who rose from nothing to create a
mesmerizing spectacle that became a worldwide sensation.
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The Greatest Showman
is an unabashed piece of pure entertainment, punctuated by 11 memorable songs
composed by Oscar. The film is made for the whole family
to enjoy, and so it leaves out many of the darker elements (explored in the
1980 Broadway musical Barnum, music
by Cy Coleman). This is a difficult tightrope to walk, but
credit is due to Gracey, a perfectly cast Hugh Jackman, and the entire cast, who play this
story in the spirit in which it was written (by Jenny Bicks and Bill Condon). "The Greatest Showman" positions itself as a
story celebrating diversity, and the importance of embracing all kinds.
The film
starts with the title song "The Greatest Show," a show-stopper with
repetitive thumping percussion (reminiscent of Queen's ferocious "We
Will Rock You"). Hugh Jackman—in red impresario's coat and top hat—takes
us on a dazzling tour, with cinematographer Seamus
McGarvey keeping
the movements fluid, and all the actions connected, plunging you into the
center ring.
During the next number, "A Million
Dreams" the young and poor Barnum (Ellis Rubin) befriends a well-bred
little girl named Charity Hallett (Skylar Dunn), and they dream of creating their own
destiny. This is the first time in "The Greatest Showman" where a character
stops speaking and starts to sing instead; the segue is gracefully handled,
setting up the artificial device early on. If you don't set up that trope
with confidence, it makes it look like you're embarrassed to be doing a
musical. By the end of the song, the little boy has become Hugh Jackman and
the little girl has become Michelle Williams, leaping and twirling across the
rooftop of their tenement, bed sheets on the line billowing to the
beat.
After
struggling to establish himself, Barnum launches out on his own, creating a
theatre in the heart of New York City. He gathers together people with
special talents as well as those with physical abnormalities (a giant, a
bearded lady, Siamese twins, a dwarf—who would eventually be known as General
Tom Thumb, Barnum's first "breakout star"). The
"audition" sequence is extremely tricky, but the tone is set by
Jackman's inclusive delight at the parade of humanity before him. It's a
moment when ignored people are for the first time really seen.
Lettie Lutz, the "bearded lady,"
played by Tony-nominee Keala Settle, with a powerhouse voice, is one of the
first to come on board. Settle's performance—her first major role onscreen—is
one of the many keys to why "The Greatest Showman" is so effective. She
understands the spirit of the project, and you watch her transformation from
cringing shame to fearless Diva. Her anthemic "This Is Me" is one
of the emotional centers of the film. Barnum's business partner is playwright
and society boy Phillip Carlyle (Zac Efron), with snobby parents who are not only
horrified at his "slumming,” but also at his romance with an
African-American trapeze artist (Zendaya) who sports a pompadour of cotton-candy
pink hair. Their love story, as presented, is tender, pained, and sweet.
Rebecca Ferguson plays Jenny Lind, the
"Swedish Nightingale," whom Barnum took on a whirlwind concert tour
through America It was his entryway into "polite" society. Jenny
Lind's power ballad "Never Enough" makes you understand why Barnum,
backstage, falls in love with her instantly, throwing his marriage into
crisis. Ferguson may be lip-synching to Loren Allred's breathtaking vocals,
but it is her performance that carries.
Ashley Wallen choreographed the numbers and
there are many innovative moments, where she uses the outer environment to
inform the movements of the characters. In "The Other Side," Barnum convinces a reticent
Carlyle to join the circus, and as he sings, the bartender puts down shot
glasses, swipes the bar with a cloth, all as accents to the beat. The real
standout, however, is "Rewrite the Stars," the love song between
Efron and Zendaya,taking place in the empty circus tent, when she flies on
the trapeze far above him, and he tries to climb up the ropes to meet her.
Up, down, they both go, sometimes coming together, dangling above the ground,
or sweeping in a wide circle together around the periphery of the tent. It is
a moment when the film with every element onscreen merges and transforms into pure emotion. This is
what a musical can do like no other artform.
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