【推荐1】Ask any business leader what big challenges they face and it’s likely that skills and labor shortages will be high on their list. They’re concerned about how to develop the skills they need for the jobs of tomorrow. According to the World Economic Forum’s latest Future of Jobs Report 2023, organizations across all industries identify skills gaps and an inability to attract talent as the key barriers preventing industry transformation.

There’s a potential solution to all of this: a “skills-first” approach. The new report, Putting Skills First: A Framework for Action, launched during the World Economic Forum’s Growth Summit, finds that switching to a skills-first mindset can directly benefit over 100 million people globally who’re currently under-utilizing their existing skills, because they’re under-employed in their current job or because they’re unemployed. The analysis, which covers 18 economies, finds workforce under-utilization ranges from 4% of the working population in Thailand, to 7% in the US, 13% in France, 27% in Brazil and 43% in South Africa.

A skills-first approach focuses on a person’s skills and competencies rather than on their qualifications or job history, so that what someone can do becomes far more important than which university they went to. Crucially, this focus on skills continues long after the worker has been hired, with an emphasis on continually developing their abilities right through their career.

Making skills a priority is fairly advantageous. For businesses, taking a skills-first approach dramatically increases the potential pool of talent from which they can draw on. For individuals, it provides access to good jobs that offer skills building, career progression and higher earning potential which they’d otherwise have been excluded from without the right qualifications.

Delivering such ground-breaking change requires more than simply the involvement of HR teams. It’ll require the commitment of CEOs and policy-makers at the highest level to drive it through. So far a company in UK has introduced a range of degree apprenticeship (学徒制) programs which enable applicants without a degree to gain one while working at the firm. The organization is also developing new career paths to ensure it has the right skills to meet the changing needs of the economy.

【推荐2】Dunkirk is the newest Nolan film and, as usual, he blew me away with intelligence within each shot. However, a source of annoyance in the film was choice to fill almost every scene with loud sounds all the way through. That especially annoying when there was enough background noise to heighten the tension.

While the sound left much to be desired, I fell in love with the rest of the film. I was so absorbed in the story that I too almost felt I was on the beach or escaping on one of the small boats. Any sense of being blessed with a minute to relax is a false positive because within seconds the stress will pick up again but even more so. Possibly the closest I’ve been to cardiac arrest was watching a scene from this film where the soldiers are attempting to plug bullet holes(塞住弹孔) in a boat in order to keep it afloat and yet they know they could be hit by more bullets coming through the hull(船身) at any time.

The storytelling feels highly original too. We are presented with three different locations (the beach, the sea and the sky) from which everything takes place. Each location tells the story over a different period of time so when all three meet we are treated to a visual masterpiece of a sinking boat from three points of view.

It’s difficult to judge the performances because much emphasis(重点) is put on visuals rather than dialogue but Mark Rylance stands out as Mr. Dawson, captain of one of the small boats that come to the soldiers’ rescue. The looks he gives his son on the trip to Dunkirk show so much about the relationship between the two. The other actor that stands out is Harry Styles. However, Styles had the “showiest” role and pulled it off well considering this was his first attempt at acting in a feature film(故事片).

【推荐3】Best Films to Watch in 2022

It is the final film in the second trilogy (三部曲) of dinosaur-movies. It’s the first one that really deserves to be called “Jurassic World” rather than “Jurassic Park”. Yes, prehistoric dinosaurs appear in the wild this time, rather than being stuck in a theme park. What’s even more exciting is that the (human) stars from the first Jurassic film have reunited.

Release date: 10 June, internationally

Director: Colin Trevorrow

Official Competition

Cruz and Banderas have been two of Spanish cinema's most famous superstars for decades, and yet have rarely acted on screen together. Now, once again, that wrong has been corrected by Official Competition,a good movie-business satire (讽刺作品). Cruz plays a director who is adapting a Nobel Prize–winning novel. Banderas is a Hollywood action hero who is hired to star in it.

Release date: 1 June in France, 9 June in Singapore, 17 June in the US and 30 June in Germany

Director: Mariano Cohn & Gastón Duprat

Brian and Charles

Not a typical science-fiction movie, Brian and Charles is a low-cost British comedy starring and co-written by David Earl, a regular in situation comedies. “Brian and Charles is this year’s sweetest film,” says Cory. “It’s like an Edgar Wright’s Mighty Boosh project thrown into a cotton-candy machine,but also one of the most surprising films about being a parent, even when your son is a 7 feet-tall robot who loves cabbages.”

Release date: 17 June in the US and Canada

Director: Jim Archer

Lightyear

After four Toy Story films, everyone's favorite space ranger action figure, Buzz Lightyear, gets to leave Woody and friends behind, and starts an adventure on his own. In fact, the latest Pixar cartoon isn’t about the toy.

Release date: 17 June, internationally

Director: Angus MacLane

【推荐1】“Goblin mode” has been chosen by the public as the 2022 Oxford word of the year. The term, which refers to “a type of behavior which is unapologetically self-indulgent (放纵的), lazy, or greedy, typically in a way that rejects social norms or expectations”, has become the first word of the year to have been decided by public vote.

Given a choice of three words, narrowed down by lexicographers (词典编纂者) from Oxford University Press (OUP), more than 340, 000 English speakers around the world cast their vote.

The president of Oxford Languages, Casper Grathwohl, said that while he and his colleagues were “hoping the public would enjoy being brought into the process”, the level of engagement had caught them “totally by surprise”.

“Given the year we’ve just experienced, ‘goblin mode’ resonates (共鸣) with all of us who are feeling a little overwhelmed at this point,” he added. “It’s a relief to acknowledge that we’re not always the idealized selves that we’re encouraged to present on our Instagram and TikTok feeds. This has been demonstrated by the dramatic rise of platforms like BeReal where users share images of their unedited selves, often capturing self-indulgent moments in goblin mode.”

The winning term was first seen on Twitter in 2009, but became popular on social media in February 2022 after being tweeted in a mocked-up headline.

The American linguist and lexicographer Ben Zimmer said: “Goblin mode really does speak to the times and the zeitgeist, and it is certainly a 2022 expression. People are looking at social norms in new ways. It gives people the licence to reject social norms and embrace new ones.”

Goblin mode joins previous Oxford words of the year “vax” (2021), “climate emergency” (2019), and “selfie” (2013). Other dictionaries have also selected 2022 words of the year: Collinschose “permacrisis”, while Cambridge Dictionaries went for “homer”.

【推荐2】Zach Conti has been taking up various jobs for four years so he could go to school. To get by and pay the bills, he had to sell his plasma, something he wouldn’t have to do if he had a scholarship.

Unfortunately, Eastern Michigan University could not give any more scholarships, according to the coach of the university’s football team, Chris Creighton. He shared that they’re at 85 scholarships and no matter how many times he went to the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) to apply for another one, the answer was no. Luckily, a teammate Dooley, who regards Conti as a family member, was willing to give up his scholarship and give it to Conti.

When asked why he made such a decision, Dooley mentioned he did it because he had seen Conti grow over the years. Seeing him walk away from something that he loves did not sit well with him. In his eyes, giving up his scholarship so Conti can stay and play means everything. For Conti, football was something he really loved, so ever since he got to school, he did whatever it took to stay here and stay in a good position with academics and football and everything.

When the scholarship was presented to him, Conti said he was so thankful for Dooley for his kindness and generosity though he did not expect such a big sacrifice (牺牲) from him. Creighton said he had never seen anything like that before and he was comforted by Dooley’s good deed. Dooley repeated he would do it again in a heartbeat and he hoped to help Conti some more along the way. “I’m proud of what he has become and cannot wait to see what he does on the field,” added Dooley.