Jane Austen was born at the Rectory in Steventon, a little village in north-east Hampshire, on 16th December 1775. She was the seventh child and second daughter of the rector, the Revd George Austen, and his wife Cassandra Leigh. Of her brothers, two were clergymen, one inherited rich estates in Kent and Hampshire from a distant cousin and the two youngest became Admirals in the Royal Navy; her only sister, like Jane herself, never married.
Steventon Rectory was Jane Austen's home for the first 25 years of her life. From here she travelled to Kent to stay with her brother Edward in his mansion at Godmersham Park near Canterbury, and she also had some shorter holidays in Bath, where her aunt and uncle lived. During the 1790s she wrote the first drafts of Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, andNorthanger Abbey; her trips to Kent and Bath gave her the local colour for the settings of these last two books.
In 1801 the Revd George Austen retired, and he and his wife, with their two daughters Jane and Cassandra, left Steventon and settled in Bath.
"My courage always rises at every attempt to intimidate me."
Charles John Huffam
Dickens(February 7, 1812 - June 9, 1870)was an English
novelist who started his career more as a popular entertainer than a serious
author.
His masterful prose soon won praise by critics and
his ability to create memorable characters solidified his position in the ranks
of must-read authors.
The fact that none of his works have ever gone out
of print attests to the popularity of his novels and short stories. His
position as a great writer can be verified by simply saying his last name
"Dickens" and having people immediately understand to whom it is you
are referring.
Dickens married married Catherine Hogarth on 2
April 1836, and ended up having ten children with her. They separated in 1858,
but since divorce was nearly unthinkable in his day, he kept her in a separate
house and supported her financially until her death.
Charles Dickens died on June 9, 1870 after
suffering a stroke. He was buried in the Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey.
The inscription on his tomb reads: "He was a sympathiser to the poor, the
suffering, and the oppressed; and by his death, one of England's greatest
writers is lost to the world."
Works: Oliver Twist, A Christmas Carol, David Copperfield
"No one is useless in this world who lightens the burden of it to anyone else."
Stanley Kubrick was born in the Bronx district of New York, into a family with Jewish ancestry. As a child, Stanley was considered intelligent, but he did not achieve particularly high grades at school. His father, Jack, who worked as a doctor in New York, was concerned to find a remedy for his son’s poor academic performance, so in 1940 he sent him to stay with his uncle in California, hoping that a change of scene would help to improve Stanley’s grades.
Stanley subsequently went on to direct Kirk Douglas again in the epic movie Spartacus in 1960 and clearly relished being given the opportunity to flex his directorial muscles in a large-scale arena. Kubrick took command of the project, but provoked a certain amount of antagonism among the crew, allegedly for seeking to impose his own ideas and standards of production on the film as a whole. To give one example, the cinematographer Russell Metty reportedly complained to the movie’s producers that Kubrick was taking over his job, claiming that Stanley apparently told him to “sit there and do nothing”! Metty apparently did as he was told - and went on to win the Academy Award for Best Cinematography.
Next, Stanley was scheduled to direct Marlon Brando in the movie One Eyed Jacks, but discussions broke down and Brando eventually wound up directing the film himself. With his second marriage, to Ruth Sobotka now on the rocks, Stanley became thoroughly disillusioned with Hollywood and decided to move to England. He moved to the UK in 1962 and remained here for the rest of his life.
FILMS
The first film that Kubrick shot in England was Lolita, based on Vladimir Nabokov’s novel of the same name. The film told the controversial story of a teenage girl and her love affairs and had to be filmed with great care, so as not to be banned by the Board of Censors. Next came one of Kubrick’s biggest successes, Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love The Bomb, made in 1964. Stanley originally wrote the script as a drama, but then came to the conclusion that the film contained too many funny ideas for it to be taken seriously. Starring Peter Sellers, Dr. Strangelove was a huge success, both artistically and financially.
With his newfound status and financial security, Stanley could afford to take greater risks as a film-maker. From now on, he would always have several projects in various stages of development and production. The next film he actually completed was another massive success, namely 2001: A Space Odyssey, which was a collaboration with sci-fi author Arthur C. Clarke. This was a ground-breaking sci-fi movie which soon became a cult classic, regarded by many as Stanley Kubrick’s greatest achievement.
Always keen to innovate and break new ground, Kubrick followed up his sci-fi success with one of his most controversial movies yet, namely A Clockwork Orange (1971), which starred Malcolm McDowell. This film caused a furore when it was released, on account of its graphic portrayal of violence. Kubrick changed pace yet again with his next big hit, a film called Barry Lyndon (1975). By now, Stanley had become renowned as a difficult taskmaster of a director, who required actors and technical crew alike to match his exacting, unrelentingly high standards. This frequently involved actors being made to do take after take - often dozens of takes - without a break. By the early 1970s, he had also acquired a reputation for being something of a recluse and had a strongly developed sense of both security and privacy.
Next, Kubrick turned his attention to directing a horror film, one of the few genres he had not yet explored on film. He turned down an invitation to direct a sequel to The Exorcist, instead deciding to adapt Stephen King’s classic chiller, The Shining, for the big screen. The Shining, which starred Jack Nicholson, quickly became a cult classic since it was first shown in 1980.
Following The Shining, there were increasing intervals between Kubrick’s movie projects. He had married again for the third time; his new wife was called Christiane and she and Stanley had three children together. The next major film Kubrick released was Full Metal Jacket, in 1987, which explored the themes of war and violence. Rumour has it that during the long pre-production period of this movie, Kubrick became disillusioned by the success that other war films released during this time had enjoyed, such as Platooon, and Hamburger Hill. But when Full Metal Jacket was eventually released, it soon earned the fame and respect that was routinely afforded to all Kubrick’s movies.
An even longer interval of time ensued before the release of Kubrick’s next movie, Eyes Wide Shut. In the early 1990s, he began an intermittent collaboration with Brian Aldiss on a new sci-fi project called Artificial Intelligence - AI - but this project progressed very slowly, because the special effects technology that Kubrick wanted took so long to be developed. Whilst the technology labs struggled to keep up, Stanley turned his attention to other projects. He developed a project called The Aryan Papers, a wartime movie that then became known as Wartime Lies - but shelved this project when he discovered that Steven Spielberg was about to start production on his own holocaust movie, Schindler’s List. Pre-production work on “AI” was still moving along, albeit very slowly, when Kubrick began work with Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman on what would actually be his last film, Eyes Wide Shut. The film explored the intricacies and dynamics of marriage and Kubrick claimed he thought it was his best film yet.
In the late 1990s, Kubrick returned to working on “AI” but tragically, his dream of finally releasing this movie was cut short when he suffered a heart attack and died in his sleep on 7 March, 1999. Since Stanley had frequently discussed this project with his friend Steven Spielberg, it was then decided that Spielberg would take over as the film’s director and finish the project on Stanley’s behalf. “AI” was finally released in 2001 but the question of whether Stanley Kubrick would have approved of the final version - and what kind of movie he himself would have directed - will forever remain one of the great unanswered questions in movie history.
This is the summary that we made in class of the film "Ghost":
"There is a couple that want to get married, Sam and Molly. One day, Willy Lopez kills Sam accidently for take the number of the bank account. Sam becames a ghost and he noticed that nobody can see and hear him even Oda Mae Brown. Sam wants to advertise his girlfriend Molly that Carl, a Sam's "friend", wants to tranfer them 4,000,000 $. Sam want to learn how to touch the objects and he goes to talk with the underground's man. He only have to concentrate. Sam wants to withdraw the money for avoid that Carl doesn't tranfer the money throw Rita Miller/Oda Mae Brown. Willy is killed accidently when he was trying to escape from Sam. Molly finally believes in Oda because Sam shows her that he can move a coin in the air. He gets into Oda Mae's body and he can touch Molly. Carls appears in Molly's house and Oda and Molly escape from him. Carl is killed, also accidently, in the chase. Finally, the light of heaven appears and takes Sam away. In this moment, he says goodbye to Oda Mae and says to Molly that he will love her forever. She answers: 'Ditto'."
James Dean, a great myth of the cinema, died 56 years ago in a traffic accident. Dean, known for East of Eden, Rebel without a CauseandGiant, died in his Porsche with his mechanic because a Ford driven by a student collided with them. James Dean broke his neck and he died instantly and the driver of the Ford only broke his nose and his shoulder but later, in 1995 he died of Cancer. The Mechanic of Dean was thrown of the car and he shattered a leg and broke his jaw. In 1981, he died, casually, in a traffic accident in Germany.
East of Eden
Rebel without a Cause
Giant
Dream as if you'll live forever. Live as if you'll die today.
hi guys! Today I want to tell you about a film:Hanna.
I watched it 3 weeks ago and it liked me. The film starts and ends with the same sentence (<< I just missed your heart>>) but in differents situations. It was about a girl that grew in captivity with her father in a cabin in the coldest part of Finland, but later she is ingressed in the CIA safe house in Morocco. She is searching the murderer of her mum. She is Marissa Wiegler, a CIA officer. Hanna scapes and she hides in different places. Finally, she mets her murderer's mum and.... what happen? If you want to know it, you have to watch the film.
The cast is composed by Saoirse Ronan (my favorite actress), Cate Blanchett, Eric Bana....
Hello! My name is Ferran and I'm and spanish boy from Quatretonda, Valencia (Spain). I'm in 1st of bachelor's degree (Humanistic). In a future, I want to study something related with the English: english philology, english teaching...
The idea of create a blog came in the classe of Practical English. Our teacher, Joan Climent (you can go to his blog clicking here) thought that if we create a blog, we would practise our write english and, so, improve it. I think that it's a good idea.
This blog have been created for your leisure and your entertainment. In it, I'll recommend you films, music, books, etc.
My tastes are basically those: films, books, music, photography, travelling... I wanna go London soon. The next summer I hope to travel to London. When I grow up, I want to travel to New York, Australia... or both . Well, I think that in my blog I also speak about places to get lost
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