【英语听和读】辛普森一家

 Amber¹: Hello, I’m Amber and this is bbclearningenglish.com.

In Entertainment today, we hear two reviews of The Simpsons Movie – yes,

after 400 TV shows, America’s most famous dysfunctional cartoon family –

Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie – step up from the television to the big

screen for the first time. ‘Dysfunctional’ means not functioning, or working,

properly. ‘A dysfunctional family.’

The Simpsons series has been running on TV since 1989. The Simpsons Movie

is 87 minutes long – much longer than a TV episode, and everything about the

movie is bigger too. For example, Homer mistakenly causes an environmental

catastrophe² when he pollutes the lake in Springfield with toxic³ waste from his

pet pig!

Now here’s the cartoonist Nick Newman giving his verdict on the look of the

film. He also explains that it’s a big production – it’s ‘on an epic⁴ scale’.

As you listen, try to catch any of the extremely positive adjectives Nick uses to

describe how the film looks.

Nick Newman

‘I think it looked absolutely stunning⁵ visually. It’s on an epic scale of the kind that watching it

on a 26-inch television you can’t believe – I mean, you go pan over Springfield and all of that,

I didn’t have a problem with any of that. I thought it was all dazzling. It was very funny, but

for those who have seen hundreds of episodes – of which there are 400 odd! – a lot of the

jokes seemed quite familiar!’

Amber: Nick says the film looked great – it was ‘absolutely stunning visually’. And he

thought the film was ‘dazzling’ – it was spectacular. For example, the camera 

Entertainment © BBC Learning English 2007

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pans over Springfield – ‘to pan’ means to move a camera in such a way that

you get a broad view of a scene. Exciting stuff.

Listen again and notice the informal expression Nick uses to say that he was

rather indifferent to, in other words - he didn’t mind, the way the film looked.

He says ‘I didn’t have a problem with …’ the epic look of the film.

 

Nick Newman

‘I think it looked absolutely stunning visually. It’s on an epic scale of the kind that watching it

on a 26-inch television you can’t believe – I mean, you go pan over Springfield and all of that,

I didn’t have a problem with any of that. I thought it was all dazzling. It was very funny, but

for those who have seen hundreds of episodes – of which there are 400 odd! – a lot of the

jokes seemed quite familiar!’

Amber: Next, the journalist Andrew Billen gives his opinion of The Simpsons Movie.

He’s impressed – he says it’s ‘very funny, very silly at points, but not actually

trivial.’ If something is trivial it lacks seriousness or importance.

Well, the film has some ‘surreal’, or strange, moments – Homer falls in love

with a pig! And that’s what leads to the environmental threat to Springfield.

This is obviously ‘a low point’, a difficult time, for Homer – when he ‘reaches

rock bottom’! But in Andrew’s view, the film exactly fits – it’s ‘absolutely

bang on’ – the archetypal, or typical, popular American story. Can you catch

what that plot is?

Andrew Billen

‘Well, yeah, Homer reaches rock bottom doesn’t he when he does fall in love with a pig!

There was an American critic who once talked about all popular narrative⁶ being one plot

basically which is the family is threatened and the family is reunited and effectively you have

to do this by restoring daddy to the head of the table, his rightful place. And I thought in that

sense this movie was absolutely bang on the archetype and that was why it was so satisfying.

It was very funny, very silly at points, but not actually trivial.’ 

Entertainment © BBC Learning English 2007

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Amber: So a family facing threats then coming together with the father back in control

– ‘at the head of the table’ – makes for a ‘satisfying’ – a pleasing – film. Listen

again.

Andrew Billen

‘Well, yeah, Homer reaches rock bottom doesn’t he when he does fall in love with a pig!

There was an American critic who once talked about all popular narrative being one plot

basically which is the family is threatened and the family is reunited and effectively you have

to do this by restoring daddy to the head of the table, his rightful place. And I thought in that

sense this movie was absolutely bang on the archetype and that was why it was so satisfying.

It was very funny, very silly at points, but not actually trivial.’

Amber: Now let’s recap the language we focussed on.

 

a dysfunctional family – a family that doesn’t function properly

‘I don’t have a problem with …’ – an informal expression meaning you don’t

mind something, you’re indifferent to it

trivial – lacking seriousness

to reach rock bottom – to experience a low or difficult point in your life

to be bang on – to fit exactly

 

 

1 amber   

n.琥珀；琥珀色；adj.琥珀制的

参考例句：

• Would you like an amber necklace for your birthday?你过生日想要一条琥珀项链吗？
• This is a piece of little amber stones.这是一块小小的琥珀化石。

2 catastrophe   

n.大灾难，大祸

参考例句：

• I owe it to you that I survived the catastrophe.亏得你我才大难不死。
• This is a catastrophe beyond human control.这是一场人类无法控制的灾难。

3 toxic   

adj.有毒的，因中毒引起的

参考例句：

• The factory had accidentally released a quantity of toxic waste into the sea.这家工厂意外泄漏大量有毒废物到海中。
• There is a risk that toxic chemicals might be blasted into the atmosphere.爆炸后有毒化学物质可能会进入大气层。

4 epic   

n.史诗，叙事诗；adj.史诗般的，壮丽的

参考例句：

• I gave up my epic and wrote this little tale instead.我放弃了写叙事诗，而写了这个小故事。
• They held a banquet of epic proportions.他们举行了盛大的宴会。

5 stunning   

adj.极好的；使人晕倒的

参考例句：

• His plays are distinguished only by their stunning mediocrity.他的戏剧与众不同之处就是平凡得出奇。
• The finished effect was absolutely stunning.完工后的效果非常美。

6 narrative   

n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的

参考例句：

• He was a writer of great narrative power.他是一位颇有记述能力的作家。
• Neither author was very strong on narrative.两个作者都不是很善于讲故事。