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Exercise

Instructions:

You are given a piece of text which is divided into sections, and a set of questions with choices A, B, C or D.

For each question choose the section which holds the correct answer.

 

Once all the questions have been answered, click on the check button.

Correct answers will appear in green, incorrect answers in red.

Your mark will be given as a percentage.

 

The pass mark for this exercise is 60% or over and you need to be able to do this exercise in the exam in about 10 minutes.

(Here a timer is given to help.)

10:00 min.

Allied

Reviewer A

Allied, which is Robert Zemeckis's deft and diverting World War II romantic thriller, operates a bit like Casablanca in reverse. There are some similarities between the films, but I don't want to press the comparison too far. For one thing, there is more Alfred Q.4 Hitchcock than Michael Curtiz in this movie's DNA. For another, whereas Casablanca put forth a spine-stiffening anti-fascist call to arms, Allied offers the comforts of elegant escapism. Its moral complexities and political ambiguities are intriguing rather than troubling, its ethical and emotional agonies a diversion from rather than a reflection of our own. Which is just fine with me. There are nits to pick, of course. Mr. Pitt, playing a Canadian wing commander in the Royal Air Force, has apparently drawn inspiration from the trees in the great forests of the North. He is handsome, trim and efficient, but the same might be said of a wooden canoe, and his character's stoical reserve often feels more like an empty space than a deep pool of untapped feeling. They are puffy and sentimental, the cinematic equivalent of a cloying dessert following an otherwise well-prepared meal.

NY Times

Reviewer B

Robert Zemeckis has a vastly diverse slate of motion pictures to his credit, but it's not unfair to associate him with a certain technological fixation on stunt-gizmo cinema. Once in a while, though, Zemeckis makes a film that reminds you what a terrific director he can be when he works the old-fashioned way, staging unadorned human drama without the safety net of cutting-edge visual flimflam. Allied is tense and absorbing in the style of Q.4 Hitchcock , yet Q.2 the film's climactic act somehow falls short. Zemeckis and company don't make any obvious missteps, but the movie, in trying to reach out and tug on our heartstrings, goes soft regarding what the Marianne we're presented with would choose to do. You believe that she loves Max, but there's another side to her devotion that washes away far too easily. The result is that Allied inspires most of the old-movie reactions it's going for except one: It never makes you swoon.

Variety

Reviewer C

A lot of prerelease gossip has attended this Q.1 plonkingly slow and clonkingly laborious wartime thriller starring Brad Pitt as dashing Canadian airman Max Vatan and Marion Cotillard as Marianne Beausejour, the lissom French spy with whom he falls in love. Their screen passion bursts forth like a cold wet teabag falling out of a mug that you have upended over the kitchen sink and don't much feel like washing up. Their rapport fizzes like a quarter-inch of bin juice left after you have taken the rubbish out. At this stage, Allied could have summoned up a bit of intimate suspense, some Q.4 Hitchcockian suspicion, and Knight does in fact unveil an interesting further twist: another level of potential bad faith. But this isn't resolved very satisfyingly and Q.2 the final big reveal feels anti-climactic, with unanswered questions concerning Marianne. It seems like tourist cinema: a tourist visit to the heritage-wartime past, with Max and Marianne looking like uncomfortable tourists in each other's languages and in each other's lives. Despite being married, they always look like strangers; the stars look as if they are intent on squashing rumours by behaving as if they have just emerged from their trailers and have yet to be introduced.

The Guardian

Reviewer D

Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard play spies in love in a steamy World War II drama called Allied where there are more romantic fireworks than tanks and explosions. Allied turns out to be a slower wartime romance in which Pitt plays Max Vattan, a British assassin sent to Q.3 Casablanca to kill a high ranking Nazi officer. We see early on how deadly Max can be, but he's been assigned to create the ruse of being married to Marion Cotillard's Marianne Beausejorge, an equally deadly French agent. Pretending to be married eventually drives them closer together and Max and Marianne decide to get married for real, despite the warnings from Max's commander. Marianne soon becomes pregnant as they settle down in England to lead a more domestic life. Q.2 The ending is quite grim if you're expecting any type of old Hollywood ride into the sunset, but if you enjoy slightly awkward romance during wartime, Allied is worth a fling.

NY Daily News

QUESTIONS

 

1) Which reviewer lambasts the film on several levels?

  • A
  • B
  • C
  • D

Why?

2) Which reviewer doesn't feel the movie ended on a lacklustre note?

  • A
  • B
  • C
  • D

Why?

3) Which reviewer makes reference to the location where the action takes place?

  • A
  • B
  • C
  • D

Why?

4) Which reviewer doesn't draw comparison to other famous directors of same cinematic genre?

  • A
  • B
  • C
  • D

Why?