Embarrassing T-Shirts

There’s no parkrun this morning as L is feeling too injured. I had considered doing one with MD but after last night’s tight calf I think I best give it a miss. MD doesn’t look too bothered either. He’s probably worried that I’d wear my Sheffield Half t-shirt again. On the photos from Markeaton Park last week, the expression on his face appears to indicate that he is clearly embarrassed by the day-glow greenness of his partner’s t-shirt.

So it’s win-win with a lie-in instead. L is then at Pilates and I’m at the match as Derby have an early game at 12.30. In which they draw 1-1 with Sheffield Wednesday.

The earliness of the game allows us to take in an early film at Broadway. 

‘Eye in the Sky’ is a thorough examination of modern military warfare and the complex decision making that goes on behind the scenes. The title refers to the satellite and drone technology that enables everyone involved in these types of operations to see the mission unfold in glorious detail.

The film deals us a complex scenario which sees UK based Colonel Katherine Powell (Helen Mirren) in charge of an operation to capture terrorists in Kenya. The operation is almost entirely conducted via remote surveillance but for some local intelligence provided by Jama Farah (Barkhad Abdi) who is on the ground and even he has his own highly impressive mini-drone which he skilfully pilots.

The objective of the mission soon changes when things don't go as planned and the terrorists end up in a house in a highly defended suburb of Nairobi, where they appear to be planning a suicide bombing. The mission is now eliminating everyone involved with a Hellfire missile with the added political ramifications from the fact that two of the terrorists are British and one is American.

Throughout Powell in touch with her Lieutenant General Frank Benson (Alan Rickman) who is handling the politics of the operation in Whitehall. Lawyers stand by on all sides. Meanwhile in the US drone pilots Steve Watts (Aaron Paul) and Carrie Gershon (Phoebe Fox) are preparing to launch the missile from the relative comfort of their military base. 

That is until they spot a young girl (Aisha Takow) selling bread in the vicinity who will be killed if they go ahead. This reignites communications between the various parties as the consequences are once more kicked about and sent higher up for decisions to be made and/or avoided. Never has the sale of bread been so riveting.

Who knows if this is exactly how everything really works or not, and I wouldn’t really expect them to give us the full story in any case but it’s an impressive bit of film making and a superbly engaging film.

It is also a film which will be remembered as the last one to feature the great Alan Rickman who died in January.

Afterwards we eat at Broadway and then head up Mansfield Road to the Golden Fleece.

(Saturday 23^rd April)

Pre-Race Nerves

We both parkrun at Long Eaton which I do with MD. We are a little late arriving which I thought would work quite well with MD as it wouldn’t give him time to get wound up but we get to the start line and his pre-race nerves get the better of him and he does a dump on the start line. Then for the first time ever (well, in my limited experience) they start on time at nine o’clock rather than the more usual five past nine. MD is distraught and it takes me a good few minutes to untangle his mouth from his lead. So that’s our PB down the drain. Still a good run though once we finally get started.

L tells me afterwards that they have changed the course slightly, I did notice something didn’t seem quite right.

L then heads off to Pilates and I head to the match where Darren Wassell’s first game in charge ends in a very familiar 1-0 defeat to MK Dons as again Derby dominate in every way apart from the way that matters.

We’re at Broadway in the evening. 

Dalton Trumbo (Bryan Cranston) was the highest paid writer in Hollywood in the 1940s and arguably the best. He was also a member of the Communist Party which, while this wasn’t illegal, it wasn’t popular with the paranoid government of the day.

Trumbo, along with many others, was hauled before the delightfully named ‘House Un-American Activities Committee’ to explain themselves and to implicate others. The notorious Hollywood Ten, which included Trumbo, refused to cooperate and stood up against what they saw as unfair treatment of their beliefs. There was never any evidence that any of them were spying for Russia. As a result though, many of them including Trumbo were sent to prison for contempt.

The committee wasn’t satisfied with simply jailing people and they also blacklisted them so that they couldn’t work in the film industry. The committee had significant backing from the likes of John Wayne (David James Elliott) who was president of the equally delightfully named ‘Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals’ and odious gossip columnist Hedda Hopper (Helen Mirren).

In order to survive some, many such as Trumbo, took their work underground and began writing or directing under false names. It was harder for actors to work anonymously and others, such as Edward G. Robinson (Michael Stuhlbarg), gave in and cooperated with committee.

Trumbo ends up working for Frank King (John Goodman) whose studio produced cheap trashy B movies which involved Trumbo working on the cheap and effectively working around the clock fuelled by alcohol and Benzedrine. This made him very unpopular at home with his wife (Diane Lane) and daughter (Elle Fanning) but who to their credit back him in his fight against the system. His daughter evolves into a younger version of his own stubborn self.

Trumbo also managed to work secretly on several bigger projects causing Ian McLellan Hunter (Alan Tudyk) to pick up the Academy Award for writing ‘Roman Holiday’ when actually it was Trumbo who wrote it. Trumbo goes onto win other awards under various pseudonyms for which he didn’t receive any credit at the time.

It is an absorbing story and a good history lesson which also includes some real archive footage. Trumbo won several Oscars for his work and it would be quite fitting if this film won something too but I don’t think that is the way the wind is blowing. 

Afterwards we again go to the Room with a Brew but then later the Blue Monkey.

(Saturday 13^th February)