Julia Roberts: Top 5/Bottom 5 dvDs by Christine Champ
At the height of her reign as America's celluloid sweetheart, Julia Robertslit up the silver screen with her genuine glow of warmth, innocence, vulnerability, devil-may-care chutzpah and quirky, bouncy, girl-next-door charm.
Then, somewhere around the time she earned an Oscar for Erin Brockovich, things began to change. First, she fell into a formulaic rut of damsels-in-distress rom-coms. Then she matured to chilly, calculating femmes fatales. The glow began to dim. Take a peek at the Duplicity trailer: Her smile's as wide as ever, but the humor has withered away.
Has Julia perhaps done a deal with the devil for diva-dom, only to lose her Hollywood soul?
In the meantime, let's all jiggle our movie memories around until past and present blur for a flashback of some of JR's most heartwarming and hollow performances.
Top 5
Sleeping With the Enemy
A darker take on Roberts as yet another breakable yet brave brown-eyed girl all the more admirable for her Olympian escape and teary-eyed terror. And finally JR meets her leading man, big-hair match.
Steel Magnolias
Who wouldn't want to save Shelby? She's childishly sweet on the surface, with a heartbreaking hopefulness and depth beneath. (Julia also dignifies a "drink your juice" diabetic disaster scene that could have gone comically wrong.)
Pretty Woman
Never has prostitution, or a prostitute, been so innocent or enchanting. We shouldn't buy it, but JR seduces us, and we do.
Mystic Pizza
Fired by passion and an impulsive sense of self-preservation, this pretty, pizza-pauper on the wrong side of the delivery route, may screw things up but at least Daisy, (and Roberts), gives it "a 100 percent."
Erin Brockovich
A balkier and nobler than usual, but still believable, Oscar-worthy heroine who at last champions more than her own love life.
Bottom 5
Notting Hill
"I'm just a girl ..." I've said it before I'll say it again: Boohoo Julia. (And Hollywood.) Boo. Hoo. Your suffering is as sincere as your acting in this film.
Runaway Bride
All shtick and no substance make Julia and this Gere-Roberts rematch very dull. JR's romantic-melancholy routine is just as stale here as it was in Notting Hill.
Hook
You know you're being blackmailed by Steven Spielberg when ...
You're cast to play Tinkerbell to Robin Williams' Peter Pan. In Julia's smallest role yet (ha, ha) she delivers Tinkerbell with the affectation you'd expect from an adolescent boy, in a middle school play, sucking helium backstage before each scene.
The Mexican
Clearly, Gandolfini's this movie's muse. Julia and Brad, however, prove an uninspiring pair. Neither manages to make screen sparks fly in their shared scenes, and JR ends up stiff and shrew-y.
Stepmom
Sarandon vs. Roberts. Old dame vs. young usurper. Mom vs. stepmom. Girls, get ready to snipe in a catfight with little subtlety or chemistry from either opponent.
Задание 6. Переведите и прокомментируйте следующие реалии из сферы кино
Golden Globe; Independent Spirit; Saturn Award; MTV Movie Awards; Golden Raspberry; Academy Special Achievement Award; Academy Scientific and Technical Award; The Irving G.Thalberg Memorial Award; Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award.
Задание 7. Подберите русские соответствия названиям следующих профессий
Executive producer; director; assistant director; director of photography; camera operator; equipment operator; lighting technician; sound mixer/sound engineer; score recordist; foley artist; costume designer; art director/production designer; set designer/ scenic artist; animation artist; make-up artist; digital modeler; special effects supervisor; FX artist; visual effects supervisor/digital effects supervisor; dialogue editor; music editor; technical director; production designer; safety supervisor.
Задание 8. Подберите русскоязычные соответствия названиям следующих номинаций
Best picture; best actor in leading role; best actress in leading role; best cinematography; best director; best adapted screenplay; best original score; best original song; best film editing; best actor in supporting role; best actress in supporting role; best visual effects; best foreign language film; best costume design; best makeup; best animated feature; best animated short feature; best documentary feature; best documentary short subject; best live action short film.
Задание 9. Переведите с листа следующие тексты
Slumdog Millionaire. An eighteen year-old from the slums of Mumbai finds himself competing on the game show “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire”, where the questions he must answer offer a look back at his earlier life. The show’s host, however, insists that he must be cheating and takes steps to force young Jamal to admit that a boy from such an impoverished background could not possibly possess the knowledge necessary to win the show’s top prize.
Achievement in Cinematography
Achievement in Directing
Achievement in Film Editing
Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures (Original Song)
Best Motion Picture of the Year
Achievement in Sound Mixing
Adapted Screenplay
Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures (Original Score)
The Dark Knight. Gotham City appears to be heading toward a relatively crime-free future, because of the efforts of Batman, District Attorney Harvey Dent, and Lieutenant Jim Gordon, and Bruce Wayne hopes he will soon be able to abandon his secret identity. The arrival of the terrifying Joker, however, whose actions are motivated solely by his desire to outwit the Caped Crusader, forces Wayne to continue in his role as the city’s best hope against the powers of evil.
Achievement in Sound Editing
Performance by an Actor in a supporting Role
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Benjamin Button’s life begins at the close of World War I, when he is born with the body of an old man. As the years pass, however Benjamin discovers that he is gradually becoming younger even as he grows older in experience and wisdom – a situation that informs his relationship with the lovely Daisy, who reenters his life periodically as they grow closer together in physical age.
Achievement in Visual Effects
Achievement in Makeup
Achievement in Art Direction
Задание 10. Проанализируйте переводческие проблемы и выполните полный письменный перевод следующего текста
Hollywood.com Says What a ride! Heart-racing action, suspense and adventure – it is thrilling family entertainment in the great hallowed Disney tradition.
WHAT IT’S ABOUT?
Disney takes another whack at “Witch Mountain” having found success more than three decades ago with Escape to Witch Mountain and its sequel. Now the story has been contemporized and Bourne-ified to create what is essentially a nonstop, breathless race across long winding roads and two worlds competing for superiority. As in the original, two children with extraordinary powers seek to save Earth and their own planet from evil forces. They waste no time jumping into a hapless Las Vegas taxi driver’s cab ordering him to put the pedal to the metal. It soon becomes clear the secret to their quest lies somewhere in Witch Mountain, a place where top-secret government activity has been going on for years. With their own alien military leaders in favor of a violent takeover and the U.S. leaders ready for confrontation, these two teens, Sara and Seth, plus their cabbie, Jack Bruno, race against time to find a better solution for both of their worlds.
WHO’S IN IT?
Fast becoming Disney’s go-to guy, Dwayne Johnson (formerly known as The Rock) follows up his hit football comedy, The Game Plan with another family-oriented tale in which he, again, gets upstaged by kids. His Jack Bruno proves the perfect foil this time as he gets to be funny, cynical, commanding and heroic all in the course of about 97 minutes. As events careen out of his control, Johnson grows increasingly exasperated and that’s part of the fun. As Sara, a smart extraterrestrial teen, Anna-Sophia Robb (Bridge to Terabithia) is ideally cast bringing a nice believability to the role without falling into stereotypes. Seth is well played but with one-note earnestness by Alexander Ludwig, who still comes off a little too robotic at times. As an astrophysicist who gets caught up in the trio’s predicament, Carla Gugino is a delight. Lead among the antagonists is Irish actor Ciaran Hinds who is properly mean and heartless when it comes to aliens of any stripe. Director Garry Marshall has an amusing cameo as a self-styled UFO expert, and there are brief, but welcome, appearances by the all-grown-up Kim Richards and Ike Eisenmann, who played the ‘70s incarnation of the alien kids in the earlier films. Richards’ face-to-face meeting with Robb is especially sweet.
WHAT’S GOOD?
The filmmakers wisely keep the retro tone of the book and earlier films while using state-of-the-art visual effects and movie magic. A lot of sci-fi movies have come along since Escape to Witch Mountain premiered in 1975 – see Star Wars, Close Encounters and E.T. And while Witch Mountain circa 2009 won’t do anything to make us forget those classics, it’s good fun -- like welcoming back an old friend.
WHAT’S BAD:
There’s no complexity in sight, and the story isn’t given a lot of time to breathe. We barely get to know Jack Bruno before the kids have hijacked his cab and the whirlwind begins. A little more exposition and plot development would have been welcomed for those with an attention span beyond two minutes.
FAVORITE SCENE:
There are lots of first-rate action set pieces including a collision with a train and a chase through a Vegas casino, but the climactic spaceship battle can’t be topped. Kids are going to eat this sequence up.
Задание 11. Выполните предпереводческий анализ и перевод следующего текста