Hey, what's up? What's going on? Welcome to another episode of English with Dane, a podcast designed to improve your English. As always, I'm your host, Dane, and you can find me on Instagram and Twitter at English with Dane. On today's show, we've got a movie review. If you listened to the last episode of English with Dane, episode 28, then you know I was about to go to the movies to watch yesterday, and I said I would review it, so I did. I wasn't sure if to dedicate a whole episode to it because I thought I wouldn't have no tendría that much to say. But it turns out, resulta que if you don't like a movie that much, sometimes you have more to say. So let's start the show. You are listening to the twenty-ninth episode of English with Dane. Hit it. I answered, well, it depends. What movie are we watching? And he said, Oh, this new movie that came out called Yesterday. It's about this guy who has an accident or something, and when he wakes up, nobody remembers who the Beatles are. So he uses their songs to become famous. Then he said, Danny Boyle directed it. And if that name doesn't sound familiar, if it doesn't ring a bell, he directed movies like Train Spotting, The Beach, Slum Dog Millionaire, 28 Days Later, etc. And then he said, it was written, fue escrita, by the guy who wrote Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill, Love Actually, etc. His name is Richard Curtis. We didn't know his name at the time. I had to look it up, tuve que buscarlo, to tell you. We're not that nerdy about movies. We're pretty nerdy, but not that nerdy. A quick tip for all the Spanish people out there. Use the word nerdy. In Spain, we say that someone is unfriki de algo, as in to say that someone is really interested in something. We say things like, Es un friki del baloncesto, which translates to he's a basketball nerd. Some of my students say he's a friki, and that just doesn't work. Use the word nerd after the thing you're talking about. Like, she's a piano nerd, he's a history nerd. You know? Okay, you get it. Where was I? Yes, directed by Danny Boyle and written by Richard Curtis. So I was really excited about this movie. So excited that I promised I would do a movie review. Maybe you can guess where this is going, but let's talk about it. So, as I mentioned, the movie, or film, if you want, is called Yesterday, and it came out a few weeks ago, I believe. I know I already explained the plot briefly, brevemente, but I'll read you the official synopsis, let's say. It says, Jack Malik is a struggling singer-songwriter, cantautor, in an English seaside town whose dreams of fame are rapidly fading, despite the fierce devotion and support of his childhood best friend, Ellie. After a freak bus accident during a mysterious global blackout, a worldwide blackout, Jack wakes up to discover that the Beatles have never existed. Performing songs by the greatest band in history to a world that has never heard them, Jack becomes an overnight sensation with a little help from his agent. Okay, quick vocabulary check. To struggle, spelled S-T-R-U-D-G-L-E, means to be in a difficult situation and to be fighting against it. It translates to luchar or pasarlo mal in general. But in this case, the word is struggling. Jack Malik is a struggling singer-songwriter. He's the classic struggling musician. He lives in a seaside town, so next to the sea, and then it says his dreams of fame are quickly fading. To fade means to begin to disappear, right? Is manecerse in Spanish. We use the term fade to black when in movies the screen slowly turns black, right? At the end of a scene or a movie, when the hero rides off into the sunset, and then the screen gradually becomes black. We say fade to black. Anyway, Jack Malik's dreams are fading, despite, a pesar de the fierce devotion and support of his friend Ellie, who is the girl that he grows up with, con la que crece. Fierce, by the way, means aggressive, okay, uh feroz in Spanish. So yeah, then the accident and he wakes up and no beatles. So what to say about this movie? I think it starts kind of strong, but much like Jack's dream of fame, it fades. Let me explain. Spoiler alert, by the way. I hadn't said anything yet because I haven't revealed anything about the movie other than the synopsis, but from here on out, a partir de ahora, spoiler alert. Okay, I'll give you five seconds to pause the podcast if you want. So remember how I said that an event happens that makes the whole world forget about the Beatles? Well, it's just a blackout, una paron, like a worldwide blackout, and we never get any sort of explanation or anything. When Jack wakes up, his manager and longtime friend Ellie, who is the love interest in the movie, by the way, tells him that there was this worldwide blackout, and that's it. We don't get anything else for the rest of the movie. It's like completely disconnected. I think it would have been interesting to connect it somehow de alguna manera, but they didn't. And as a spectator, I'm quickly put in a position where I just have to accept it. So although I was excited for the plot, la trama, to really take off, despegar, part of me was thinking, wait, what about the blackout though? Aren't we going to talk about the blackout? I'm not trying to be negative from the beginning, but I do remember feeling that when I watched it. Here's something positive. One thing that I really liked was how they showed him struggling, right? Pasándolo mal. They showed him playing the worst gigs ever. A gig is a musical performance, by the way, a concert spelled G I G. So they showed him playing the most depressing gigs I've ever seen. One was at a local cafe where the only people watching were his friends sitting at a table. Another one was at a festival, and it's great because when Ellie, his agent and best friend, tells him that she got a gig for him at a festival, he's really, really happy. But it turns out, resulta que he's playing at the little children's area and nobody is even paying attention. I thought those scenes were pretty funny. But at the same time, I think those scenes are easy to make funny, if that makes sense. But I can tell you as somebody who has written many bad songs in his life, I promise that those songs were terrible, but in the best way. They had meaningless cliche lyrics that sound kind of cool. They had uninteresting chords and melodies that only sounded a little bit cool because of the energy Jack was playing with. I don't know. That might have been my favorite part of the movie. Okay, more stuff. Ellie. Let's talk about her. So, like I said, Ellie is the girl he grew up with. She is his biggest fan and also his manager. She is the only one who really believes in his music and she's in love with him, but he doesn't see it. I understand that it's a romantic comedy and that it has to be like that. This kind of super obvious thing that's right there the whole time, but I wasn't buying it, no me lo que yeah. And I think I know why. Here's my theory. Maybe I'm completely wrong, but hear me out, let me explain. This movie plays with gender roles a little bit. In romantic comedies, it's often the female character who puts the male character in what we call the friend zone. Now, the friend zone has many names. Here in Spain, they call you uh parafantas if you are in the friend zone. Some of you listening might have had this happen to you when you really like someone as more than a friend, let's say, but the other person doesn't feel the same way, and it turns into se convierte in this thing where the person likes to feel liked, but will never let it become something romantic, and the other person feels sad, etc. We all know someone. Maybe it's strange to say this in today's climate, or maybe I've been conditioned, who knows? But I feel like the role is more believable when the male character is the kind of adorable, nice friend who is in love with the female character and she continues to date the wrong men, etc. It's kind of hard to believe that Jack has this beautiful best friend who loves his music and spends her time helping him and supporting him, and he has never thought about her romantically. Come on. I'm not buying it. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure it's happened. I'm sure there are cases, of course, but that was the least believable part of the whole movie. And this is a movie that had a random worldwide blackout. So. And here's another thing that was strange. They did the whole gender role switch, which is very 2019, and I mean that in a positive way, and they challenged that stereotype that I talked about, but then they made the female character a stereotype. So I thought that didn't make a lot of sense. In general, I thought the movie was too long. It was two hours long. Well, I checked and it's one hour and 57 minutes long, but I'm rounding up because I'm trying to make a point. It was too long because they tried to do too much, I think. During the movie, we get enjoyable scenes, like when he's writing and playing the Beatles songs, and you get a lot of those moments because the Beatles have so many unbelievable songs, and you get funny romantic comedy style moments too, although there wasn't a single moment that made me really, really laugh. But here's the thing: they tried to do this long story about him feeling guilty, sintiéndose culpable, about stealing the music, and how he feels sad because he's taking advantage of the memory of the Beatles, and they tried to mix that story with the love story, and how she has always loved him and he never realized, but that's not complicated enough for a two-hour movie to be interesting. I think they should have chosen one and given more importance to that one, because as a result, neither story was compelling, neither story was intriguing. In conclusion, I think it was a great premise, a great idea that wasn't taken in the right direction. It feels like there were a lot of compromises along the way, and it wasn't really the movie I wanted it to be. I give it a five out of ten. Maybe it doesn't deserve a five, maybe it's a little bit better, but I think my expectations make it a five. Let me know if you agree with my critique or if you disagree. Write to me on Instagram or Twitter at EnglishwithDane. Also, if you want me to review a specific movie, let me know. Alright, that's the show for today. Don't forget to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to the show, and leave a five-star rating. And remember, the best way to support English with Dane is to share it with friends and family or anyone who you think would enjoy the show. Okay, talk soon. Bye bye.