It’s another Monday night After Dark BCB: The trendiest coffee shop for night owls, early risers, new parents and Cubs fans abroad. We’re glad you decided to join us tonight. We always have room for one more person. There is no service charge. There are still a few tables available. The hostess will now seat you. Bring your own drinks.
After Dark BCB It’s your place to talk about baseball, music, movies, or anything else you need to say freely, as long as it adheres to the site’s rules. Those who stay up late are encouraged to start partying, but others are invited to join when you wake up the next morning and into the afternoon.
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The Cubs defeated the Phillies 5-1 tonight to win their sixth straight game. I think Judy is worth a visit.
Last week I asked which pup had been the biggest surprise so far this year. Fully 55% said “Nico Hoerner,” who is currently a clear candidate for National League Player of the Month. Another 11% said Mo Baller – Moisés Ballesteros.
This is the part where we listen to jazz and talk movies. You can skip it if you want.
April 30th is International Jazz Day, and if you haven’t heard, the host of this year’s event is Chicago. No one is more associated with jazz and Chicago than the late, great Ramsey Lewis. Lewis performed “Brazilica” in 2013, a song he co-wrote with Earth, Wind & Fire’s Martin Yarbrough and Maurice White. He also performed the song with Earth, Wind, and Fire.
The only movie I watched this week that I liked was Sinbad’s seventh voyage (1958) Directed by Nathan Juran and starring Colvin Matthews, Katherine Grant and Torin Thatcher. But the film was actually directed and starred by legendary stop-motion animator Ray Harryhausen, who created all of the film’s great creatures and stop-motion effects.
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The plot of the movie itself is just an excuse to get into stop-motion animation. In fact, the entire movie was Harryhausen’s idea, and he wanted to create some different monsters from Arabic mythology. Sinbad (Matthews) and his crew land on an island, where they find an evil sorcerer (Mrs. Thatcher) battling a Cyclops. They escape the giant monster with the help of the wizard’s genie (Richard Eyre), but during the ensuing battle, the wizard drops the magic lamp, which is subsequently used as a treasure by the Cyclops. When they return to Baghdad, the wizard shrinks Sinbad’s fiancée Parisa (Grant) to about four inches tall and says the only way to cure her is to return to their island to obtain the ingredients for the antidote. Of course, the wizard is evil and has no intention of returning Parisa to her normal size: he just wants to return to the island and retrieve the genie’s lamp.
Along the way, Sinbad must fight several Cyclops, a roc, a skeleton and a dragon, as well as evil wizards. This skeleton battle was so successful that Harryhausen repeated it with dozens of skeletons in the famous climax. Jason and the Argonauts. (1963)
These Ray Harryhausen movies were the first movies I watched on TV as a kid. I don’t remember seeing this specifically, but I may well have. Stop-motion monsters were pretty advanced in the 1950s, and to be honest, I still love them today. I believe, even as a child, it was clear to me that these creatures were animated dolls and not actual monsters, but I loved them regardless. They’re all cool adventure stories with fantastical creatures. You really don’t care that they look like puppets. Regardless, they are all creative and exciting and you can enjoy them for what they are.
I find it disturbing that most young people today can’t get over the old-fashioned nature of stop-motion animation and appreciate films like this the way I did when I was their age. Kids are so used to watching modern CGI animation that they find this old-school style silly. I know this because my wife is an English teacher and she tries to show her students Harryhausen’s later works Clash of Titans (1981) Teaching mythology, kids just think it’s silly. (She told me that some kids did enjoy it because they thought it was silly and tacky, which I guess at least meant they enjoyed it, but maybe not because it was meant to be enjoyed)
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It’s too bad, because I really love Harryhausen’s work because of their craftsmanship and the way they bring a story to life, even if it doesn’t look “realistic.” I’m still in awe of all the effort that went into The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad.
On the other hand, I also think that today’s modern blockbusters owe a lot to the stop-motion films produced by Harryhausen. I strongly disagree with Martin Scorsese’s comment that Marvel movies are “not movies” because what a superhero movie is, but a version of a superhero movie Sinbad’s seventh voyage With updated special effects? Scorsese would never claim that this movie “isn’t a movie” or any other action/adventure movie from Hollywood’s golden age. There’s a lot to criticize about the modern trend in superhero movies. Some are really great. A few are terrible. Most are a great way to spend a summer afternoon. But essentially, aside from the authenticity of the special effects, they’re no different than this movie. We can criticize the way they push small-budget movies out of theaters (I suspect that’s Scorsese’s real complaint), but that’s more a factor in changing film economics and culture than it is the fault of superhero movies. But we really shouldn’t say they’re not movies.
Of course, I doubt Scorsese has ever seen a Marvel movie, so I don’t know if it’s worth contradicting him.
This is the original trailer Sinbad’s seventh voyage. The trailer actually spends most of its time explaining how the special effects are done. Some scenes in the trailer are in black and white, although as the trailer explains, they are all in color in the movie. I guess they didn’t want to give away color scenes for free or something.
Welcome back to all those who skipped music and movies.
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The Cubs finally got some good news on the pitching injury front, with Matthew Boyd expected to be cleared from the injured list and start Wednesday against Philadelphia. Cade Horton’s rotation is still a work in progress and may not be until next July at the earliest, but at least Boyd’s absence will be brief.
Another pitcher currently rehabbing in Iowa is left-hander Jordan Weeks, who is coming off a forearm strain suffered in spring training. He made one appearance for Iowa State last week, pitching three scoreless innings.
Weeks was expected to be a big part of the Cubs’ pitching staff last year, whether as a starter or in reliever. But general inefficiency as a starter and a bullpen that didn’t regularly need him meant he spent most of the year in Triple-A Iowa. He performed quite well at Iowa State last year, making 16 starts, four relief appearances, and a total of 71 innings. He had a 3.55 ERA and a 3.07 Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP) line. He struck out more than one batter per inning at Iowa State and walked a very solid 7.8 percent of the batters he faced. Yeah, that’s not the big leagues, but it does sound like someone who could help a major league team.
With Weeks missing all of spring training, he won’t be activated from the injured list anytime soon. He may need three or four more starts before being declared fully healthy, which could take three weeks.
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But where do you plug Weeks when he’s activated? Would you consider him another lefty in the bullpen? Assuming there are no further injuries to the Cubs’ starting rotation (probably not a great assumption, but we’ll go with it), they still have Colin Rea in the rotation after Boyd returns. Presumably, Boyd’s return will move Javier Assad to the bullpen or Iowa State. Would you keep Weeks as the fifth starter and keep Rhea out of the bullpen?
Or, with Weeks still having minor league options, would you send him to Iowa until the Cubs suffer another irreparable injury to Rhea and Assad?
Thanks for stopping by tonight. We are always happy to meet you. Please come home safely. We want to see you again. Recycle all cans and bottles. Tip your waiter. Join us again tomorrow night for more information BCB after dark.
