The Best Movie Endings

Intro

1. Learn Vocabulary - Learn some new vocabulary before you start the lesson.

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• when it comes to
• ambiguous
• sucked
• shoot for

• pent up
• believable
• element
• ultimately

• open-ended
• realistic

2. Read and Prepare - Read the introduction and prepare to hear the audio.

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Sometimes it just feels great to cry at a movie. Watching movies with sad endings like Titanic can help you let out all kinds of pent-up emotions. And you get to do it in the dark, where nobody can see you. Plus, after the lights come back on and you wipe your eyes, you don’t feel sad anymore. After all, it was only movie.

But a lot of people prefer movies with happy endings. They want to be entertained when they go see a film, not depressed. If an ending is too perfect, however, it might not be believable. Find out if Mason and Ella prefer movies with happy or sad endings.

Dialog

1. Listen and Read - Listen to the audio and read the dialog at the same time.

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2. Study - Read the dialog again to see how the vocab words are used.

Ella

Mason

Ella:  Disney movies, they always have happy endings.

Mason:  You know, they do, but they always have some kind of sad element in there. Like there was Up, which had like a movie for the first five minutes and that had a sad ending, and then there was the rest of the movie and that had a happy ending. I mean, I gotta say, it’s probably kinda weird but ultimately I think I find sad endings a lot more interesting.

Ella:  I think for me it’s more about being realistic. I would prefer a happy ending ‘cause it still gives hope to what…if you compare it to your own life, you’d rather have a happy ending than a sad ending. But when it comes to movies I’d like it to be realistic.

Mason:  What about more ambiguous endings, you know, like The Graduate and stuff like that, where they leave it more open-ended?

Ella:  I guess it depends on how the movie went. ‘Cause if it’s ambiguous it’s like it’s open up to imagination, you can kind of go with it how you want. But if the whole movie sucked already and then there’s an ambiguous ending, it just makes me angry. What about you?

Mason:  I don’t know, I tend to find that when you shoot for realism, the open-ended ending is the realistic thing. This is something that happened, but it’s not the end of all things.

Grammar Point

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Quizzes

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Lesson MP3

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