Are you a fan of cool machine toys? Do you like cars and trucks that change into giant robots? If so, you wouldn’t want to miss the US film Transformers (《变形金刚》), which hit theaters on July 11th, 2011 in China.

The story of Transformers was born in 1983. It started in a Japanese comic book. A year later, US toymaker Hasbro turned the intelligent robots into toys and TV stars. The first movie of Transformers came out in 2007. They’ve been popular for a long time. Now they are back on screen with the latest animation (动画) technology.

Like people, aliens (外星人) could be either good or bad. This is what Transformers is about a war between two groups of aliens. The Autobots (汽车人) are the peace-loving and kind machines. But the Decepticons (霸天虎) are brutal. They destroyed (破坏) almost everything. They have only one goal: to rule the planet themselves. They set out to kill the Autobots. The two groups soon used up the planet’s rich energy. Running out of energy, they took their battle to the Earth.

In this third film of the Transformers, both of the two groups must find a spaceship on the moon and find out what is there. So, who will win the race?

Sherlock Holmes is probably the world’s most famous detective. But he is not r    48    . He is just a character in books written by Scottish author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. In the books, Sherlock Holmes is a tall, thin man. He a    49     smokes a pipe. He lives on Baker Street in London, England. His job is to help the police solve cases and find bad people. He is very smart and can find a    50     even when he doesn’t have many clues. He works with Dr. Watson, his good friend. There will be a new movie about this famous d    51     very soon. What’s it about? The movie is set in 1891 in Britain. Someone is making a plan to destroy Britain, Sherlock Holmes, together with Dr. Watson, uses his wits and guts (智慧和勇气) to s    52     the evil plan and save the country. In the movie, Sherlock Holmes is not only c    53     but also handsome and cool. What makes the movie really good is its exciting plot.

Do you know that many of our most popular cartoon and movie characters come from Japan? You probably know some of them, and you may never hear of others. But they are all very popular in Japan. In Japan, “Astroboy” is very famous. He was created as a comic book character in 1951, and was the first animated (动画的) cartoon on Japanese television in 1963. Pikachu is the star of the popular Pokemon cartoon series. Everybody in Japanese knows Doraemon. His face is seen everywhere, on candy wrappers (糖纸), on pencil boxes and even on stamps. He first appeared in a comic book in 1969, and he had been in TV shows and movies as well. The movie “My Neighbour Totoro” was made in 1988. It is one of the most popular animated films made by the Japanese director, Hayao Miyazaki. There are shops in Japan selling Totoro merchandise (商品). You can buy all things about Totoro books, lunchboxes, games and so on.