Listening 16 – Listen for specific words

DAN

Hi, my name is Dan and I wanted to take a moment to tell you about one of my favorite movies of all time. It is called, “The Princess Bride.” This movie came out in 1987 and I was still a young boy – so I think that is the main why I am so fond of it.

The story revolves around a girl named Buttercup and her farmhand named Wesley. They fall in love, but there comes a time when Wesley decides to to seek his fortune. While he is gone, Buttercup is captured by an evil prince, and the story follows their fantastic journey through a fantasy land as they try to the evil prince and reunite.

This movie has everything. To quote a line from the movie, “This story has fencing, fighting, torture, revenge, chases, escapes, love, miracles…” It has everything for everybody. It’s a great family movie, it’s a great movie for men and women alike. It takes itself seriously, but it also takes time to make and have fun with itself.

I watched this movie as a kid all the time – so much so that I memorized every single of dialogue in the film. And if I watched it today, I would probably discover that I still do have it memorized.

One of the characters in the movie is a pirate, and there is a scene where he fences with another guy. And that is probably the most part of the film for me. As a young boy I loved this character so much I even dressed up as him for Halloween, and I just loved fencing and sword .

I don’t want to give away too much, if you haven’t seen it – even though I know the film came out 30 years ago – but I really really love this movie so much and I would say that this movie was in part for my love of making my own movies. It inspired my , my ability to dream up new stories and fantasy, and I love making my own stories today – even with my young four boys, we make little films.

This is a movie that I plan to show them when they are old enough and I hope you get a to watch it too.

ASHLEY

Hello, my name is Ashley and today I’m going to talk to you about my favorite book. My favorite book is titled Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, and it was written by Gregory Maguire in 1995 and this book on the background story of the Wicked Witch of the West. So it focuses on her family life and how she grew up and the leading up to her being the Wicked Witch of the West that you see in the Wizard of Oz. So it really focuses on her before the whole Dorothy story came into play.

And the reason why I really like this is because it gives one of those villains, it gives you their background story – so rather than, you know, kind of being like “oh she’s a villain, I really don’t like her,” you read this story and you’re like “OK, now I why she became who she became, and I actually really like this character and I kind of feel for her.”

This book is also a famous Broadway play titled “Wicked,” and I myself have not seen it on Broadway but I’m hoping that I can make it out to New York – hopefully it’s still playing – so I can see it on Broadway. I really suggest this book if you like kind of those satires or getting background stories from your movies and books – so yeah, Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire – check it out!