Month: April 2019

The Keeper (2019)

Studio: Parkland Entertainment 
Director: Marcus H Rossenhuller
Producer: Chris Curling, Robert Marciniak, Steve Milne.
Starring: Daniel Kroos, Freya Mavor, Harry Melling, John Henshaw, Dave Johns, Derviş Kerwin, Chloe Harris, Michael Socha, Gary Lewis, Angus Barnett, Butz Ullrich Buse.
Run time: 119 minutes
BBFC: 15
Rotten Tomatoes Rating: 94%
IMDb Rating: 7.1/10

It took little more than five years since his death for a film on his exploits to be made. Given the timing of its release around the same time as another movie focusing on the era of post-war reconstruction of Anglo-German relations movie (Kiera Knightley’s The Aftermath), it could be another film too far. However, this one comes through the lens of Bert Trautmann.

The former Nazi paratrooper turned Goalkeeper is portrayed well by Daniel Kroos who starts the movie experiencing the brutal, harsh realities of war as he is captured in Kleve. From there, he is sent to a P.O.W camp in Lancashire where they receive quite understandably harsh treatment from Sergeant Smilie (Melling) where a chance kick about see’s him picked up by the desperate manager of a local football team. read more

Hamilton wins F1’s 1,000th: 2019 Chinese Grand Prix Review

The 5.451km long, 16 turn Shanghai International Circuit played host to F1’s 1,000th World Championship Grand Prix and it was an intriguing weekend as we learnt more of the 2019 spec cars. However, who would take the headlines from the milestone event?

Valtteri Bottas secured his 7th pole position in F1 at the 1,000th Grand Prix. [Image from F1i.com].

After Ferrari had shown blistering pace in Bahrain, it was anticipated they would be the team to beat again with Mercedes team boss claiming the power on the Ferrari’s was ‘gold standard’. In practice, the pace was much closer. It was neck and neck between Ferrari and Mercedes but come to the final practice session and qualifying; it was all Mercedes. Ferrari had dropped three tenths behind as Valtteri Bottas who took pole for the 1,000th Grand Prix; just 0.023s ahead of his teammate as Mercedes locked out the front row. In an ominous sign for the rest of the grid though, the top 5 were able to get into Q3 using the more durable medium compound tyre in Q2 and still here a healthy advantage over the midfield cars on the softer compound. read more

Jallianwala Bagh: 100 years on should there be an apology?

Five months ago, we marked the centenary of the end of the First World War. Today marks another century. It is of an event that feels like it has not received near as much exposure in the media. That is despite it being labelled by Herbert Asquith, Britain’s World War One Prime Minister as being ‘one of the worst outrages in the whole of our history’.

This is something that personally, I had never heard of before studying History at University and anyone on that particular course/module, if they are reading this, will be sure to pick out any inaccuracies. read more

Premier League Predictions 2018/19: April 12th-15th

It has been two weeks since I last did one of these prediction posts. When I last did a post, Huddersfield Town’s relegation to the Championship was confirmed after a 2-0 defeat at Crystal Palace was matched with wins for Southampton and Burnley. The Terriers were relegated with 6 games to play and matches the current record set by Derby County in 2006/07. At the other end of the table, there was a controversial win at Cardiff for Chelse with Neil Warnock describing the officials as the worst while Liverpool kept top spot after a dramatic late own goal by Tiby Alderwield saw them beat Tottenham Hotspur 2-1 with Manchester City having won at Fulham the day before.

Since then, Fulham have joined Huddersfield in having their relegation to the Championship confirmed. They needed to avoid defeat to Watford the following midweek. They were soundly beaten 4-1. Also in those midweek games, Man City beat Cardiff 2-0 and Chelsea ran out 3-0 winners over Brighton. FA Cup semi-finalists Wolves beat Man United at Molineux again and guess the score; 2-1 and Tottenham celebrated their return to the new White Hart Lane with an extravagant display and 2-0 win over Crystal Palace. read more

Leclerc shines but cruelly denied victory: 2019 Bahrain Grand Prix Review

After the season opener in Australia, F1 moved to the Sakhir International Circuit in Bahrain for the first of three-night races in the 2019 Championship. Pre-championship favourites Ferrari arrived hoping to demonstrate pace more representative of what they showed in testing while Renault in the midfield were hoping to showcase more of their engine improvements. Ferrari showed they meant business in practice as they were immediately 0.9 seconds clear of the next quickest team in the opening session while Renault looked to be well and truly in the midfield scrap for ‘best of the rest’. However, it looked to be a mightily close battle with Haas as Romain Grosjean went 5th in the final session before Qualifying.

Charles Leclerc took his first pole position in F1. [Image from formula1.com].

Nico Hulkenberg was the surprise casualty for Renault in Q1 as both cars failed to reach the top 10 shootouts for the second race in a row this season. McLaren meanwhile got both of their cars into the session while the standout performer was Charles Leclerc. The Monegasque driver topped all three parts of Qualifying as he became the second youngest pole sitter in F1 history at the age of 21 years and 166 days. read more