EnglishisEasy/Elinglésesfácil

He aquí una prueba más de que lo mucho que los americanos en realidad desconocen a los latinos. Tristemente esa ignorancia se ve reflejada en los papeles que los actores latinos reciben siendo estos desde el pandillero estúpido hasta la latina ardiente. Incapaces de entendernos incluso el latino parece mostrar una fuerte tendencia a ser homosexual en las películas. El más reciente caso es el personaje Santana López (noten la torpeza de los autores de la serie al nombrar a este personaje usando un apellido) de la serie Glee quien se revela en la tercer temporada como lesbiana. En sí eso no tiene nada de malo. Lo que sí sorprende es que la mayor parte del tiempo son los latinos quienes interpretan estos roles y no  miembros de otras minorías.

DC does it again. One more time they deliver a product of great quality and that is none other than "Batman: Year One", their latest animated film. One thing you get to like is the fact that the main character is not Batman, since he doesn´t even exist, or Bruce Wayne for that matter but a recently-arrived James Gordon. This character is far form being the tough-as-nails commissioner we get to know later on and instead he is a cop with a troubled career caused principally by his strict code of honor that clashes with a corrupt system that involves everyone from the simple street cop to the current commissioner. Gotham is far from being the place where Gordon would like to raise his baby (his wife is pregnant). Not only that: the story is really consistent for it was written by one of the best comic writers of all time: Frnak Miller ( Sin City, Dark Knight Returns ). We also get to see an amateur Batman surviving his first superhero days, Harvey Dent being his first collaborat...

        Bien, fue recientemente en mi clase de inglés que expliqué a mis alumnos la idea de que al traducir es imposible transmitir siempre por completo lo que se quiso decir en el idioma original. Por ejemplo "I was born..." generalmente se lo traduce como "Yo nací..." pero en realidad no es una traducción enteramente fiel pues al decir "I was born..." uno implica que este no es un acto voluntario y por lo mismo es expresado en voz pasiva mientras en español se usa, tal vez erróneamente la voz activa, cual si nacer fuera un acto voluntario. Claro en realidad no lo es y los hispano parlantes estamos conscientes de ello pero la voz nacer no puede o suele ser usada en voz pasiva porque simplemente así ha sido desde siempre. Tampoco el verbo born que es una inflexión de  bear significa nacer sino engendrar de manera que "I was born..." significa Yo fui engendrado.         Tratando de explicar esto en términos más sencillos a mis alumnos les hab...

The third installment of Paranormal Activity is out and it´s not a sequel but a prequel. Usually second parts, or third parts, tend to lack the brilliance and even some of the energy the first part had (if we are talking of a successful film that is), however that doesn´t seem to be the case here since the film has been receiving positive reports so perhaps watching this story might not be a waste of time even if PA3 has only half of the punch PA1 had. The key in understanding why PA3 and also PA2 do not disappoint is that neither is truly a sequel. PA2 says how and why Katie and Micah (the couple in PA1) get tormented by a strange entity with mostly events happening before PA1 and only some of them happening after that. PA3 tells you how Katie and Kristie, both sisters originally met the entity that would come back to haunt them in adulthood. It turns out that they have been in contact with this pseudo demon ever since they were little girls and according to clues given in PA2  th...

      A great family movie. What is there not to like in it?  The premise is simple really: at some point in the future Boxing has been disappearing and being replaced by Robot Fighting. One of the last boxers in the world, Charlie Kenton, character played by Hugh Jackman, has gotten into that business with very limited success. At the same time he is left with the responsibility of taking care of his only son whose mother has recently died and whose custody will eventually be turned over Kenton´s sister in law.  Kenton wants nothing with the kid,  however, his son, Max played by Dakota Goyo, is the person who is destined to make his life complete and lets him rediscover the power of human heart. Accidentally these two run into an abandoned robot and Max rebuilds it, reprograms it  and convinces his father to use this robot, called Atom, a chance to fight again. The rest is something you have to see. I particularly like the special effects: perfe...

                                     Is Ashton Kutcher the ideal replacement of Charlie Sheen?                 After watching the first episode of the new season of Two and a Half Men my impression is that none other than the producers themselves understood that the answer is no. What they did was to create an entirely new character, somebody who were able to create his own niche rather than occupy the one Sheen left vacant, and they will try to move forward from that premise. Ashton is a not a bad actor and he did pretty well but truly I can´t see this series repeating the success it had without Sheen´s character to make his brother´s life miserable in his own particular style. I might be wrong though and I hope I  am. There are nevertheless things that make me suspicious about the whole mess and one of them is that recently Charlie Shee...

Bien, debería decir que soy un  fanático de García Márquez pero eso sería sólo parcialmente cierto. En realidad me gusta el García Marquez de antes de ganar el Nobel no el que vino después que pareció sumirse en una complacencia de la que no ha salido hasta la vez. En una curiosa situación esto hace que tengamos a dos escritores en una sola persona. El primero que ya no escribe más y sin embargo es eterno pues sus obras "Ojos de Perro Azul", "El Otoño del Patriarca" y por supuesto, "Cien Años de Soledad" tienen una fuerza literaria sobrecogedora y son el mejor ejemplo del tan reconocido, y también tan latinoamericano, realismo mágico que muy pocos han podido reproducir y de hecho nadie en el mundo del cine ha logrado con éxito, más allá del ámbito del libro. El otro García Márquez es un autor más reposado, supuestamente más maduro pero al mismo tiempo incapaz de ofrecer algo verdaderamente nuevo sino extensiones imperfectas de lo que ya conocemos de su pro...