This is England

Informações:

Título original: This is England

Título no Brasil: ---

Gênero: Drama de Cultura Skinhead da Inglaterra dos anos 80's

Ano: 2007

Formato: Avi

Tamanho: 701 MB

Legendas: Inglês e Português

Hello everybody...

I hope these films are helping you all in some way to improve your accents as well as the British way of speaking and expressing yourselves. The film I am posting today is a very good one, and shows the skinhead subculture of England in the 80's. This happened when Mrs. Thatcher was the Prime Minister, the well-known "Iron Lady"...

This is England

The film begins with Shaun (Thomas Turgoose), a 12 year-old schoolboy from Cleethorpes, whose father died in the Falklands War. On his way home, unhappy, Shaun runs into a group of young, non-racist skinheads led by Woody (Joe Gilgun), who feel sympathy for Shaun and invite him to join them. The group accepts Shaun as a member and he finds a big brother in Woody, while developing a romance with Smell (Rosamund Hanson), an older girl who dresses in punky new wave style. The film closes with Shaun throwing his St George's Cross flag, a symbol of his friendship with Combo, who came from prison with a nationalist spirit against the ruling government of Mrs. Margareth Tatcher, the “Iron Lady” into the sea.

Much of the film was shot in residential areas of Nottingham, including St Ann's, Lenton and The Meadows, with one section featuring abandoned houses at the former airbase RAF Newton, outside of Bingham, Nottinghamshire. The opening fight was filmed at Wilsthorpe Business and Enterprise College, a secondary school in Derbyshire. Additional scenes were filmed in Grimsby, Turgoose's home town.

Turgoose was 13 at the time of filming. Turgoose had never acted before, had been banned from his school play for bad behaviour, and demanded £5 to turn up for the film's auditions. The film was dedicated to Turgoose's mother, Sharon, who died of cancer on 29 December 2005; while she never saw the film, she saw a short preview. The cast attended her funeral.

The film won the Alexander Korda Award for Best British Film at the 2007 British Academy Film Awards. It also won the Best Film category at the 2006 British Independent Film Awards, Thomas Turgoose winning the Most Promising Newcomer award.

This is England - Film Download

This is England - English Subtitle

This is England - Portuguese Subtitle

The state of the English language

"Let's face it; English is a crazy language:

There is no egg in eggplant or ham in hamburger…

Neither apple nor pine in pineapple…

English muffins were not invented in England or French fries in France.

Sweetmeats are candies, while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat.

We take English for granted, but if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square, and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.

And, why is it that writers write, but fingers don't fing? Grocers don't groce? And hammers don't ham?

If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth beeth? One goose, two geese, so why not one moose, two meese or one book, two beek? Is cheese the plural of choose?

If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught?

If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?

In what language do people…

Recite at a play, and play at a recital?!

Ship by truck and send cargo by ship?!

Have noses that run and feet that smell?!

Park on driveways and drive on parkways?!

What about the opposites? How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? When a house burns up, it burns down. You fill in a form by filling it out and an alarm clock goes off by going on. When the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible. And why, when I wind up my watch, I start it, but when I wind up this essay, I end it?

Now I know why I love this language… It's not my fault! This silly language is just like human beings… It doesn't quite know whether it's coming or going."

The Naked Civil Servant

Informaões:

Título original: The Naked Civil Servant

Título no Brasil: ---

Gênero: Drama / Temática Imprópria

Ano: 1975

Formato: Avi

Tamanho: 699 MB (Megaupload)

Legenda: Português (Megaupload)

Hi y'all... today we have:

The Naked Civil Servant

John Hurt won a BAFTA award for his role in this film which is based on Quentin Crisp's autobiography, The Naked Civil Servant.

Hilarious and shocking for its day, this film was a breakthrough in TV's treatment of homosexuality. The BBC declined the offer to make it, while the IBA censored a line from Philip Mackie's witty script: "Sexual intercourse is a poor substitute for masturbation."

Personally, another very important film... It shows how homosexuality was considered a crime in England until 1967. Quentin Crisp faced his opponents and stood up for his cause. Unfortunately, he fought against all prejudice by himself in the 20's and 30's.

The Naked Civil Servant - Download

Portuguese subtitle - Download

An Englishman in New York

Informações:

Título original: An Englishman in New York

Título no Brasil: Um inglês em Nova York

Gênero: Drama / Comédia (light) / Temática Imprópria

Ano: 2009

Formato: Avi

Tamanho: 407 MB (Stagevu)

Legenda: Inglês e Português (4shared)

Hello everyone,

Today, I decided to post my first film...

An Englishman in New York...

Quentin Crisp was an English writer and raconteur. He became an icon of homosexuality in the 1970's after publication of his memoir, The Naked Civil Servant, which brought to the attention of the general public his defiant exhibitionism and refusal to keep his sexuality private.

In  1975, The Naked Civil Servant was released as a film and the part of Mr. Crisp was played by the brilliant John Hurt...

Following the success of his television biography The Naked Civil Servant, Quentin Crisp was invited to America to lecture on "How To Be Happy", and falls in love with New York's more permissive ambience. In NY, he became a "Resident Alien", writing film reviews and dispensing words of wisdom. Curious about but impervious to trends, he describes AIDS as  "a fad, nothing more", he is misinterpreted and reviled by many gays. A return to popularity occurs when he helps Patrick Angus, a young, AIDS-afflicted artist attain fame for his paintings and his healthy cynicism is marketed by performance artist Penny Arcade, putting him back in the limelight. Poor health causes him to refuse a lecture tour of England but he gives a triumphant final audience at a gay club in Tampa. A postscript informs that he died at the age of 91 in England.

This film is quite difficult to be found without any subtitle attached to it. Fortunately, I found it and I'm am completely glad to be posting it, as it is a film that made me think for quite a while about my life and see things through a brave and rather unfortunate homosexual viewpoint.

Download it and, I am sure you'll find it at least interesting. In case, you have any trouble to attach the subtitles to the film contact me and I'll be really pleased to help you.

An Englishman in New York - Download

Portuguese Subtitle

English Subtitle

The English language... out of a laugh

An Englishman was sitting in a little restaurant in a very small town in Greece. It was about 5 o'clock in the afternoon, so he called the waiter and ordered a cup of tea in English as he couldn't speak Greek.

An American man, with a big fat cigar in his mouth was sitting at the next table with a glass of coke in his hand. He turned round and with a smile and said:

- Gee! It sure is great to hear someone speak my language in this place!

The Englishman looked up and replied:

- Excuse me, sir, I'm not speaking your language. It is you, who are trying to speak mine...

Hooray for Hollywood...

[...] they cried, then moving pictures, then sound, then words and pictures together, then big block busters, then the disappearance of English as we know it.

I'm not here to say that Hollywood, nor America are in any way to blame for this modern phenomenon, but it certainly has not helped, [...] I am a simple man with a reasonable level of grammar school education, but when my computer keeps telling me I have spelled apologise incorrectly and it should have been apologize, then i get a little peeved!!!

None of it is intentional, it just comes about when one nation who happens to use a bastardised form of our beautiful language, should be so dominant in every aspect of our daily lives, our modern television and films, a lot of our literature and even our home and office computers speak American and not English, [...] they pronounce words differently, but so do a lot of geographical territories in small areas, look at Manchester and Liverpool in England, some 30 odd miles between them, but such a vast array of different accents.

[...] the spelling, colour for example state side is color, they appear to spell a lot of words phonetically, now a lot of people would say "what's wrong with that?", and I suppose to a certain extent, not a lot, but, and it's a big. [...] It's not the way English is meant to be used, Shakespeare and Wordsworth, would be turning in their graves if they saw some of the things that were written these days!!!

On top of that, the use of different words to describe things is creeping over from the states, all thanks to films and music. Cars in this country (England) do not have trunks, I go to the cinema, not the movies, we do not use cell phones, what is a cell phone? I have a mobile telephone!!!

You may be forgiven for saying you have a cellular telephone, as this describes something technical [...]

Stop shortening things to make it simpler!!!

Unknown Author

PS: Soon, I'll start posting some very interesting Brit films... with English and Portuguese subtitles...

The reason for this blog...

Why have I done this blog?

Today, Brazil is suffering from an unfortunate problem, those (teachers) who aim to have a more "British-like" accent are being discrimainated... it is due to the American influence on Brazil...

However, there is something which I consider to be worse... There are many teachers who don't speak proper English and that make no efforts to improve their English and when they are questioned whether their English is being correctly pronounced or not, they tend to explain that they have a "British" accent, but the truth is that, it is nothing more, but merely an excuse... Let's stop them!!!

People first of all, let's make one thing clear...

There is no BRITISH accent... but several British accents...

Personally, as an English teacher, I prefer the Southeastern English accents, the ones found around Greater London, such as Surrey, Berkshire, "Oxbridge", Sussex, Kent and the ones from East Anglia.

The purpose for this blog is:

1. Explain the real and proper use for the "British-like" accent, once known as RP, Queen's English or BBC English, which was broadly used to teach English overseas for decades. Even though, traditional RP is being replaced by modern RP.

2. Exchange ideas for proper pronunciation.

3. Solve any doubts regarding vocabulary and pronunciation.

4. There will be films available for downloading (without subtitles, which will be available on a separate file).

I am looking forward to changing ideas with other teachers and students...

I am available to answer any question related to British English, British vocabulary, British pronunciation and British regional accents... Write to me!

I also have a community on Orkut: "BrazBrit®"

This video will explain a little of what an English-like accent is and, the proposal that BBC had some decades ago: