W4--'The Imitation Game': Movie review

'The Imitation Game': Movie review

NEW YORK  DAILY NEWS / Monday, November 24, 2014, 3:12 PM

Story of the English math genius, played by Benedict Cumberbatch, who helped win World War II is solidly done but might have been better with a less conventional approach.

There’s an algorithm for making an Oscar-ready prestige picture — and “The Imitation Game” follows it obsessively. With a committed Benedict Cumberbatch in the lead and awards-savvy producer Harvey Weinstein steering the campaign, this polished, poignant biopic may well earn the success it clearly seeks.

Ultimately, though, director Morten Tyldum’s conventional approach doesn’t do full justice to his tragically unconventional hero.

As played by Cumberbatch, English mathematician Alan Turing is a man fated by the timing of his birth. Ferociously brilliant, possibly autistic and definitely gay, Turing is charged with saving the war-ravaged country that considers him an abomination.

The film starts in 1952 but it quickly flashes back to 1938, when Turing was called in to crack the German Enigma code. With the code being changed daily, it has been impossible to gain any traction.

Turing immediately antagonizes his new colleagues (overseen by a charismatic Matthew Goode), who are equally put off by his arrogance, intense intelligence and idea for a proto-computer he thinks could solve their problem. Only Joan Clarke (an underused Keira Knightley) respects his outsider perspective. With her help, he finally persuades the establishment to look beyond established methods.

Cumberbatch specializes in emotionally detached geniuses, and there’s no doubting his skill and his innate empathy for Turing. But there’s a meticulous self-awareness to this portrayal that has been absent from his previous performances. When we watch him as Sherlock Holmes, we simply see the great detective. Here, we see Benedict Cumberbatch working very hard to play Alan Turing.

Similarly, Tyldum and screenwriter Graham Moore seem to be using the Oscar-approved method of “The King’s Speech”: stately, straightforward filmmaking.

But Turing’s story was impossibly messy. The heartbreaking betrayals and ironies of his existence — the man who saved Britain only to be betrayed by her — deserve more than well-meant platitudes.

Fortunately, Tyldum and Cumberbatch demonstrate enough compassion and sincerity to give us a respectable imitation of an extraordinary life.

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/imitation-game-movie-review-article-1.2022089

Structure of the Lead：

   WHO-the English math genius, played by Benedict Cumberbatch

   WHEN-World War II

   WHAT-Story of the English math genius

   WHERE- not give

   HOW- helped win World War II

Keywords：

   1.algorithm  ：算法

   2. prestige ：聲望

   3. obsessively：痴迷地

   4.  savvy：精明的

   5.  conventional：常規的

   6. brilliant：卓越的

   7.  traction：牽引

   8. abomination  ：厭惡

   9.  messy：麻煩的

 10.platitudes ：老生常談

W3--Uber tightens driver screening in India, to check criminal records

Uber tightens driver screening in India, to check criminal records

Reuters – Mon, 2 Feb, 2015

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - The U.S. taxi company Uber Technologies Inc has tightened background screening of its drivers in India to include inspection of criminal court records, Uber said in a statement on Monday.

Uber was banned from operating in New Delhi after allegations of rape against one of its drivers. Police said the San Francisco-based company had failed to run proper checks on the driver, who was held three years ago on suspicion of rape but later acquitted.

Uber's services have been banned since then, but the company restarted operations last month after applying for a radio taxi licence.

Uber has joined with First Advantage, a global background screening company, to run additional checks that will include scanning past criminal court records and a national criminal database search.

"Our arrangement with First Advantage brings in additional layers of screening over and above the standard transport licensing process," Uber said in the statement.

In India, Uber had asked its drivers for several government identification documents and a police verification certificate before enrolling them. In the United States, by contrast, Uber conducts a three-step screening on drivers where courthouse records are checked for the past seven years.

An online petition at change.org asking Uber to "stop the double standards" and mandate a similar background check for drivers in India was signed by more than 63,000 people.

The rape allegations by the woman triggered protests and re-ignited a debate about the safety of women in India, especially in New Delhi, which has been called India's rape capital.

Last week, the woman passenger sued Uber in U.S. federal court, calling the company the "modern day equivalent of electronic hitchhiking".

Uber customers use a smartphone application to call for taxis, which are driven by independent operators. It has come under regulatory scrutiny in a number of countries.

India is Uber's largest market outside the United States by the number of cities covered. The country's radio taxi market is estimated to be worth $6 billion to $9 billion.

https://ca.news.yahoo.com/uber-tightens-driver-screening-india-check-criminal-records-151717268.html

Structure of the Lead：

   WHO-The U.S. taxi company Uber Technologies Inc

   WHEN-on Monday

   WHAT- tighten background screening of its drivers

   WHERE- India

   HOW- not give

Keywords：

   1. tighten ：加強

   2. screening：檢查

   3. allegation ：指控

   4.  suspicion：懷疑

   5.  acquit：無罪釋放

   6. verification：驗證

   7.  courthouse：法院

   8.   trigger ：觸發

   9.  petition：請願書

 10. equivalent ：同樣

W2--Memorial services held for victims of Sydney cafe siege

Memorial services held for victims of Sydney cafe siege

December 23, 2014 4:41 am By Kristen Gelineau The Associated Press

SYDNEY, Australia – Two victims of a deadly siege in Sydney were remembered Tuesday at private memorial services, one week after a gunman took them hostage inside a downtown cafe.

The memorial for Tori Johnson was held at a church just around the corner from the Lindt Chocolat Cafe, where he and 17 others were taken hostage on Dec. 15 by a shotgun-wielding Man Haron Monis, a 50-year-old Iranian-born, self-styled cleric with a long criminal history.

The standoff ended 16 hours later when police stormed the cafe in a barrage of gunfire to free the captives. Johnson, the cafe’s 34-year-old manager, and 38-year-old lawyer Katrina Dawson were killed, along with Monis.

Johnson has since been lauded for his heroism, after unconfirmed reports emerged that he tried to wrestle the shotgun away from Monis, sacrificing his life and allowing several of his fellow hostages to escape before police moved in.

Johnson’s partner of 14 years, Thomas Zinn, and father, Ken Johnson, helped to carry the white coffin into St. Stephen’s Uniting Church. Tibetan monks chanted prayers at the end of the service and accompanied Johnson’s coffin to a waiting hearse.

Later, Prime Minister Tony Abbott joined hundreds of mourners at the University of Sydney for a memorial service honouring Dawson, a highly respected lawyer and mother of three young children.

Dawson’s friend and fellow hostage Julie Taylor, who is pregnant, said Dawson made her want to be a mother.

“Katrina’s greatest love was the love for her family,” Taylor said. “If there is one thing above all that we can learn from Katrina’s example, it’s how to love, to show love, to use love and by loving to make other people and places better.”

Johnson’s family and friends, along with several hostages who survived the siege, laid flowers at a makeshift memorial set up in Martin Place, a plaza in the heart of the city where the cafe is located. One woman kissed her fingers and pressed them against a flower-framed portrait of Johnson and Dawson that lay among the blooms.

Volunteers, meanwhile, removed thousands of bouquets of flowers that mourners have left at a separate site near the cafe over the past week, ahead of predicted rainy weather. The flowers will be turned into mulch that officials hope to use at a permanent memorial, while cards and letters left to honour Johnson and Dawson will be preserved in memory books for their families.

The permanent memorial will be set up after officials consult with the families, New South Wales Premier Mike Baird said.

 http://globalnews.ca/news/1741036/memorial-services-held-for-victims-of-sydney-cafe-siege/

Structure of the Lead：

   WHO-Two victims.

   WHEN-Tuesday

   WHAT-a private memorial services

   WHERE- Australia

   HOW- not give

Keywords：

   1. memorial：追悼

   2. standoff：對峙

   3.captive  ：俘虜

   4.  laud：稱讚

   5. heroism：英雄行為

   6.separate ：分離

   7.  honour：榮譽

   8.   bouquet：束

   9.permanent  ：永久的

 10. hostage ：人質

W1--No evidence of terrorism in AirAsia crash

No evidence of terrorism in AirAsia crash

Jane Onyanga-Omara, USA TODAY10:07 a.m. EST January 19, 2015

Investigators have found no evidence so far that terrorism was involved in the crash of AirAsia Flight 8501, according to reports.

Lead investigator Mardjono Siswosuwarno told The Wall Street Journal on Monday that investigators listening to the cockpit voice recorder did not report any indications of threats or gunfire. "So far, there's no sign of terrorist activity," he said. Nurcahyo Utomo, from Indonesia's Transportation Safety Committee, told the paper that nothing heard so far suggested pilot suicide played a role.

The flight's cockpit voice recorder and the other black box — the data recorder — were retrieved by divers last week, followed by the plane's fuselage, the examination of which has been hampered by bad weather. Many bodies of the 162 people on board are believed to be inside.

Andreas Hananto from Indonesia's Transportation Safety Committee, told BBC Indonesian that there were indications that the plane had encountered bad weather. He said investigators had heard "no threatening voice on board" during the two-hour recording, and added that the audio appeared to indicate that the pilot was too busy trying to regain control of the plane to send a distress signal.

More analysis was needed to determine the exact weather conditions at the time of the crash, and the weather's impact on the engines, he told the BBC.

Nurcahyo Utomo, from the Transportation Safety Committee told the WSJ: "So far we've managed to transcribe only half of (the cockpit voice recorder) because there are so many noises. We hope to complete it in a week."

A preliminary report on the crash is expected to be released on Jan. 28, the BBC reported.

Divers recovered debris including passenger windows and seats from the floor of the Java Sea on Monday, AirAsia said in a statement. "However, the floating mission continued to be hampered due to high waves and adverse weather conditions," the statement added. A total of 53 bodies have been recovered so far.

Authorities hope the black boxes will help determine why the Singapore-bound jet plummeted into the Java Sea less than an hour out of Surabaya, Indonesia, amid heavy storms on Dec. 28. All 162 passengers and crew are presumed dead.

The Indonesian Transport Ministry has said AirAsia did not have a license to fly the route on the day of the crash, a claim AirAsia Indonesia had vigorously disputed. In testimony before the Indonesian parliament, however, airline president Sunu Widyatmoko acknowledged that due to an "administrative mistake" the airline had only verbally proposed a schedule change to allow Sunday flights.

The airline has been banned from flying the Surabaya-Singapore route. The Transport Ministry has suspended scores of routes from other domestic airlines for similar alleged violations.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2015/01/19/no-evidence-terrorism-airasia/21988747/

Structure of the Lead：

   WHO-Investigators

   WHEN-not give

   WHAT- have found no evidence so far that terrorism was involved

   WHERE-in the crash of AirAsia Flight 8501 

   HOW-terrorism

Keywords：

   1. terrorism：恐怖主義

   2. cockpit：座艙

   3.  indication：跡象

   4.  fuselage：機身

   5. hamper：阻礙

   6. investigator：調查員

   7.  debris：雜物.瓦礫

   8.  vigorously：大力地

   9. testimony：證詞

 10.  alleged：所謂的