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Saturday, March 17, 2012

City of God, The 'Burbs, Blue Velvet & The Stepford Wives: Suburban Life

Talking about city life includes talking about the suburbs. In Brazil living in the suburbs is very different from other countries, such as the USA. Before you show the segment City of God, make sure the language used is appropriate for your adult audienc.







I. Talk to a partner.


1. What are the good and bad things about living in a big city?

2. Do (Would) you like to live in a big city? Why?

3. How is the suburban area where you live?

4. Suburbs in Brazil consists of a highly populated surrounding area with less privileged citizens. What do you know about the suburbs in the USA?


II. Read the characteristics below and decide whether they apply to a Brazilian suburb - favela or comunidade - to American suburbia, or both


- Younger buildings than the inner cities

- Traffic is slow to make cities safe

- As the land is less expensive, people have gardens

- Urban violence is a drawback

- Housing is improvised and unplanned

- Housing is comfortable and within commuting distance

- More open space and parks

- Less pollution than in the center of the city


III. Watch the segments below. Three of them show American suburbs and their lifestyle. City of God does the same with a Brazilian suburb in Rio de Janeiro. Then decide which characteristics in II apply to each of the segments.


City of God:



Blue Velvet:



The Stepford Wives:



The 'Burbs



V. Discuss the questions:

1. How do you think the economic crisis has affected suburban life in America?

2. Has suburban life improved in Brazil? How so?

3. Are the suburbs shown in the segment an accurate view of those countries' realities? Explain it.


MOVIE SEGMENT DOWNLOAD - CITY OF GOD

MOVIE SEGMENT DOWNLOAD - THE BURBS

MOVIE SEGMENT DOWNLOAD - BLUE VELVET

MOVIE SEGMENT DOWNLOAD - THE STEPFORD WIVES

4 comments:

  1. Claudio, your blog is fantastic! You gave me many ideas for warmers! Thank you so much!!!!

    -Ivan

    ReplyDelete
  2. How can I download these videos?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Check out this link, please http://warmupsfollowups.blogspot.com/2009/07/downloading-movie-segments.html

    Also, if you use Firefox Mozilla, download for free DOWNLOAD HELPER and you will easily download all the segments.

    ReplyDelete