FilmBlog

Hidalgo

Hidalgo is based on the 'true story' of Frank Hopkins, an American cowboy who took part in a 3,000 mile desert horse race from Arabia to Iraq. Or did he? There's been some controversy surrounding this film and not only because of its dubious historical claims (see here too). The cultural stereotyping of the Arabs has also been criticised. Several intestesting themes to explore then, with plenty of discussion material available on the Internet.

Useful tools

To record streaming video you can use WMRecorder. Try it for free or buy it for $30. Great for recording movie trailers! To copy an entire DVD film in DivX format without having to rip it first, use Fair Use Wizard. The 'light' version can be downloaded for free. You won't get all the extras but it's extremely simple to use. For extracting clips from movies in DivX format, try XMPEG.

How To Make A Video Clip

There are many ways to make a video clip from a DVD. The best method I've found so far involves using XMPEG to extract the scene from the DVD and Windows Movie Maker to edit the clip. If you've got Windows XP, Movie Maker should already be installed. Look in Programs > Accessories. If anyone has a better method, I'd be interested to hear of it.

Politeness in The Graduate

Here's a lesson plan for teaching polite request forms based on a scenes from The Graduate and here's a quiz based on the same movie.

American Rhetoric: Movie Speeches

"Full text, audio and video database of some 80 Hollywood movie speeches, as selected by audiences of American Rhetoric. A new movie speech is added every 2-3 weeks. Included are military movie speeches, sports-oriented movie speeches, forensic movie speeches, and social-political  movie speeches, among others." Thanks to Lesley Graham for suggesting this site.

Slap Her, She French

This teen revenge comedy is not the greatest film ever made, but there are very few films which can't be exploited in some way for teaching purposes. This one is good for looking at stereotypes. It gives the impression that the typical French girl wears a beret, scarf and frilly blouse. Oh, and speaks English with an excruciating French accent. The bit about the beret might have been true in the 1940s but it's 'un peu passé' now. See Green Card for a more a more 'realistic' French stereotype (played by a real Frenchman, Gérard Depardieu).

Movie Riddles

A activity to get ESL students talking about movies from Boggle's World.

Feature Film Lesson Plans

Graham Stanley has produced lesson plans/worksheets for 3 films: Vertigo, Breakfast At Tiffany's and Shallow Grave. He says:
"You can use these lesson plans/worksheets as I'm doing, as the basis of classes with an advanced group without additional material. They will have difficulty in understanding some of the dialogue without transcription or repeated listenings, but many of the lesson plans feature transcripts of sections of the film and there are links to screenplays (where available)."