VOA标准英语2010年-Art Imitates Life for Jennifer Lopez i

Jennifer Lopez as Zoe in "The Back-Up Plan"

Singer and actress Jennifer Lopez did not made any movies for the past couple of years while she took time out for the birth of her twins. Now she's back on screen with a romantic comedy about a mother-to-be pregnant with twins. The film, "The Back-Up Plan," is about love and parenthood (not necessarily in that order) and also features Alex O'Loughlin.

 New Yorker Zoe is successful in business running her thriving pet store. She also has good friends and a loving extended family; but she has not had the best of luck in the romance department and, with her biological clock ticking away, she has decided¹ the "right guy" may never show up. So "The Back-Up Plan" is to become a single mother with the help of modern science. Naturally, the very day she undergoes the in-vitro fertilization procedure, she meets the "right guy."

Jennifer Lopez as Zoe and Alex O’Loughlin as Stan

His name is Stan and he, too, is a successful entrepreneur: a farmer who makes cheese that he sells at farmer's markets around New York. At about the same time she realizes she is pregnant with twins, Zoe also figures out that she's falling in love with Stan. Will he be scared away by the impending² parenthood if she tells him? How long can she keep it a secret, anyway?

Jennifer Lopez gave birth to twins a couple of years ago and drew on her own experiences to play Zoe.

"So many of the things in this movie were art imitating life for me," she said. "Because I had just gone through the pregnancy³ it was really fresh in my mind. We used a lot of the stuff from real life."

That insight into the funnier side of pregnancy includes the sudden and insatiable hunger that, in the film, strikes Zoe when she spies a pot of stew⁴ bubbling on the stove in Stan's kitchen. With no utensils⁵ in sight, she resorts to scooping⁶ it up (and scarfing it down) directly from the pot with hunks of bread.

"You feel so hungry, it's crazy; and you feel so sleepy in a way that you never have before," Lopez said. "Because I had just gone through it, I knew how that was going to ring true for so many women."

The pregnancy humor may be drawn⁷ from real life, but the romantic storyline is pure Hollywood. For instance, Stan is shirtless and ripples⁸ with muscles as he tends the goats on his dairy farm. As the love interest, Alex O'Loughlin joins a growing legion of hunky stars from Australia making it big on American screens.

"Look, I don't know mate …maybe it's something in the water back home; but I did get kind of fit for the film because every cheese farmer is ripped and buff …and I wanted to be true to character because I'm [a] 'method' [actor]," he said.

"The Back-Up Plan" marks the feature film directing debut⁹ of Alan Poul, an award-winning television producer and director on shows including "Six Feet Under," "Rome" and "Big Love." Poul says his challenge was to balance the expectations audiences have for this genre¹⁰.

"Because it is a romantic comedy and you know how it is going to end up, on a certain level the story has to be predictable because you know they are going to end up together," he said. "So it is within that general framework of a romantic comedy that is going to end happily, we create the little moments that catch people by surprise."

"The movie manages to stay squarely in the realm of the contemporary romantic comedy, meaning that it pushes the boundaries of taste sometimes," Poul said. "There are a few elements of crudity¹¹ in the humor; but it also had a beautiful, classic romantic comedy shape. It was really about these two people would ordinarily never come together who get thrown together and have to navigate¹² how to be together. That's really the classic American screwball romantic comedy formula [and] I was trying to find the middle path where people who understand classic romantic comedy would really respond to it, but it would appear fresh and new enough to appeal to a younger audience."

"The Back-Up Plan" also features Anthony Anderson as a young father who encourages the frightened Stan to stay with pregnant Zoe. Comedian¹³ and actor Robert Klein plays Zoe's doctor and Linda Lavin, a stage and screen veteran, is her beloved (and supportive) grandma, who is also finding love in the story in the character played by another screen veteran: Tom Bosley.
 

1 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

2 impending   

a.imminent, about to come or happen

参考例句：

• Against a background of impending famine, heavy fighting took place. 即将发生饥荒之时，严重的战乱爆发了。
• The king convoke parliament to cope with the impending danger. 国王召开国会以应付迫近眉睫的危险。

3 pregnancy   

n.怀孕，怀孕期

参考例句：

• Early pregnancy is often accompanied by nausea.怀孕早期常有恶心的现象。
• Smoking during pregnancy increases the risk of miscarriage.怀孕期吸烟会增加流产的危险。

4 stew   

n.炖汤，焖，烦恼；v.炖汤，焖，忧虑

参考例句：

• The stew must be boiled up before serving.炖肉必须煮熟才能上桌。
• There's no need to get in a stew.没有必要烦恼。

5 utensils   

器具，用具，器皿( utensil的名词复数 )； 器物

参考例句：

• Formerly most of our household utensils were made of brass. 以前我们家庭用的器皿多数是用黄铜做的。
• Some utensils were in a state of decay when they were unearthed. 有些器皿在出土时已经残破。

6 scooping   

n.捞球v.抢先报道( scoop的现在分词 )；（敏捷地）抱起；抢先获得；用铲[勺]等挖（洞等）

参考例句：

• Heated ice cream scoop is used for scooping really cold ice cream. 加热的冰淇淋勺是用来舀非常凉的冰淇淋的。 来自互联网
• The scoop-up was the key phase during a scooping cycle. 3个区间中，铲取区间是整个作业循环的关键。 来自互联网

7 drawn   

v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的

参考例句：

• All the characters in the story are drawn from life.故事中的所有人物都取材于生活。
• Her gaze was drawn irresistibly to the scene outside.她的目光禁不住被外面的风景所吸引。

8 ripples   

逐渐扩散的感觉( ripple的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The moon danced on the ripples. 月亮在涟漪上舞动。
• The sea leaves ripples on the sand. 海水在沙滩上留下了波痕。

9 debut   

n.首次演出，初次露面

参考例句：

• That same year he made his Broadway debut, playing a suave radio journalist.在那同一年里，他初次在百老汇登台，扮演一个温文而雅的电台记者。
• The actress made her debut in the new comedy.这位演员在那出新喜剧中首次登台演出。

10 genre   

n.(文学、艺术等的)类型，体裁，风格

参考例句：

• My favorite music genre is blues.我最喜欢的音乐种类是布鲁斯音乐。
• Superficially,this Shakespeare's work seems to fit into the same genre.从表面上看， 莎士比亚的这个剧本似乎属于同一类型。

11 crudity   

n.粗糙，生硬；adj.粗略的

参考例句：

• I'd never met such crudity before.我从未见过这样粗鲁的行径。
• Birthplace data are only the crudest indicator of actual migration paths.出生地信息只能非常粗略地显示实际移民过程。

12 navigate   

v.航行，飞行；导航，领航

参考例句：

• He was the first man to navigate the Atlantic by air.他是第一个飞越大西洋的人。
• Such boats can navigate on the Nile.这种船可以在尼罗河上航行。

13 comedian   

n.喜剧演员；滑稽演员

参考例句：

• The comedian tickled the crowd with his jokes.喜剧演员的笑话把人们逗乐了。
• The comedian enjoyed great popularity during the 30's.那位喜剧演员在三十年代非常走红。