Hi! I am Julia, 32 years old and i am from germany. To improove my english, I use to watch films in english. The last one was
TWILIGHT!
Great! I love this film. Perhaps we can talk about it here and help each other. My writing is very bad, i am sorry, but that`s what I am here for.
Greetings from sunny Germany.
Jule
Actually your writing isn’t too bad at all. I can’t say that I like Twilight very much… but I’m a boy… I would prefer that girlish movies stay away from the vampire genre but I guess there’s room for ‘love’ in every genre… What else do you watch?
I also study English and also looked Twilight without translation.
I mainly watch movies without translation with Russian subtitles.
I like Desperate Housewives.
Excuse me for grammatical errors;-)
When you say “without translation”, do you mean that you watched Twilight with English audio (and maybe Russian subtitles)? Not to degrade the effort, but in Sweden every non-Swedish TV program and movie is broadcasted in the original language. I have heard that it’s not the case in Russian, Germany, France and Spain.
“Twilight” is for me too boring. Works of Tim Burton are much more intresting.
Hello everybody!
I think is great to see films with english audio to help learning. I am trying it also with TV shows (here in Brazil some shows we can switch to the original or translated audio).
About twilight, I haven´t seen it. But I agree with hippo, Tim Burton´s films are very very good. I am waiting to see “Alice in wonderland” in imax! Has anybody seen it?
Hi! I lve movies too! The least film I’ve watched was Starstruck (disney movie). I loved this. The music are great and I can’t stop to sing! This week I’ll watch Alice in wonderland! I waiting to see this movie a several time. I love Tim Burton, and Dep and Helena B. Carter! I love Disney movies too and I always wach Disney’s serials and movies. I like scary movies too, and every week I go at the cinema. This week I watched Case 39. A really good movie.
Twilight, I felt, was an empty movie. It’s a love-hate situation here in the states. Many believe Stephanie Meyer and Tim Burton simply made their films to take advantage of the cult-like fan-base they have gained over time by making an easy movie that would appeal to them, produce large amounts of merchandise and wait for the fans to bite.
Which is exactly what I believe Stephanie Meyer did. Her books are empty love stories following a female that is, at times, hard to like as a character because of indecisiveness and her underdeveloped character and back-story. The vampire characters don’t follow any proper lore to fit in. The shiny vampire idea seems incredibly thrown together. Avoiding the sunlight simply because they become distractingly beautiful? Honestly, it just doesn’t sound right.
If I have nothing to complain about in terms of the lore, the characters are underdeveloped. In the movie, I could generally care less about Edward. He is arrogant, haughty and a general I-know-all-but-I-don’t attitude towards everything. His family is the same way too. I nearly turned off my television when I heard Alice in one scene say “Here comes the human.” It was an uninspired line, an awful transition between scenes, gave no insight into the family what-so-ever, and made me less interested in the family as a whole. Which is disappointing, because Ashley Greene is a beautiful actress that could have done a better job if she was given better material.
Finally, the actress that played Bella also has a lot of work to do. She is an excellent actor, but her performance in Twilight and New Moon was poor. She had a hard time expressing facial emotions and she seemed relatively cold and emotionless throughout the films. However, I would say New Moon was better than Twilight.
If you would like to see a good vampire film, try Day-breakers. 
I’ll give my insight on other movies soon. I’m a huge movie buff so I tend to watch them often. Note: I’m not bashing anyone’s taste. I’m simply criticizing. Take care.
I noticed how aggressive my post was. Sorry. 
Hi! Either as native English speakers, or as keen language learners/ movie lovers, or both - could you, please, suggest films that would be great from the perspective of learning / improving English (to start with).
Some criteria to such movies (Complexity of the language is not a factor) :
- must be, first of all, interesting to see;
- lots of speech, many dialogs;
- OK to watch more than once, great if remain enjoyable if watched the third and forth time.
- appeal to a wide audience (but not necessary of the “family” genre)
Or please suggest your criteria.
I guess that movies of the so called “dating” genre, e.g. “Before Sunset”, “Sleepless in Seattle”, As Good As It Gets", or very old “The Appartament” - would be all good. I like the “Dogville” with Kidman, but it is a kind of “tough”. What do you think? I am bad at American and English culture, movies, the actors, producers etc. But actually, I need the taste and perspective of a potential user, who is not necessary a Canadian, American or British. Thanks for all suggestions.
A good, classic American film? 12 Angry Men. Engaging and enlightening. Also gives insight into the American judicial system. Also, PLENTY of dialogue.
Thanks Xatoka! It is interesting that I have already listed this film as very suitable on my own. The more pleasant it is to see the same opinion. This film was my first acquaintance with Henry Fonda. Strangely, my wife didn’t like it as much as I did. That’s why I started from asking about the dating genre, where, usually, out tastes match 
.
Recently, the Russians also made their own remake of 12 Angry Men, with the typical Russian concerns of the new Russian jurymen. I say new Russian jurymen, because they had been canceled by the Bolsheviks and was restored only recently. The American film is better than the Russian remake, IMO
It may be less appealing than the work it was based off, but I am interested in this Russian remake. Care to give the exact title? I’m a Russian student.
The name of the Russian remake is simply “12”, the producer is Михалков.
I thought I’d find the DVD at my home but I have failed thus far. While looking for it, I was asking the opinion of my wife’s aunt, a Russian monolingual 73 ages old, who watched it more attentively than me 2 or 3 years ago. Her opinion is - “very powerful”.
She also reminded me that, in the remake, the boy saved was a Chechen one, being accused of killing his adopt father, a Russian officer. Paradoxically, just these days the Russians are again about canceling the institute of the juremen /women, when someone is accused in a terrorist action. Why?
Here is an English link about “12”:
http://www.villagevoice.com/2009-03-04/film/12-remakes-12-angry-men-in-russia/
John, I live in such a “Russian” area of Toronto where, I believe, it is very easy for me to get this DVD. I would be glad to find and mail it to your address if you wish.
It’s fine. I have an international film store in the city I live in. If it was popular, I’m sure I can find it there. I have a friend that works there as well. If not, I will find it somewhere for order on the Internet.
I appreciate your offer, though.
Please, more suggestions for the films you consider as good for language learning
Hi Barayn! I saw most of Twilight and read about half the book.To be honest, I didn’t enjoy it a terrible amount. I actually was really into the book when I was reading it, but after trying to pick it up again a year and a half later I couldn’t get past a single page without laughing aloud. I think it’s really “cheesy.” IMHO, the movie wasn’t much better either.
A movie I saw a couple of months ago was, of course, Avatar, which I saw twice. I really liked it the first time around, but the second time I felt like it really dragged on. Maybe it’s because it’s not the greatest thing in the world to go out and watch a movie more than once while it’s still in theaters. In addition, I felt it reminded me a little too much of the old Disney animated classic from the nineties called “Pocohontas.” Oh well; that’s just me.
In any case, I love musicals, one of my favorites being Hairspray (LOVE that movie!). Mamma Mia! was pretty good too, aside from some questionable content. And of course, there’s Grease, but that one’s so good that it doesn’t even really need to be mentioned.
Besides all that, I’ve seen some anime films, and the ones I’ve seen I’ve become at least somewhat obsessed with. Probably one my top-ten favorite movies of all time would have to be “Princess Mononoke,” directed by Hayao Miyazaki (=my favorite director^^). Of his movies I also really enjoyed “Howl’s Moving Castle” and “Ponyo” (pure bliss;)).
I haven’t seen a lot of German movies before. I did see a Swiss one called “Vitus,” which was interesting and rather different from what I’ve seen before. It wasn’t in Hochdeutsch though, it was in Swiss German, but I was surprised how much I was able to understand.^^ Are there any German films you would recommend?
Viel Glück beim Englischlernen!