Films
Do you enjoy watching films? What kinds of movies do you like best? Do you prefer foreign films or films made in your country? Who’s your favorite film star?
Vocabulary
  • Attention span (noun) — the length of time that you can pay attention to one thing without becoming bored or thinking about something else.
  • To fire (verb) — stimulate or excite (the imagination or an emotion).
  • To portray (verb) — if an actor portrays a person, they play the part of that person in a film, play etc.
  • Action-packed (adj.) — full of activity or excitement.
  • Knee-jerk (adj.) — a knee-jerk reaction is immediate and not carefully considered.
  • To bother (verb) — to annoy or cause problems for someone.
  • To bump into (phrasal verb) — to meet someone unexpectedly.
  • Warranted (adj.) — justifiable or necessary.
  • To crack a joke (phrase) — to tell a joke.
  • To put up with smth/smn (adj.) — to accept someone or something unpleasant in a patient way.
  • A flick (noun) — a movie/film.
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Questions and answers
Maria: Rory, do you enjoy watching films?

Rory: Actually, probably not as much as I used to. I think my attention span has probably become a lot shorter in recent times. Or maybe it’s just that I have less time. Either way, I don’t really enjoy them as much as I used to, but I still kind of enjoy them.

Maria: What kinds of movies do you like best?

Rory: Oh, that’s an easy one. Anything to do with science fiction or horror or dark or black comedy. So anything that fires my imagination or rewards or justifies my terrible sense of humor.

Maria: I thought your sense of humor is excellent, awesome. And you are bit of… like sarky. Are you sarky, Rory?

Rory: I’m quite sarcastic, but that feeds into this idea of like dark humor. I have a very dark sense of humor. I won’t lie. It’s a major part. Perhaps, I’ve not mentioned it before. But I’m mentioning it now. I have a dark sense of humor.

Maria: But it’s typical for British people, right?

Rory: We do have a lot of humor that’s based around sarcasm. Yes. It’s not so much dark, though. It’s more about irony. I think it’s more.. it’s like the further east you go in the world, the darker the comedy tends to get.

Maria: Do you prefer foreign films or films made in your country?

Rory: It’s funny because when people talk about foreign films where I’m from, they usually mean films that are made in Europe or Asia, but they don’t mean films that are made in Hollywood. So in this way, I only … Well, I can only enjoy foreign films because the Scottish film industry isn’t that big. So the short answer is, well, foreign films. But the longer answer is because it’s the only option for me. There are not that many films that are made in Scotland by a Scottish film industry. So that’s like that’s for sure, because it’s a small country.

Maria: Who’s your favorite film star?

Rory: Oh, that’s not fair, because you can have like, there are male film stars and female film stars. So my favorite male film star is Chris Hemsworth, and my favorite female film star is Emily Blunt. It’s usually because I like the way that they portray the roles that they’re… that they’re playing, basically. I don’t think it’s anything to do with their actual personalities. I just think it’s connected to how well they do their jobs basically and the characters they’re playing.

Maria: What’s your favorite film with Emily Blunt?

Rory: The Devil Wears Prada.

Maria: Yeah, nice. And with Chris Hemsworth?

Rory: Anything with Chris Hemsworth in it, to be honest with you, is worth a watch.

Maria: The Avengers?

Rory: Yes, absolutely. Like I say, anything. He was in this film recently. It was called Extraction, I think, which was action-packed. That was quite good.

Maria: Would you like to be a film star?

Rory: I think everybody’s knee-jerk reaction to this is probably “yes”, but no, definitely not. On reflection, for me, certainly it’s no. It’s like a really demanding and quite high pressure job. Almost too much pressure. I don’t think I’d be able to handle that quite well. I kind of like the job that I have now. It’s not very demanding. Well, it is demanding, but it’s not as demanding as being a film star. It is high pressure, but it’s not as high pressure, again, as being a film star. So I’m quite comfortable where I am.

Maria: Have you ever met a film star in person?

Rory: I don’t think so. You’d think I’d remember if I had. They usually make quite an impression. No, no, I’ve not. Sorry, my life’s not that exciting.

Maria: But would you like to meet Emily Blunt?

Rory: Yeah, I think everybody would like to meet Emily Blunt. She’s so nice. Or at least she seems very nice in the roles that she plays.

Maria: What would you do? Like, let’s imagine like, OK, you just bump into Emily Blunt, and what would you do?

Rory: I’d be surprised if Emily Blunt was walking around in Moscow, first of all. It’s probably not where she spends most of her time. But yeah, it would be cool. You just say like, “hello, are you who I think you are?”. And then obviously she would be like: “Yes, I get asked this question a lot.”. And then you just say, like: “Okay, well, you’re good in the movies that you’re in. Thank you.” And stop bothering her. Probably like they get bothered by people all the time. So if you have that kind of awareness, you don’t want to bother film stars too much if you accidentally bump into them.

Maria: So no selfies, no autographs, nothing?

Rory: For the memories, enough for me, to be honest, I don’t like bothering people for that kind of thing.

Maria: Are film stars popular in your country?

Rory: Well, I think they’re popular in every country. They seem to have like this real hold on the public consciousness, though, I’m not sure that’s warranted, to be honest with you, I think maybe they’re too popular and they have too much influence.

Maria: Do you like to watch movies alone or with your friends?

Rory: I think it depends on the mood that everybody is in because, well, whenever I’m watching movies with another person or other people, I often have a habit of cracking jokes. So when I’m watching with friends, they have to be in the same mood as me, and they have to be ready to put up with that. Otherwise, if it’s a serious thing and they want to just focus on the film, then maybe it’s not such a good idea. And of course, now we all have like quarantine and self-isolation, so most of the time I’m watching films and movies by myself.

Maria: Oh, Rory, have you ever cried while watching a movie? Or maybe like a cartoon or something?

Rory: Yeah. Only one time, though. No, two times.

Maria: Oh. So cute!

Rory: This was when I was like, much younger. I think the first was when I was watching Mighty Joe Young. It’s a movie about a big gorilla. And it had quite a sad part in it. And I cried at that. And then there was another time I cried during a movie. But I can’t remember.

Maria: Titanic?

Rory: No, I don’t like Titanic. It’s too long. And you know what is going to happen.

Maria: No, you can’t say that you don’t like Titanic, come on!

Rory: Well, I’m not the biggest fan of Titanic then, how does that sound?

Maria: Okay. That’s better. Yeah, that’s better. So, Mighty Joe Young made Rory cry. Dear listeners, now you know.

Rory: When I was like 5 or however old I was not. So not now. I’d just be like, oh, God, it’s a big gorilla and a bit of a pickle.

Maria: I cry all the time. Just… you give me a cartoon, I just cry.

Rory: You have to work with me.

Maria: Right. I’m emotional.

Rory: Between the cartoons and working with Rory. It’s quite justified that you’d want to cry.

Maria: Right. Rory, would you like to be in a movie?

Rory: Only if it was about something meaningful. I think there are lots of films that are about, like nothing in particular. But if I was going to be in a movie, it would have to be something that I cared about, like teaching, for example.

Maria: What about a horror film?

Rory: I find horror entertaining. I don’t find it meaningful. Those are two very different things.

Maria: Rory, what are three films you’d like to recommend everyone to watch?

Rory: Oh, that’s hard because it’s only three, but. OK. So I think we’ve already talked about one of them, which was The Devil Wears Prada. So that kind of humor in that movie, matches my own. And I find that aspects of my life are reflected in it. But just because I find that is not a reason everybody should watch it. I think that everybody can appreciate the humor in the situations in the movie. So that’s why I think people would enjoy it in particular. But the reasons I said are why I would enjoy it. And I also really like this movie. It’s it’s from ..oh God. I think it’s from like the late 90s — Starship Troopers. It’s a great film. It’s an action, sort of a Sci-fi action flick. And it’s really good fun. It’s not very serious, but it’s filled with graphic violence and adult content. So any of our listeners who are under 18 definitely should not be watching that movie. But I find it really fun. And I think it won an Oscar actually for best visual effects. So even if you don’t like the story, then you might find the visual effects quite nice.

Maria: So “Starship Troopers”?

Rory: Yep. The last one is called Contact, which is a film I’ve mentioned before. It’s also science fiction and that’s got Jodie Foster and she plays the role of a radio telescope operator and she makes contact with aliens, basically. And it’s not as fast-paced as the Starship Troopers. It’s quite slow. It’s more of a spiritual movie. But it had quite a profound impact on me. And I think it has a profound impact on a lot of people who watched it, so definitely recommend it to everybody to watch. But only by themselves. It’s not really a thing that you watch with other people.

Maria: Thank you so much, Rory, for your recommendations and your super answers!

Rory: It’ OK.
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