Wendy’s Movie Review: 微笑的魚 A Fish with A Smile

Saturday, January 24, 2009
A fish with a smile
http://tw.youtube.com/watch?v=haUYU037UmI

This is a animation movie. A man usually goes through an aquarium and he sees a fish that it always smiles at him whatever how is he. One day, the man decides to buy the smile fish and he likes it very much. Whenever the fish always keeps with him and smiles at him. At that evening, he chases his fish, dives water, swims in sea, and he enjoys it. Suddenly, he discover to be surround. The movie is great and it give us a good example. I hope you would like it.
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You chose a wonderful movie, and I really like your link — you just click on it and go there. I have copied the addresses from sites and pasted them in my blog, but I really wanted to do what you did. If I can’t figure out how to do it this weekend, please show me how to do it on Monday.

CONTENT
I think that most of your content is fine — however you have major grammar and vocabulary problems. You do not have a topic sentence, but I think that it might still work out to be OK. However, the following sentence needs to be clarified: “The movie is great and it give us a good example.” Why is the movie great? What do you mean by, “it give[s] us a good example”? Please see “COHESIVENESS” for more specific advice.

GRAMMAR AND VOCABULARY
I have corrected all of your grammar and vocabulary, but the following paragraph is not a good paragraph yet. However, if you fill in the blanks with grammatically correct sentences that do not spoil the movie by telling the reader too much, you will probably have a good paragraph.

A Fish with a Smile
http://tw.youtube.com/watch?v=haUYU037UmI

“A Fish with a Smile” is an animated movie. A man usually goes to an aquarium, and he sees a fish that always smiles at him. One day, the man decides to buy the smiling fish because he likes it very much. He takes the fish with him as he goes about his nightly routine (e.g., eating, watching TV, and showering), and the fish always smiles at him. That evening, he has a dream about the fish, and he discovers what it’s like to be alone. The movie is great because __________________ , and it has a nice message: __________________. I hope you will like it.

COHESIVENESS
The grammar and vocabulary problems made this quite difficult to follow. You don’t have an introduction, and you do not have a topic sentence:

• http://www.eslbee.com/topic_sentences.htm
• http://eslbee.com/topic_sentences2.htm

• http://lrs.ed.uiuc.edu/students/fwalters/para.html

But that might be OK. It might work without an introduction or topic sentence because you start with a chronological narrative, and that’s easy to follow. I tried to structure my revision of your paragraph so that one event clearly follows another event, until it just hints at what comes last — generally speaking, do not tell the reader how the movie ends. If you fill in the blanks above with stuff that is relevant, easy for the reader to understand, and does not spoil the movie by telling the reader how the movie ends, you will probably be OK.

Homework:

1. Fill in the blanks with something that is relevant, easy to understand, and does not spoil the movie for your audience.
2. Choose another movie, and write another review. This time, I want you to have a clear introduction that has a topic sentence, a body that is easy for the reader to follow, and a definite conclusion. Do not tell the reader too much about the movie because that will spoil it for them. (See the sites included in “COHESIVENESS” for an explanation of a topic sentence.)
3. After you finish your movie review, save a copy. Then read it and make corrections. Reread it and make corrections. Reread it again and make corrections. Reread it and make corrections until you think that you have corrected everything.
4. Finally, I want you to post two versions of your paragraph on your blog: 1.) The First Draft; 2.) The Final Draft.

Ying Ying’s Movie Review:

Stills from the movie Love and War:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiSu3YCDEuw



I have placed Ying Ying's review
http://yingchen89.blogspot.com/2009/01/love-and-war.html#comments
on my blog because I want all of you to better understand the movie review writing assignment:

Saturday, January 24, 2009
LOVE AND WAR
“Love and War” is the world’s first animated opera film. It is a romance film. Bunny, a nurse, met with Bear on one day. They got married after falling in love. Bear went to the war with his duty. Unfortunatly, his plane was crashed down by the enemy rocket. He tried to escape. But he was shot to death by the enemy. Bunny was missing him seriously. He left her with a baby. It ended with despair. The soundtrack is very good in it. It is a astounding animation film.

Time 14:25
From youtube
Posted by Ying Ying at 7:46 PM 0 comments

First off, I’m happy that you wrote a review that’s based on a short film from the internet, and you picked a great film. You did give me enough information to find it, but I wish that you had given us the address:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiSu3YCDEuw


CONTENT
You summarized the main things in the plot, but that is not a movie review. A movie review gives us the author’s opinion of the movie, and it helps the reader decide if they want to watch the movie. You did give us your opinion of the movie (“It is a[n] astounding animat[ed] film.”), but you didn’t tell us why you hold that opinion. And by telling the reader everything that happens in the movie, you spoil the movie.


COHESIVENESS
Your movie review is supposed to have an introduction, a body (supporting sentences — examples, explanations, or details that support the topic sentence), and a conclusion. In a paragraph, the introduction is often a topic sentence. Topic sentences contain both a topic (what you are going to write about) and a controlling idea (“what you want to say about the topic”):

http://www.eslbee.com/topic_sentences.htm
http://eslbee.com/topic_sentences2.htm

http://lrs.ed.uiuc.edu/students/fwalters/para.html


GRAMMAR AND VOCABULARY
All of the grammar and the vocabulary in the following “paragraph” are correct, but it is not a good paragraph because of the aforementioned problems with content and cohesiveness:

“Love and War” is the world’s first animated opera. It is a romance. Bunny, a nurse, met Bear, a soldier, one day. They got married after falling in love. Bear went to war. Unfortunately, his plane was shot down by an enemy rocket. He tried to escape, but he was shot to death by the enemy. Bunny missed him terribly. He left her with a baby. The movie ended tragically. The soundtrack was very good. It is an astounding animated film.

THE TEACHER’S VERSION
“Love and War” (14:25 on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiSu3YCDEuw) is an animated opera that will captivate the audience with its music, its animation, and its story. The movie begins with a operatic soundtrack that seems both ridiculous and wonderfully appropriate as animal puppets in human clothes sing and act out the story. Through wonderful stop motion animation, you soon believe that these animals are not puppets but living creatures that live, love, and long for one another. The main characters are a bunny, who is a nurse, and a bear, an air force pilot. They fall in love, get married, and he goes off to fight while she stays home and cares for wounded soldiers. Will he come back safely? Will they be reunited? Will the story have a happy ending? The amazing thing is that you will have to learn the answers to these questions. You will forget that these are puppets. The music, animation, and the story will grab your interest, and they won’t let you go until the final credits roll.

HOMEWORK
Please choose another short movie from YouTube, and write a paragraph that has an introduction, a body, and a conclusion. Read, reread, and reread your writing again. Each time you reread your writing, remove any sentence that doesn't plays an important role, and add anything that's missing.