MiniPod: Ep2 On the weekend English on Repeat (Easy)
This lesson is designed for easy-level learners.
In this episode, we practise saying the following phrases:
I'm looking for something to do this weekend.
What are you up to this weekend?
Have a great weekend.
How was your weekend? Explore the entire series English on Repeat by clicking here to listen! This episode is available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts .
Credits:
Host: Shannon Williams
Written by: Sonia Saraullo
Graphic Design: Yudai Urushima
Sound Design: Mickey Grossman
Music Composition: Adam Hulbert
Produced by: Josipa Kosanovic
Program Manager: Janine Googane
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News.com.au
40 minutes ago
- News.com.au
Miley Cyrus reveals brutal career fallout from racy photo leak
Miley Cyrus hasn't forgotten about the penis cake that cost her a job. While appearing on Monica Lewinsky's podcast this week, the 32-year-old singer spoke about being fired from the Hotel Transylvania franchise when she was 18 after a photo emerged of her with a penis cake for her then-boyfriend and now-ex-husband Liam Hemsworth's birthday. 'I, as a joke, got my boyfriend a penis cake for his birthday and I got fired,' she recalled. 'I was the lead actress in Hotel Transylvania and they fired me and replaced me because I had made an inappropriate adult joke. But I was 18.' 'So yes I was fine to work in a kids movie, but I'm not a kid,' Cyrus added. The Hannah Montana star was initially cast as Mavis Dracula in Sony Pictures' first Hotel Transylvania film that came out in 2012. But after the penis cake photo made headlines, she was replaced by fellow former Disney Channel star Selena Gomez, who starred alongside Adam Sandler, Andy Samberg, Kevin James and more. 'What felt ridiculous to me about getting fired for a penis cake was that they sell penis cakes for all bachelorettes,' Cyrus pointed out. 'In Nashville, Tenn., you can get penis cakes. It's not that big of a deal.' 'So I thought this is a very simple, not vulgar joke. This is silly,' she continued. 'You can do this for all bachelorette parties. They make necklaces and cups and straws and all kinds of stuff. It felt ridiculous.' Cyrus went on, 'But to be fired for regular things that girls my age, they go to bachelorette parties and they do this. They go to Magic Mike shows. But at that time, I wasn't someone that was appropriate for kids, even though that was in my personal life.' The Grammy winner also noted that the photo leaked because her backpack and her camera were stolen at a party. '[It was] nothing I posted,' she said. 'I was at a private event at a private party and I got robbed. It's not cool.' Cyrus first revealed the nature behind her Hotel Transylvania firing on Twitter in 2019. At the time, a Sony source told the Hollywood Reporter that Cyrus indeed lost her job because of the penis cake photo and that studio bosses were allegedly nervous about her leading a family-film franchise when she was breaking away from her Disney Channel persona. On the podcast, Cyrus opened up about how she reacted to losing the job. 'At the time, I remember I jumped in the pool and said, 'I'm not gonna come up until you guys get me my job back,'' she recalled. 'It was really upsetting me. I was with my lawyer and my manager at the time and they were freaking out because they didn't realise how much it was hurting me until that moment when they realised I had said what I said.' The Flowers singer added that she started seeing a therapist that same year who helped her 'work through' moments like the penis cake controversy. 'I didn't want to go underwater and not come up,' she said. 'Those moments are real for me. Now they're funny, but they definitely weren't funny then.' When asked if she thinks a similar situation could happen today, Cyrus responded, 'I don't know if we put our Disney kids on the pedestal the way that we used to, our teen stars. But I think that still movies can have consequences for their lead actor or actress doing things that don't align with the audience that the movie is made for.' Earlier in the podcast, Cyrus revealed she lost a deal with Walmart as a teen because of a video of her with a bong. 'I had to email the Walmart CEO and apologise for being 16 and smoking weed, which most 16-year-olds do,' she said.
ABC News
an hour ago
- ABC News
How to Train Your Dragon has been turned into a live-action remake that lacks the original's heart
You couldn't ask for a more faithful remake than How to Train Your Dragon — and in some ways, that's for the best. The original animated trilogy, which loosely adapted Cressida Cowell's book series of the same name, is easily the most beloved fantasy film series of the 2010s. What: An obsessively faithful live-action remake of How to Train Your Dragon. Directed by: Dean DeBlois Starring: Mason Thames, Gerard Butler, Nico Parker Where: In cinemas June 12 Likely to make you feel: Like they should've just re-released the original In translating the initial outing to live action, Dreamworks has tapped franchise steward Dean DeBlois to take the reins, having first brought the Viking isle of Berk to life with co-director Chris Sanders 15 years ago. (Both also directed 2002's Lilo and Stitch, another recent victim of the budding Gen Z nostalgia industry.) Some of Disney's live-action remake trends have rubbed off. The film has been padded out by an extra half hour and augments the story's darker moments (particularly in the scaled-up showdown of the third act) to better service older, pre-existing fans. Its cast has been diversified in a half-hearted, 'Disney's first gay character' kind of way. The lighting looks cheap. Otherwise, How to Train Your Dragon offers a re-telling that's virtually shot-for-shot in its design — an act of cinematic self-mimicry that hasn't been witnessed in some time. In doing so, DeBlois at least fulfils a baseline promise that few of Disney's own reheated efforts have realised: if you liked the original film, you'll probably like this. The main downside of this constricted approach — apart from the degrading treatment of animation as a second-rate visual medium waiting to be made "real" — is that there is not a single interesting creative choice visible on screen. Our protagonist, Hiccup (Mason Thames; The Black Phone), is once again a nebbish teenage boy who's been sidelined in his village's bitter feud against the local dragon population. The fire-breathing beasts, who steal livestock and displace limbs from bodies, have inspired a coalition of Viking warriors to rally around his windy northern island, over which his father Stoick (Gerard Butler, who perfectly transitions from his voice role) reigns. Like any good tale of adolescent self-actualisation, How to Train Your Dragon is about the necessity of disappointing your parents. Hiccup's attempts to live up to the village chief sees him shoot down a Night Fury, the most elusive and feared species recorded in the history books, only for no-one to witness the event. Worse, still: when he tracks down the wounded beast (who irresistibly marries the appearance of a winged axolotl with the temperament of a black cat), he can't bring himself to finish the job and instead sets him free. It's a strikingly mature moment that few other family films have matched since its first iteration. Younger heroes are rarely allowed to act like scared children, let alone be confronted with the consequences of their physical harm. Hiccup's lack of a killer instinct is also tested at a dragon-slaying bootcamp for Berk's youth, in which he faces a fiery gauntlet alongside strong-willed love interest Astrid (Nico Parker; The Last of Us), dragon nerd Fishlegs (Julian Dennison; Hunt for the Wilderpeople), and other soon-to-be child soldiers. But as he strikes up a friendship with the Night Fury, who he names Toothless, he discovers that dragons are far more benign than advertised — and with his engineering expertise, he designs a prosthetic to help his injured companion take to the skies once more. Mason Thames noticeably struggles to bridge the gap between his protagonist's earlier incarnation and the grounded reality of live action. The animated Hiccup benefited from outsized expressions, a buoyant physicality and an exaggerated, shrunken-down character design. His dialogue, which was written with this kind of heightened performance in mind, is largely unchanged. Again, How to Train Your Dragon is essentially the same film as its animated counterpart. The joys of the original film — from its ecstatic flying sequences to John Powell's rousing score to its inclusive approach to disability — have been kept intact. But so has one of its main problems. The refreshed characterisation of Astrid still feels outdated, broadly fitting the trope of an ultra-competent heroine who's upstaged by an initially clueless hero, eventually relegated to cheerleading duties by the end. Even when she's given more space to flex her own agency or (in a distinctly 2020's twist) chide Hiccup for his nepo-baby status, it's the kind of fundamental character problem that a couple of additional beats can't solve. The creation of the original How to Train Your Dragon is the kind of story that makes one feel almost romantic about filmmaking. The film's stormy production was already well underway when Chris Sanders was brought on to overhaul the project in the span of just 12 months. (For reference, its sequel took about four years to make.) Sanders immediately enlisted DeBlois to share directing duties; legendary cinematographer Roger Deakins (working as a visual consultant) and composer John Powell soon followed. It would've been a miracle if a compromised, but technically complete film had staggered into cinemas on release date. Instead, How to Train Your Dragon represented a triumph of creative ingenuity, tight-knit collaboration and forward-thinking ideas in the face of overwhelming odds. It's hard to imagine anyone feeling inspired by the process behind this remake, which — for all the gargantuan challenges that every tentpole inevitably faces — feels like the creative equivalent of tracing over paper. In a recent featurette about the film's lightly remixed score, Powell aptly sums up the pointlessness of this endeavour: "If I've done my job right, people will think I haven't done anything different at all."
News.com.au
an hour ago
- News.com.au
Disney World's ‘clever' lice check surprises mum
One of parents' worst nightmares is their kid getting lice. But if you suspect it in your little ones' head and don't want to do the checking yourself, head over to Disney World where the staff will do the work for you. One Disney parent posted in a now-viral TikTok how those who are staffed by the land of Mickey and Minnie Mouse cleverly go about checking kids' heads for the tiny, wingless insects. The mum captioned her video, 'I didn't even realise what they were doing until I rewatched the video. Literally making every moment magical even while checking for lice at bippity boppity boutique.' In the video, the staffer dressed in character as a fairy Godmother kneels behind an adorable little girl and begins parting her hair to check for any signs of the nasty insects. While doing so, the employee is chatting with the toddler, who is oblivious that her head is being inspected, about Rapunzel's hair. Something that Disney is known for offering to young guests is the ability to receive a princess — or a knight — makeover, which includes getting hair and makeup done at the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique at Magic Kingdom. The parent who posted the video wasn't the only one pleasantly surprised by this service. 'You know what, I'd rather them check for lice than a surprise after vacation!' one commenter wrote. 'Hopefully no parent takes offence to this because it's not only protecting other children, it's protecting your child from getting it, too,' pointed out someone else. 'That's a sweet and creative way to disguise it,' another person agreed. 'It's not just checking for lice — it's also checking for any rashes, skin issues, cuts/broken skin. Anything that could react to whatever they're putting on ur (sic) head. It's for their safety and yours!' a commenter explained. Although Disney didn't confirm the lice checking to be true, one could assume that staff at the amusement park use this opportunity to make sure little guests' heads are clean before transforming them into a Disney princess or knight. Go on holiday, get a free lice check. Which doesn't sound like a bad idea, considering an estimated 6 to 12 million US kids between the ages of 3 and 11 years old get lice every year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Meanwhile, in Australia roughly one in four primary school children may experience head lice at some point. It's suggested olive oil can help smother, kill and remove lice eggs from a child's head, according to Northwell Health pediatrician Dr. Lauren Adler. Keep in mind, the CDC states, that it 'does not have clear scientific evidence' — but if the food product does the trick, more power to it.
