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21 Grams

21 Grams

Date: Jan 14 2004

Intro

1. Learn Vocabulary - Learn some new vocabulary before you start the lesson.

2. Read and Prepare - Read the introduction and prepare to hear the audio.

In the new movie 21 Grams, college professor Paul Rivers (Sean Penn) is mortally ill and awaiting a heart transplant. Cristina Peck (Naomi Watts) is a good wife to Michael and loving mother to two little girls. Her family radiates hope and joy. Much farther down the socioeconomic scale, ex-con Jack Jordan (Benicio Del Toro) and his wife Marianne struggle to provide for their two children. A tragic accident that claims several lives connects all of them. In the aftermath, each person attempts to deal with the complicated and difficult situation.
Miguel recently saw 21 Grams. Listen in to his conversation with Zach to hear what he thinks about it.

Dialog

1. Listen and Read - Listen to the audio and read the dialog at the same time.

Log in to Listen

2. Study - Read the dialog again to see how the vocab words are used.

Miguel

Miguel

Zach

Zach

Miguel:  Zach, have you seen 21 Grams yet?

Zach:  No I haven’t. What’s the deal with 21 Grams? What does that mean?

Miguel:  Well, supposedly 21 grams is the amount of weight that every person loses, like, the moment they die. So, the movie is semi-based on that, but it’s kind of an interesting concept.

Zach:  So what kind of plot does it have?

Miguel:  Well, I really don’t want to give it away, ‘cause it’s really an interesting and, uh, enrapturing plot, but basically it’s about tragedy and it’s about the way people deal with tragedy in different ways. So, I think the 21 grams is kind of symbolic. We all go through the same thing but everyone kinda deals with it in a different way.

Zach:  That sounds cool. It kinda sounds like a play, for some reason.

Miguel:  Yeah. Well it is like a play, especially because it’s a real actor’s movie. Like, I don’t think I’ve seen three better performances in a movie in my life. It’s really, really incredible.

Zach:  That’s awesome. Isn’t Sean Penn in there?

Miguel:  Yeah. Sean Penn and Naomi Watts and Benicio Del Toro – and they’re just totally amazing. Like, I was just on edge. I was crying. I was, like, laughing. Every emotion I went through during that film.

 

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Discussion

Miguel really gives 21 Grams a strong endorsement. He’s super excited about the film. It must be a good one.
I really enjoyed the last film by Alejandro González Iñárritu. Previous to 21 Grams, he directed Amores Perros, which was in Spanish. Iñárritu is definitely one of the most talented filmmakers working today. It’s going to be fun to see what he does next.
See you at the movies!
Zach

 

Comments

Log in to Comment

really?

China

Ok!That's perfect!I'm in Shijiazhuang.Study at HuiHua college of Hebei normal university.Where are you?This is my email address (I can't write it on ,I don't know why.).keep on contact!

11:06 AM Dec 16 2007 |

really?

China

Ok!That's perfect!I'm in Shijiazhuang.Study at HuiHua college of Hebei normal university.Where are you?This my email address keep on contact!

11:06 AM Dec 16 2007 |

zijinshan007

China

sure, where are you? we can support each other and may be friend in the english study.

01:37 PM Dec 15 2007 |

really?

China

Me too!

03:10 AM Dec 15 2007 |

really?

China

Me too!

03:09 AM Dec 15 2007 |

zijinshan007

China

fast, cann't get anything. It is time to improve my english listening capability. Hope progress in the late month, please support me.

09:28 AM Dec 14 2007 |

berna_berna

Turkey

I can't hear the dialogue,too

09:21 AM Dec 14 2007 |

wrluna

China

I can't listen to the dialogue. Is there any one could help me ?

09:07 AM Dec 10 2007 |

小牵牛

小牵牛

China

I don't know why I can't listen to this dialogue?

07:35 AM Dec 10 2007 |

itisbad

China

who can give me some help about english? I am chinese, I want to make friends with others, it is my email:

01:07 AM Dec 03 2007 |

fuwenhaozhonghao

China

it is hard to undersand .it is a lot of new words for me .but when i had seen the explaination,i got it.thinks for the lesson!

05:53 AM Nov 29 2007 |

nodir@cool

nodir@cool

Uzbekistan

i don't understand it

07:00 PM Nov 16 2007 |

sale7

Egypt

erggw

12:00 PM Nov 10 2007 |

Am_Rose

Am_Rose

Saudi Arabia

This movie is really deserve to spend some hours to see it.

" The title of the movie comes from the work of Dr. Duncan MacDougall, who in the early 1900s sought to measure the weight purportedly lost by a human body when the soul departed the body upon death. MacDougall weighed dying patients in an attempt to prove that the soul was material, tangible and thus measurable. These experiments are widely considered to have had little if any scientific merit, and although MacDougall's results varied considerably from 21 grams, for some people this figure has become synonymous with the measure of a soul's mass. "

http://www.snopes.com/religion/soulweight.asp

 

10:39 AM Oct 26 2007 |

martin2031

martin2031

China

How to see the movie

 

05:03 AM Oct 19 2007 |

murat66

Turkey

nobody likes tragedy. It ısn't good item for study. That's Why nobody has written about

12:27 PM Oct 08 2007 |

syant

syant

Indonesia

this movie has a complicated story telling, but thats make it special.

01:02 AM Apr 14 2007 |

Josh K

Josh K

Guatemala

I saw one year, it’s have a well contenit.

05:00 PM Apr 13 2007 |

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