The 87^th Academy Award nominations（提名）were announced on Jan 15,and The Grand Budapest Hotel stood out as a favorite with nine nominations, including Best Picture. Check out some other Best Picture nominees to see if you missed any of last year's top Hollywood films.

The Imitation Game

    This historical thriller is about British computer scientist, Alan Turing (Benedict Cumberbatch), the father of artificial intelligence. At the start of World War Ⅱ, Turing was asked to join a select team of mathematical geniuses to decode（解码）the system the Nazis used to send military messages. Besides the actual breaking of the code, Cumberbatch's portrayal（扮演）of Turing's personality, a mixture of decency（正派）and shyness, is also a highlight of the movie.

Birdman

    This dark comedy film is about how Riggan Thomson, a faded star once famous for his superhero roles, struggles to regain fame. American actor Michael Keaton, 63, who has a similar experience to Thomson's, plays the leading role.

Selma

    A stellar cast(主要演员) including talk show queen Oprah Winfrey may be one reason to see Selma. But that the film focuses on Martin Luther King Jr.'s struggle for civil rights also makes it worth viewing. Based on the 1965 Selma to Montgomery voting rights marches, the film is a chronicle(编年史) of King's(David Oyelowo) campaign for political rights for African-American people.

The Theory of Everything

    We know English theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking for his significant scientific discoveries, especially his black hole theories. This biographical film reveals the scientist's (played by Eddie Redmayne) secret romantic relationship with Jane Hawking (Felicity Jones), whom he meets and falls in love with at Cambridge and who later becomes his first wife.

Boyhood

    American Director Richard Linklater did an experiment in this film, using the same cast for l2 years to record a boy's growth. In two and a half hours, we see Mason, a Texas boy from a divorced family, grow from 6-year-old boy to a freshman in college.

    Not many years ago, a wealthy and rather strange old man named Johnson lived alone in a village in the south of England. He had made a lot of money in trading with foreign countries. When he was seventy-five, he gave￡12,000 to the village school to buy land and equipment for a children's playground.

    As a result of his kindness, many people came to visit him. Among them was a newspaperman. During their talk, Johnson remarked that he was seventy-five and expected to live to be a hundred. The newspaperman asked him how he managed to be healthy at seventy-five. Johnson had a sense of humor. He liked whisky and drank some each day. “I have an injection (注射) in my neck each evening,” he told the newspaperman, thinking of his evening glass of whisky.

    The newspaperman did not understand what Johnson meant. In his newspaper he reported that Johnson was seventy-five and had a daily injection in his neck. Within a week Johnson received thousands of letters from all over Britain, asking him for the secret of his daily injection.

    Recently, we've been talking about how we need better teachers. There's no doubt that great teacher can help in a student's learning but here's what some new studies are also showing: We need better parents.

    Every three years, the organization called O.E.C.D. organizes exams as part of the Program for International Student Assessment(评估), or PISA, which tests 15-year-olds on their abilities to deal with real problems. America's 15-year-olds have not done as well as students in Singapore, Finland and Shanghai in the PISA exams.

    To better understand the reasons, the PISA team, starting with four countries in 2006, and then adding 14 more in 2009, went to the parents of 5,000 students. They interviewed them about how they raised their kids and then compared it with the test results for each of those years. Two weeks ago, the PISA team published the main finding of its study.

    Fifteen-year-olds whose parents often read books with them during their first year of primary school get much higher scores in PISA 2009 than students whose parents don't often read with them or not at all. Parents' concern for their children is strongly connected with better results in PISA.

    According to Schleicher, the leader of the team, just asking your children how their school    day was and showing great interest in their learning can help a lot. It is something every parent can do, no matter what their education level is.

    The study found that getting parents concerned about their children's learning at home is more powerful than parents attending parent-teacher meetings, volunteering in classrooms,   taking part in money-raising, and showing up at back-to-back nights.

    To be sure, nothing can replace a good teacher. But let's stop putting the whole duty on teachers. We also need better parents. Better parents can make teaching more beneficial.

    They aren't great artists like Leonardo da Vinci or Vincent van Gogh, but their paintings are just as popular on Chinese social media, with millions of Chinese people willing to pay for them.

The 36 works were painted by ordinary Chinese people who live with autism (自闭症) or cerebral palsy (脑瘫), aged from their early teens to late thirties. They all studied art at World of Art Brut Culture (WABC), which is a Shanghai-based non-profit organization (非赢利组织) for art education. The project was started by WABC and supported by the Tencent Charitable Foundation. Users could buy a digital copy of each painting by donating (捐赠) 1 yuan or more. By Aug 29, donations totaled more than 15 million yuan, with about 5.8 million people participating (参与).

    “The paintings by these autistic kids and adults are beautiful: the style is similar to that of the Dutch artist Van Gogh. I'm really impressed by their talent,” Feng Li, a customer service officer in Shanghai, told the South China Morning Post.

    However, the popular campaign also led to certain questions.

    Li Laoxi, an experienced special education teacher in Hangzhou, said that based on his experience, people with autism could only draw a few lines or fill in colors under the guidance of their trainers. “Maybe there are some geniuses out there, but I've never met them”. Others questioned where the money would go, as the donations went to WABC instead of the painters. In response to these concerns, Miao Shiming, founder of WABC, said the money would be used to employ art teachers, buy supplies, and rent facilities. Meanwhile, Tencent said that all donation information would be open to the public.

    During an earthquake, you should know what to do. If the earthquake strikes while you're inside a house, you should lie on the floor under a strong table or other furniture. If there is no furniture, you can cover your head with your arms and keep still in the corner of the room. You should keep away from windows, glass walls, or anything that can fall.

    If you are in bed, hold firmly onto your bed and make use of a pillow to safeguard your head. You may use a doorway but only when it is close to you. It should also be considered whether it is strong enough to deal with the load.

    If you are running out, do not use lifts, even if they work. Electricity may go out at any time. Many injuries happen when people try to rush out. This means you ought to stay in your house or perhaps wherever you are.

    When you stay outdoors, you should stay far from buildings, power wires or lights. You should be in the open until the quake stops. Remember that many earthquake deaths outside the house come from falling-apart walls, flying glass and other falling things.

    If an earthquake strikes and you are driving, you should pull up to the side of the highway and stop as quickly as possible. You ought not to stop under trees, buildings or energy wires. Don't stop in the middle of the street as it could trouble others.

    When trapped, you shouldn't move. Your mouth should be covered with a piece of clothing or a handkerchief. This is because it is possible for you to breathe in some dust. Do not shout whenever possible. You should only shout in the end to get help from rescuers.

    The great-grandmother is learning English with the help of her family when she is at the age of 91. She hopes to use the language at next year's Olympic Games in Tokyo. Takamizawa was one of the more than 200, 00 people who requested to volunteer for Tokyo's 2020 Games. English is not required for service, but it is a useful skill for volunteers to have.

    But Takamizawa had not been able to learn the language when she was young. Takamizawa said that she was in high school when World War Two started. She said, "In my second year there, English was banned because it was the enemy language."

    Takamizawa said her grandchildren helped persuade her that she was not too old to learn. "When I talked to my grandchildren about my wish, they said, 'It's not too late. We will teach you one word a day' ". Natsuko is Takamizawa's granddaughter and main English teacher. Natsuko sends a new English word to her grandmother's phone every day. They also often work together directly on phrases that Takamizawa will need for the Olympics. "Welcome to Tokyo, this is the Olympic stadium, how can I help you?" Takamizawa answers when asked to say an English phrase she has learned. Natsuko explains that she wanted to give her grandmother something to enjoy. "I can clearly see her English is getting better. It's my joy now."

    The EF English Proficiency Index is a measure of the level of English spoken in a country. Japan ranks 49th among countries where English is not the first language. This situation is slowly changing as younger generations welcome English. However, Takamizawa believes real change will not happen unless Japanese people become more open to the rest of the world. With around 500 days to go until the games begin, the whole Takamizawa family is ready to welcome the world to Tokyo.