Daily Dose of English 14
Movies
Daily Dose of English 14
Intermediate
Hey everyone! My name is Ben and you're listening to A Daily Dose of English. This is a short, simple podcast that you can listen to every day to improve your English. You can find the transcripts for all episodes and more on benslanguagelab.com. I'm glad you could make it today. In this episode, we're going to be talking about movies, movies, moving pictures, TV shows that are shorter but longer at the same time because there's fewer episodes, really just one, maybe two or three, and they're much longer videos in total. Movies are something that I really, really like in general. They're a big, not really a big part of my life, but I really enjoy watching movies and films in general. I think that, especially for a bit of a younger person, I've watched more movies than the average person. I think especially my generation and younger is a lot more likely to watch TV shows or just be on their phone with YouTube videos or TikTok or whatever it is. I think that movies have played a big role in the way that I perceive media and the way that I enjoy stories as well because that's what movies are, right? They're a story compacted down into two hours-ish, more or less, and they're very visual and auditory. They have a lot of sound. I think that's auditory. I'm not really sure. But they're really great works of art, or they can't be, honestly. There can also be pretty terrible movies because they've become such a big thing because while I did say that they're not nearly as, like people don't watch as many movies nowadays, but movies have gotten really, really, really big. There's very large movies with tons of people that work on them, humongous cast lists. They spend $300 million on a single movie and they make that money back often, which is pretty crazy if you think about it, right? But they're a huge industry and everybody knows about them, which is kind of interesting, I guess. But anyways, why do I like movies? Well, I've been watching them forever, right? A lot of people grow up with some kind of movie being, when they're a kid, with Disney movies are really popular in the US for kids or something like that. And then as you grow up, you start to watch more and more. You maybe start to watch more and more different genres of movies, right, branching out into other kinds of movies and that sort of thing. And they're often a family activity, at least in the US. A family movie night is a pretty common thing and we definitely have them. I've watched several different movies with my family, several lots over the years. And I think that's where I originally started my love for movies. But then at a certain point, I got interested in how they were made and the behind the scenes and just hearing and seeing more stories. Like a lot of young boys, I was very interested in watching Star Wars movies when I was growing up and I remember watching those many times, specifically the ones that we had, right? We didn't have that many movies. I didn't have that many movies growing up because Netflix didn't exist quite yet. And so I would watch the same movies that we had on DVD. And I remember that we, the only Star Wars movie we had was the third one. So the third prequel movie. And it was not even like a real, it was a burned disc. It was a, like it was somebody gave it to us. It wasn't the original. I don't even know where I got it. But that movie I probably watched like 20 times, I don't know, a lot of different times because it was, there was a lot of lights and colors and sounds. And I wasn't that old. And so I didn't really get the entire story. I don't even remember it that well, but it was just, that image was just so cool to me. But then growing up, I started to watch actual movies and make choices and watch different kinds of movies and follow series and whatever it might be. And I remember that there was still some Blockbuster Videos. That's a thing that was pretty big in the US in like the 90s and 2000s, I think a little bit earlier as well. But Blockbuster Video was a video store you could go to and you could rent a movie or a game or a TV show on disc, right, they had just tons and tons of discs. I think they also had like VHS videos. But that wasn't nearly as big when I was a kid. But I would go and I would pick out a movie and I would walk back home, I would watch that movie and I would often go return it the next day and get a different movie. I didn't watch that many movies. But like there's certain periods of time where I was maybe not, school wasn't happening or whatever, where I would watch a lot more movies. And so that just sticks out in my brain more. But I remember watching all different kinds of movies, right. Some of my favorites were superhero movies. I really liked the X-Men movies growing up and that's really the main one that sticks out in my head. But I remember watching tons of different kinds of movies with my family, Forrest Gump, some of the classics, Bad News Bears is another really good, I mean that's a pretty old movie I actually remember now that there's some references in it that are not the most kind necessarily. But then also watching movies like The Sandlot and there's just so many really good classics in American film that I remember watching fondly. But nowadays movies play a pretty different role in my life because I get to choose what I watch, right. I'm an adult and I don't really have to wait for a, not a school night, for a weekend night. I can just choose to watch a movie whenever I'd like. But I honestly don't do it that often. Maybe one or two movies per week which I would like to change. I want to watch more movies because I don't really like watching TV. I do watch TV, like TV shows because they're shorter is the main reason why. Because I don't like to watch two hour movies. Two hour movies are pretty long but nowadays so many movies are two and a half or three hours long which is just so much. Like I don't really know, I just don't want to sit down for almost three hours and watch a whole movie because if I go to bed, if I try to go to bed at like 11 o'clock, I even try to go to bed earlier. If I want to be going to bed at like 1030 at night that means that I have to start a movie at 730 nowadays to be able to actually watch the whole movie in one sitting. My favorite kinds of movies are 90 minute movies. They're a little bit shorter, they tell a story in that one concise timeframe and they let you move on with your life. Yes, there are some really, really good movies that are two hours long or more. Some of my favorite movies of all time are two hours, right? The Shawshank Redemption is one of them, Forrest Gump I think is over two hours and both of those movies I love so, so much. But I also just like having a 90 minute movie that is good to watch and enjoyable is what I really like about watching movies. And so I frequently go back and watch slightly older movies because those are the ones that tend to be a little bit shorter and I don't think that's a problem at all. There's some really, really good movies from the 1980s and 90s and early 2000s, right? Most of the Adam Sandler movies are 90 minutes long or a little bit longer. Sure, they're not that good, but they're also not like terrible. There's usually a decent message, some okay acting, some fun jokes, right? And so I definitely don't mind watching some of those if I just want to throw on a 90 minute movie. Or one of my favorite genres is actually the rom-com genre, romantic comedy is what it stands for, rom-com, R-O-M-C-O-M. And those are typically sort of goofy comedies, well that's what the word means, where two people fall in love. And there's a lot of stereotypes, not stereotypes but tropes, I mean there's definitely stereotypes as well, but tropes is the big word that you're going to hear in rom-coms, T-R-O-P-E. And a trope is something that like always happens, right? There's always this thing that happens in a rom-com. They always have a misunderstanding, right? One of them thinks the other one says something else and so one of them gets upset, right? That's a trope, it always happens, or not always, but almost always happens, that sort of thing. And I also think that watching movies is a fantastic way to learn a language. Actually I know this because I did it, I watched a lot of movies in Spanish, I watched a lot of the films on Netflix specifically because there's some pretty good film from Mexico on Netflix for, if you have, not free, if you have a Netflix subscription then you can get it for free, which doesn't make sense because you're paying for the subscription. But anyways, if you have Netflix and you're learning Spanish, there's lots of good options, there's lots of okay options on there. They're not like the best movies of all time, but some are really quite good. And so I watch a lot of movies for my Spanish learning and it really, really helped a lot. And so if you are learning English in this case, I definitely recommend that you try to get into movies. They're not as language dense as TV shows, right? There's not as many words per minute, but the stories are usually more contained. You can watch a movie in one day and you can really enjoy the art of it. And so I definitely recommend movies if you at all enjoy them just because they can be so good. And especially American cinema, American film has so, so many good movies on there. So I definitely recommend watching movies and enjoying them and generally having a good time with your learning. So yeah, I'm going to leave it there. That's all I have for today. I really appreciate you taking the time to listen. I hope that you enjoyed and I'll guess I'll catch you next time. So take care and I'll see you then. Bye bye.
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