FCE Students

NUMBER TWO IN ROMANTICISM
The Notebook is the second most romantic film in the world. It is based on a romantic novel written by Nicholas Sparks in 1996 and adapted into a romantic film in 2004.
We chose it firstly because we could not make up our minds and we all had seen and loved the movie. We wanted to show one of the nicest and most romantic film although is not as known as Titanic, which is the first most romantic one, and because of it.
The movie starts showing an elderly couple in a nursing home's intensive care ward. The man, at first called Duke, was reading a love story from a notebook to the woman, Allie, who suffered from Alzheimer’s. As he tells the story, the film moves back to 1940 and shows how a boy, whose name was Noah, met a seventeen year old girl from a wealthy family, Allie. She was in Seabrook, the city where they met, only for that summer with her parents. Noah’s father was very happy about the romance but Allie’s parents did not accept the relationship of their daughter and always were opposed to Allie and Noah’s meetings. However, the teenagers spent all that summer together and fell in love.
A week before Allie had to leave Seabrook, they went to an abandoned house which was Noah’s dream one. He promised her he would rebuild it for her, with all the details she said she would include. There they decided to make love for the first time but suddenly Fin, Noah’s friend, interrupt them informing Allie’s parents had called the police when trying to find her. So they went out of the house and Noah drove Allie to her home. There they argued and say they would break. Allie immediately regretted the decision but Noah had driven away. The day after, Allie’s parents decided to return home that morning instead of the other week. She tried no find Noah but as she couldn’t, she had to leave without saying goodbye.
From that moment Noah and for one year he wrote one letter a day but he did not get replay because the letters were kept by Allie’s mother. Then Noah and Fin were sent to the war were the last boy died. Allie became a nurse in the world for some time where she met a wealthy man, Lon Hammond. When war was finished, she spent time with him and they finally became engaged, to the joy of Allie's parents. Meanwhile, Noah’s father had bought his son’s dream house, selling the old one. When traveling to the city to get a building permit, Noah saw Allie with Lon, and decided to rebuild the house for Allie. Noah worked like a madman, believing if he could rebuild the house, Allie would come back to him.
While trying on her wedding dress, Allie read about Noah completing the house in a newspaper and fainted. She decided to visit Noah in Seabrook, and the two spent a bit of time together, talking about what had been happening in their lives. Noah invited Allie to see him again the next day, and they both went for a ride in a rowboat. Not long later, Allie confronted Noah and asked him why she had not heard from him for all those years. Noah told her he had sent her 365 letters and both discovered that Allie's mother had hidden them from her. Finally, Noah and Allie kissed passionately and made love, knowing they still had feelings for each other.
The day after, Allie’s mother went to find her daughter and realized what she had done. She went for a drive with Allie and told her that she had fallen in love with a man who was not in her social class too, although she want his husband, but she had made a decision. That was what Allie had to do too. She also gave Allie the 365 letters Noah had written her. After that, she argued with Noah and went with Lon to tell him all the truth.
The film goes back to the elderly couple, and Allie asked Duke who Allie would choose. She realized the answer herself, and the scene, goes again to years earlier, where Allie went back to Noah again and stayed with him forever.
Again with the elderly couple, Allie remembered it was her love story with Noah, who was “Duke” and spent some time together talking about their love and their family. Allie then suffered a "sundown" and panics so she had to be sedated. It was such difficult to Noah to see her like that that he broke down. The next morning, Noah was found unconscious in bed and he was rushed to the hospital, but he is later returned to the nursing home's intensive care ward. He walked in Allie's bedroom that night, and Allie remembered again. They talked, and Allie asked him if he thought their love could take them away together, to which Noah replied, "I think our love can do anything we want it to". They slept holding on to each other, and the next morning, the nurse found they had both died in their sleep.

Victoria Santillan Abraham.

MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING

My big fat greek wedding is a romantic-comedy film written by Nia Vardalos. This movie was released in April, 2002. Since it was released in USA it was the fifth movie at earning money, with USD $241,438,208. The writer Nia Vardalos is curiosly the main actress too.

The main characters that compose this film are Nia Vardalos as Toula Portokalos, John Corbett as Ian Miller, Michael Constantine as Kostas "Gus" Portokalos and Lainie Kazan as Maria Portokalos

The movie is centered in Toula Portokalos (Nia Vardalos), a midle aged, greek woman who has resigned to live her life without hopes of finding her true love. As a greek lady she was asigned the three rules of the tradition: to marry a greek guy, to have greek babies and to feed them for the rest life. But she couldn’t do it so she failed her family who expected her to follow the rules imposed, and to top it she has been destinated to attend the family café “Dancin Sorba” until the day of her death.
She was living a rutinary and depresing life until one day she got fed up of all and decided to rebuild her life. For her first step she starts studing computer aplication in college. As the time in the college passes she starts changing her look. Some new clothes, new contact lenses, a new hairstyle and a more sociable and confident appearance.
When she finishes college, she comes up with the fact that she needs a job. After an unlucky job searching she decides to work in her aunt Voula’s travel agency while she goes on vacation. The slight problem was that her father refused roundly the idea. But Toula’s mother fixes them up and changes her husbands mind.
On her new job she meets the man of her life, Ian Miler and there is when all the problems arrive. But the worst problem was that he wasn’t greek. Despite this Toula won’t give up to her perfect life and she will fight for it.

By Matias Zazkin FCE





The Devil Wears Prada

The Devil Wears Prada is an Academy Award-nominated 2006 comedy-drama film. It stars Anne Hathaway as Andy Sachs, a recent collage graduate who comes to New York and gets a job as a co-assistant to the powerful and demanding fashion magazine editor Miranda Priestly (played by Meryl Streep). Including the list of the co-star characters, the names of Adrian Grenier, Simon Baker and Tracie Thoms can be found.

Although Meryl Streep has been critized, she earned many award nominations, including her record-setting 14 th Oscar bid, as well as a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Comedy or Musical. Emily Blunt also recived favorable notice and nominations, as did many of those involved in the flim´s production.

This film is complemented with composer Theodore Shapiro, who based his work on guitar and percusion, with the backing of a full orchestra, to capture a contemporary urban sound.
His work was balanced with songs by many popular and well known artists, such as U2, Madonna, KT Tunstall, Alanis Morrissette, Bitter Sweett and Jamiroquai. The soundtrack album was released by Warner Music and it includes all the songs of the film, except Suddenly I See, which disappointed many fans.

Concluding, in my opinion this a lovely flim that talks about a girl that without realising what was happening she looses her frinds and love relationships, because of a search based on pretending to find a better job. This real side is what makes it more attractive and enjoyable.
Finally, if you are a love-films fan, you cannot loose this hollywood diamond, in contrast, if you have not seen many love- films, you will get hoocked to this kind of movies.




Agustina Fioretti
FCE

The Devil wears Prada:

In this article is shown an explanation about the movie “The Devil wears Prada”. Is a kind of movie that you can enjoy with your family or with some friends. Below you would see how the actors and the director of the movie got ready for it.

Many actors have different ways of get themselves into a character:
Hathaway prepared for the part by volunteering for a week as an assistant at an auction house.
For the movie Streep based the character of Miranda on Anna Wintour the legendary Vogue director, Streep made a conscious decision not to play the part as a direct impression of Wintour, right down to not using an accent and making the character American rather than English. I think she wanted people not to actually confuse the character of Miranda priestly with Anna Wintour at all.
And that’s why , early on in the process, she decided on a very different look for her and a different approach to the character.

The idea of having Miranda appearing without makeup in the scene where she opens up to Andrea and worries about the effects of her divorce becoming public knowledge on her daughters was Streep’s idea.
Frankel , the director of the movie, said that he hadn’t got any idea of what Streep was going to do in that scene. He said that she came in without makeup and wearing a robe and said “I’m ready to act”

Meryl Streep is a person how I really admired, she’s an excellent actress. She has a gift, she was born to act. She’s amazing, because she is different from other actors. Not everyone can act like her, she plans everything before acting.
She is always inside the character, she is not acting a role because of acting, it’s as if she was that person, that’s why I admire her because she is involved in what she is doing.

All the characters were revised at least slightly from there counterparts in the novel.
Like in all movies some things were added, like Miranda’s failing marriage.


By Paula Rodriguez FCE



Each day a new beginning

Do you imagine your normal life without remember what happened the day before?
This is basically the aim of “50 First Dates” (2004) a romantic comedy which I enjoyed a lot.

The director is Peter Segal who also directed Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult (1994) and the writer is George Wing, who had the idea of this wonderful plot. Henry Roth (Adam Sandler) is a wildlife veterinarian in Hawaii, who meets Lucy Whitmore (Drew Barrymore) a woman who has a short-term memory loss from an auto accident a year earlier. Henry is a ladies man on the island who has been breaking the hearts of female tourists for years. Henry meets Lucy at a local cafe and takes her out on a date. Henry falls in love with Lucy, but there is one problem when she awakens in the morning, she can't remember him or anything that happened that day. Henry must devise a plan to meet Lucy everyday and try to get her to fall in love with him again and again.

Sandler and Barrymore won the award for Best On-Screen Team at the MTV Movie Awards. The two actors, who had previously worked together in the popular film The Wedding Singer, are said to regard 50 First Dates as one of their favourite personal efforts.

The soundtrack contains cover versions of songs that were originally recorded in the 1980s. This includes mostly reggae or ska covers, due to their emphasized upbeat that gives a tropical or Hawaiian feel. Some of the covers are "Hold Me Now" by Wayne Wonder (Originally recorded by the Thompson Twins), "Every Breath You Take" by UB40 "(Originally recorded by The Police) and the funniest one “Forgetful Lucy” by Adam Sandler

As a conclusion, in my opinion “50 First Dates” is a movie that without being an overproduction of Hollywood makes you entertain and spend a good moment.
Recommend it, who wouldn’t?
By Milagros Fernández
FCE II


Open Day By Agustina Marin FCE
•The Notebook•

T
his year, in the open day, we worked about films. The idea was to choose our favourite movie, or a movie which we liked, talk about it and tell the visitors about its plot, story, cast, etc.. With my group we chose The Notebook (mostly known as ‘Diario de una Pasión’ in Spanish, for those ones who don’t get which movie I’m talking about).

The Nothebook is a romantic film, based in a romantic novel written by Nicholas Sparks. It’s Sparks first published novel, he wrote it in a period of six months in 1994 and it was published in October 1996, whereas the film in 2004.
The film of this novel was directed by Nick Cassavetes, whose mother is one of the main characters in the movie (Gena Rowlands).

The film (and also the novel) tells the story of the true love, and it alternates past and present episodes of this love tale. It’s about what is disposed to do one of the integrals of a couple when the other is in trouble. In this case, how he dedicates all his time trying to get back his wife from a hopeless psychological illness. She suffers senile insanity and she cannot remember her past, she only remembers what she has done a few minutes ago and only for a couple minutes. But the man believes in miracles. He keeps telling a story written in a Notebook, which the woman seems to like because, in some parts of the movie, remembers parts of that tale. It’s the story of a summer love between two teenagers (Allie and Noah), with luxury and wealth differences, which makes their love even harder to succeed.

The end of the story (which, of course I’m not going to tell you) is as surprising as the narration developes in the whole movie, with a lot of stories in the middle of Allie and Noah’s. If you have seen it, I hope you enjoyed it as well as I had. And If you didn’t watch it yet, it’s one of the best in its kind when chosing movies. So much that it was described as the best movie after The Titanic.


The Plot
Allie, with her parents, goes on summer holidays to the village where Noah lives. Whereas she is a wealthy girl, Noah is a worker. They meet because of their friends, and they fall in love. What it was supposed to be a fleeting love, only of a few months, turns into a endless mark in both of their lifes. But the destiny separates them, and the World War II turns Noah into a soldier, whereas Allie offers to be nurse to help with the injured soldiers. But both still rememeber each other and their life togheter.
While Allie gets engaged with a soldier she met in her nurse duty, Noah has a love affair with one of the girls in town. Again, destiny interferes between them and gets them together. There they discover they hadn’t forget their past and that they still love each other.
In the end of the film you discover that The Notebook which describes all this story, was written by Allie, like a diary. And the two characters who appear at the begining (the old lady and the old man) are elder Allie and Noah.

Cast
Noah Ryan Gosling
Allie Rachel McAdams
Old Noah (Duke) James Garner
Old Allie Gena Rowlands
Frank Calhoun (Noah’s Dad) Sam Shepard
John Hamilton (Allie’s Dad) David Thornton
Anne Hamilton (Allie’s Mom) Joan Allen

By Ma. Agustina Marín