BIBLIOTECA E.O.I. DE ALBACETE

'The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas', directed by Mark Herman, is a drama film based on the Irish writer John Boyne´s novel. Asa Butterfield, as Bruno, is the actor in the leading role and David Thewlis and Vera Farmiga are his parents, Ralph and Mother.

Bruno, a German child, lives very happily in Berlin but suddenly he has to move due to his father´s job. Ralph is a nazi commandant and his superiors order him to manage a concentration camp in Auschwitz. There Bruno plays on his own because he doesn´t have friends and his 16-years-old sister begins to have a strong nazi ideology that Bruno hates. However, one day he meets a child called Shmuel; he wears a striped suit.

The film is not exactly a copy of John Boyne´s novel. A few events are different but anyway the story is basically the same and, it is just fantastic.

'The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas' is a great film and shows us how unfair life is with innocent people. The film also received some prizes; one of them was the Goya, so it is well worth seeing.

by Vicente López Grimaldos (2 Intermedio inglés)

'Revolutionary Road', drama set in the U.S.A. in the years after World War II, has the appeal of joining again the stars Kate Winslet and Leonardo Di Caprio, the successful couple starring in Titanic, who had not played together since then. The director is Sam Mendes, Kate’s husband at that time. The plot tells us about the unhappy story of an American family in the 1950’s. The film’s aim is to dismand house in the suburbs, with the husband outside working the whole day and the remaining wife doing housework and taking care of the children. Their dissatisfaction with life leads them to think about moving to Paris and beginning a new life, but some events and the husband’s attitude will make their new hopes vanish. Not an enjotle the myth of the American dream; that is, the happy family living in a comfortable detacheyable film in spite of the stars’ great performances. It’s not recommended to those who just want to spend a nice time. The film, showing quarrels since the very second scene, matches better to intellectuals and people committed to women’s rights.
by Luis Miguel Peña Comín (2º Intermedio inglés)

'Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street', directed in 2007 by Tim Burton, is a remake of the musical with the same name composed by Sir Malcolm Arnold in 1959. The starring role is played by Burton’s favourite Johnny Depp. The story, based on an urban legend of the 19th century in a Victorian London, starts when a famous barber (Sweeney Todd) goes back to London to take revenge on a famous judge and to recover his daughter, who was under the judge’s tutelage. Todd goes back to his old barbery to wait for the judge to go there and kill him. Meanwhile, he forms an alliance with Mrs. Lovett, who has a bakery and who improves her business thanks to the cakes made of Sweeney Todd’s barbery customers, who he kills with his razor. Depp gives the film his own distinctive character, something he only has in the current cinema industry. That is why Burton has always chosen him for almost all his films, which also have a special essence. This musical film will delight you with its excellent songs and also, for those who don’t like musical films, with its spectacular bloodthirsty scenes and its peculiar humour. It also tells an amazing story.
by Cristina Garrido Abenza (2º Intermedio inglés)

In occasione della celebrazione della II Settimana del libro e della cultura italiana, ogni giorno potrete trovare in questo Blog dei post riguardanti scrittori italiani di grande successo. Iniziamo con Stefano Benni, intellettuale assolutamente poliedrico, dapprima giornalista, quindi scrittore e poeta, che ha collaborato e collabora con numerose testate, scrive per il teatro ed è uno degli autori più fantasiosi e creativi del panorama italiano contemporaneo.

Il suo stile si caratterizza per l’uso originale ed innovativo del linguaggio, l’acutezza nel cogliere gli aspetti più aberranti della società moderna, la sua comicità stralunata e l’inesauribile fantasia, nella creazione di mondi immaginari ed straordinari. Potete ascoltare nella voce dell’autore uno dei suoi racconti, tratto da L’ultima lacrima, “Fratello Bancomat”.