The 99 Most Jaw-Dropping Movie Moments

Practice your English with the 99 most jaw-dropping movie moments.


You get a mixture of video and text from 99 different movies of different genres, so surely something for everyone here.


If you haven't seen one of the films listed; and intend to, it's probably best to miss that video out.  It might spoil your enjoyment of the movie, when you do see it.

30 Killer Movie Closing Lines

Practice your English by watching this collection of 30 Killer Movie Closing Lines.

I love the ending to Sunset Boulevard:  'All right, Mr De Mille, I'm ready for my close-up'.  Wonderful, insane, haunting end to a fantastic piece of classic old Hollywood.

Interview with the Director of Twilight Saga: Full Moon

Practice your English by watching an interview with the director of Twilight Saga: Full Moon.

In the video, you get a mixture of 'face to face' interview with the director and clips from the movie.

I'm not the biggest fan of these movies; though I do admit, the lead vampire is a sassy guy.

Top Gear Test a Toyota Pick-Up Truck

Practice your English by watching the BBC's Top Gear program test how strong a Toyota Pick-Up Truck is.

Top Gear is a great way to practice your English: all three presenters speak quite clearly (although a little fast at times).  They are very careful to explain things, before they do them.  The show is also very visual so, even if you don't understand every that is being said, it's still very enjoyable.

I love Top Gear's mix of genuine enthusiasm for all things car related, surprisingly bang on social commentary and totally & utter stupidity.  As the presenters themselves put it: the usual mix of fast cars and middle aged men falling over.

New Avatar Trailer

Practice your English by watching the new trailer for James Cameron's latest 'Avatar'.

There is also some written text about the trailer, which you can read.  See if it matches you're understanding of what you saw.

Love him or hate him, you've got to admit: James Cameron knows how to make a blockbuster movie.  I think 'Aliens' lines up as my favorite, followed closely by the original 'Terminator'.

Practice your English & Kick Ass!

Practice your English and kick ass: The Trailer for the movie 'Kick Ass' is here.

Watching movies is a great way to practice your English: you get to hear the language as it is spoken by native speakers, you get to hear a lot of idiom and expression, and it's a lot more interesting than your average text book!

If you're worried about your English level being too low to watch movies yet, try watching the film with English subtitles: hearing and reading the language at the same time will make it easier for you to understand.

Another trick is not to be too hard on yourself.  When I watch films in French (Oui, Je parle un peu de français), I don't worry about understanding every detail.  As long as I understand the general story, I'm happy.

Gordon Ramsay's World Kitchen

Practice your English with this video of Gordon Ramsay cooking a Greek White Bean & Vegetable Soup.

The video is followed by a small collection of different recipes you can try: Garlic Prawns, Meatballs in Tomato Sauce, Spinach & Feta Filo Rolls, Buffalo Chicken Wings with Sour Cream & Chive Dip, Courgette, Feta & Herb Fritters, Dolmades, Tabbouleh and Baba Ganoush.


This is a great example of how you can practice your English with, really, anything!  You don't need to stick to academic practice or business publications, if you don't want to.  A lot of the 'connecting & explaining' language you find here, is just as applicable in business as it is in recipes.

The most important thing is to enjoy your English! 

40 Years of Sesame Street

The excellent American TV show Sesame Street is 40 years old.  You can check out the BBC article and video here.

For a different take on the anniversary, Ricky Gervais interviewing Elmo.

40 years of entertaining children, helping them to read and write is a thing to celebrated.  Personally, my favorite character was always The Count: One!  Ha Ha Ha!  Two!  Ha Ha Ha!

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

As I have already posted on my facebook pages and explained on my blogs in the sidebar, I'll now be posting English culture links here on my TobytheTeacher blog.

If you want General & Business English and English @nswers, you can easily visit the other blogs by clicking on the links in the sidebar.


Let's start today with a list of quotes from one of my favorite movies:  Sergio Leone's 'The Good, The Bad and The Ugly'.

You can check out the trailer for the movie here on youtube.  I have to say, I've never liked the trailers for Sergio's films.  They never do the films justice, but you do get a sense of the scope of the movie.

So Lonely, but Nuclear

Troubling times in North Korea. Fortunately the UN have dispatched their top weapons inspector Hans Blix. Let's take a look at how that goes.


Of course it's not Kim Jong-il's fault. Afterall, he is very 'ronery'.

Los Lyricos:

I'm So Ronery
So ronery
So ronery and sadry arone

There's no one
Just me onry
Sitting on my rittle throne
I work rearry hard and make up great prans
But nobody ristens, no one understands
Seems like no one takes me serirousry

And so I'm ronery
A rittle ronery
Poor rittle me

There's nobody
I can rerate to
Feel rike a bird in a cage
It's kinda sihry
But not rearry
Because it's fihring my body with rage

I'm the smartest most crever most physicarry fit
But nobody else seems to rearize it
When I change the world maybe they'll notice me
But until then I'rr just be ronery
Rittle ronery, poor rittle me

I'm so ronery

..soon he will have nuclear weapons. Oh good.

The Who Raises The Alert Level?!

The Who have raised the Swine Flu alert level. What do English rock band The Who have to do with all this?

If The Who can raise the alert level, that means they'll be responsible for treatment as well!

A scene from the 1975 film based on the band's Rock Opera 'Tommy' gives us an indication of what The Who's treatment of Swine Flu could look like:



...uh oh.

Trapped in the Closet

They say, 'See Venice before you die.' But in my opinion, you should really see R Kelly's 'Trapped in the Closet' before you die.

Words can not properly describe R Kelly's R&B soap opera opus. It may be the most stupid thing I have ever seen in my life and yet, you can not stop watching it once you start.

This is much is true, however, once you have seen R Kelly's Trapped in the Closet, your world will never be quite the same.

Youtube have kindly provided Episode 1 here.

And to achieve the full R Kelly experience, here are the lyrics (R Kelly may be the first human being to rhyme the word 'dresser' with 'Beretta'):


(CHAPTER 1)

Seven o’clock in the morning
And the rays from the sun wakes me
I’m stretchin’ and yawnin’
In a bed that don’t belong to me
And a voice yells, “Good morning, darlin”, from the bathroom
Then she comes out and kisses me
And to my surprise, she ain’t you

Now I’ve got this dumb look on my face
Like, what have I done?
How could I be so stupid to be have laid here til the morning sun?
Lost the track of time
Oh, what was on my mind?
From the club, went to her home
Didn’t plan to stay that long

Here I am, quickly tryin’ to put on my clothes
Searching for my car keys
Tryin’ to get on up out the door
Then she stretched her hands in front of it
Said, “You can’t go this way”
Looked at her, like she was crazy
Said, “Woman move out my way”
Said, “I got a wife at home”
She said, “Please don’t go out there”
“Lady, I’ve got to get home”
She said, her husband was comin’ up the stairs

“Shh, shh, quiet
Hurry up and get in the closet”
She said, “Don’t you make a sound
Or some sh*t is going down”
I said, “Why don’t I just go out the window?”
“Yes, except for one thing, we on the 5th floor”
“Sh*t think, sh*t think, sh*t quick, put me in the closet”
And now I’m in this darkest closet, tryin’ to figure out
Just how I’m gonna get my crazy a*s up out this house

Then he walks in and yells, “I’m home”
She says, “Honey, I’m in the room”
Walks in there with a smile on his face
Sayin’, “Honey, I’ve been missin’ you”
She hops all over him
And says, “I’ve cooked and ran your bath water”
I’m tellin’ you now, this girl’s so good that she deserves an Oscar

Throws her in the bed
And start to snatchin’ her clothes off
I’m in the closet, like man, what the f*ck is going on?
You’re not gonna believe it
But things get deeper as the story goes on
Next thing you know, a call comes through on my cell phone
I tried my best to quickly put it on vibrate
But from the way he act, I could tell it was too late
He hopped up and said, “There’s a mystery going on
And I’m gonna solve it”
And I’m like, “God please, don’t let this man open this closet”

He walks in the bathroom
And looks behind the door
She says, “Baby, come back to bed”
He says, “B*tch say no more”
He pulls back the shower curtain
While she’s biting her nails
Then he walks back to the room
Right now, I’m sweating like hell
Checks under the bed
Then under the dresser
He looks at the closet
I pull out my Beretta
He walks up to the closet
He goes up to the closet
Now he’s at the closet
Damn he’s opening the closet…

Achmed the Dead Terrorist

I can't seem to find anything funny in the news.

Maybe it's because I'm not in a funny mood. Maybe it's because the world is not in a funny mood.

I suspect the cause of both moods may well be the same: The Super-Rich's desire to have a 12% year on year increase in wealth rather than a 10% one is beginning to bite.

However before I join Al Qaeda, some research first:

Achmed the Dead Terrorist

Silence! I kill you!

China:

It's big,

There's a lot of people,

And Jackie Chan is one of them.

- But what do we really know about it?

Luckily her majesty's broadcasting corporation (the BBC) is here
with a series of documentaries.

And now, in a shameless display of cultural insensitivity,
Carl Douglas - Kung Fu Fighting.

Zai Jian!


Kung Fu Fighting

Everybody was kung-fu fighting
Those cats were fast as lightning
In fact it was a little bit frightening
But they fought with expert timing

They were funky China men from funky Chinatown
They were chopping them up and they were chopping them down
It's an ancient Chinese art and everybody knew their part
From a feint into a slip, and kicking from the hip

Everybody was kung-fu fighting
Those cats were fast as lightning
In fact it was a little bit frightening
But they fought with expert timing

There was funky Billy Chin and little Sammy Chung
He said here comes the big boss, lets get it on
We took a bow and made a stand, started swinging with the hand
The sudden motion made me skip now we're into a brand knew trip

Everybody was kung-fu fighting
Those cats were fast as lightning
In fact it was a little bit frightening
But they did it with expert timing

(repeat)..make sure you have expert timing
Kung-fu fighting, had to be fast as lightning

Italian Christmas Witch Day

It's Italian Christmas Witch Day!

Who is the Italian Christmas Witch I hear you ask? Find out here.

To celebrate Italian Christmas Witch day here are some traditional English language stories about the Italian Christmas Witch...

- wait a minute! There are no traditional English language storys!! Oh well, here are some Family Guy videos about Italians instead:

Cutting in Line in front of Italians

Peter thinks he can speak Italian because he has a moustache

..and finally, Monty Python's Italian lessons - which I've posted before, but I like it!

Toodle-Italian-Christmas-Witch-Pip!

George W, Rare Live Interview

As we come to the end of the US Presidential Elections it's easy to forgot the current President Bush, but here he is in a rare live TV interview

Good luck to both the candidates for today! May the best man win...

But... if you can not decide upon a best man, perhaps it's time to select the best woman:

Meeting The Parents...

Hello Hello,

A funny video for Friday. I guess in the list of things you'd not want to happen when you first visit your boyfriend's parents, this would be around the top.

Enjoy your weekends!

Toodle-Pip!

Swear Words for Friday

What's the point of learning a language, if you don't know how to swear in it?
Worry not, I'm here to help.

*of course, this could just be my sub-conscious trying to get me fired...

Every office should have a swear jar.

Although, you shouldn't buy Bud with the money. American beer is like making love in a canoe, it's f**king close to water.

There are no swear words in America's longest running kid's show Sesame Street... or are there? Let's find out.

Wait a moment! None of these videos have had actual swear words in them!

Let's solve that right now: with a song.

That's it! I'm done. Elvis has left the building. I'm emptying my bank account and heading to Mexico for the weekend!

(where I am known as 'el professore del muchos coronas')

Do You Remember Teen Wolf?

Ok. The blog has been getting a little serious of late. Back on form with a funny video...


Do you remember Teen Wolf? Micheal J Fox. The 80s. High school. 88 miles per hour Marty! That's the power of love! ...wait was that Teen Wolf? Anyway, I don't remember it being like this (oh yeah, rude words!!):

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/1e5af33246

...I remember watching Teen Wolf on a bus to London (school trip to the science museum - rock n' roll!), half way through the movie, one of the older kids at the back of the bus shouted, 'this film is rubbish! It's just like Teen Wolf 2!'.

Some people shouldn't go to the science museum - there's no point.

Happiness is a Well Educated Gun?

Now we all love national stereotypes... the Germans have no sense of humour, the French are arrogant, the Italians disorganised, and the English, the English make stupid jokes about other nationalities (did you see what I did there?) ...but really, Americans, this is stupid:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7564654.stm


Chris Rock on Gun Control (he says it so much better than I could):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdJGcrUk2eE


Don't really like Tori Amos' music, but here she is doing The Beatles track 'Happiness is a Warm Gun':

http://www.deezer.com/track/95501

'Happiness is a Warm Gun' (as with many covers, Tori sings the same lyrics but in her own order)

She's not a girl who misses much.
Do do do do do do, oh yeah
She's well acquainted with the touch of the velvet hand
Like a lizard on a window pane.

The man in the crowd with the multicolored mirrors
On his hobnail boots
Lying with his eyes while his hands are busy
Working overtime
A soap impression of his wife which he ate
And donated to the National Trust.

I need a fix 'cause I'm going down.
Down to the bits that I left uptown.
I need a fix 'cause I'm going down.

Mother Superior jump the gun
Mother Superior jump the gun
Mother Superior jump the gun
Mother Superior jump the gun.

Happiness is a warm gun
(bang, bang, shoot shoot)
Happiness is a warm gun
When I hold you in my arms
And I feel my finger on your trigger
I know nobody can do me no harm
Because happiness is a warm gun.
Yes it is.