Informative Movies

Have you ever learned something from movies? I really like to watch movies because I can learn about new language, place, people and culture. I watched a movie recently and it taught me interesting American culture. The title is New Year’s Eve. It showed me how American people celebrate the New Year, what New York is like and some different ways of celebrating the New Year in Japan and America.

"The Ball Drop" 

The movie is directed by Garry Marshall and it was filmed in 2011. It is about New Year’s Eve in New York and it has some stories about each character. One of the characters organizes the Ball Drop on New Year's Eve. Have you heard about the Ball Drop? One Times Square originally was the head office of The New York Times. There is a pole on top of the building which was established to express the New Year, and the Times Square Ball falls from the pole exactly at midnight. Many people gather and countdown last 10 seconds of the year. I hadn’t known how American people celebrated this and I’d thought they just gather, have a big party and see fire works for the coming New Year. I was wrong. Most people who live in New York or in nearby the cities are looking forward to seeing the Ball Drop and some of them gather for the event.

In addition, movies show us the culture and values of other countries . In this movie, the main place is New York. I’ve never been to New York, so I don’t know the city. Now I could learn there are a lot of tall buildings, some musical theaters, and the roads are always crowded with people and cars in New York. If you’ve never been to another country, you can learn from movies. Also we can notice some differences of culture from movies. In the US, people celebrate the New Year so splendidly like a party. However, Japanese people greet the New Year solemnly. We usually visit a temple before midnight and listen to the New Year’s Eve bell. Then we pray for the New Year. We don’t use fireworks and we don’t have a big concert outside like the Ball Drop. What is the Ball Drop for Americans? In my opinion, it is similar to the New Year’s Eve bell of Japan. Both people can recognize the New Year because of the each event. If the events aren’t held, people will think it's not perfectly natural.

The movie New Year’s Eve taught me about these things. I can’t visit other countries easily. Therefore I watch movies and learn a lot of interesting info
rmation from the story, music, people, and images in movies. I consider that movies teach us about culture more directly than magazines. Movies attract our interest so much.

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