The late-night/early-morning spot for Cubs fans asks how you feel about the Cubs after nine games.
It’s Wednesday evening here at BCB After Dark: the coolest club for night owls, early risers, new parents and Cubs fans abroad. It’s so good to see you. We’re glad you decided to stop by. We still have a couple of tables available. The cover charge is waived tonight. There is a two-drink minimum, but it’s bring your own beverage.
BCB After Dark is the place for you to talk baseball, music, movies, or anything else you need to get off your chest, as long as it is within the rules of the site. The late-nighters are encouraged to get the party started, but everyone else is invited to join in as you wake up the next morning and into the afternoon.
The Cubs swept the Sacramento Athletics this afternoon by winning the getaway game 10-2. They outscored the traveling A’s by a score of 37-9 in the three-game series. I don’t know if there’s much more to say than I hope they play that well against the Padres and Rangers on the homestand.
Last night I asked you how worried you were about Justin Steele’s start to the season. Admittedly, I started writing the question when Steele had allowed four runs in three innings last night. He pitched three scoreless innings after that.
Still, there was more to worry about Steele than just last night’s game in Sacto. And 37 percent of you put your level of worry at a “three” on a scale of 1 to 5, with one being the least amount of worry. Another 31 percent put your worry level at a “two.”
Here’s the part where we listen to jazz and talk movies. You can skip that if you want. You won’t hurt my feelings.
We lost the great Roberta Flack about a month ago, so in tribute I found the Bob James Trio doing a version of one of her number-one hits, “Feel Like Makin’ Love.” The group also does a second song “Nightcrawler.”
James is on keyboards, Michael Palazzolo plays bass and Billy Kilson is the drummer.
Director Terrence Mailck’s debut film Badlands (1973) is a masterpiece of the New Hollywood era. The film is based on the Charles Starkweather/Caril Ann Fugate murder spree through the Great Plains in the late fifties, an event that has been told in film, television and song multiple times. But what makes Badlands superior to those other versions is the performances of stars Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek, as well as Malik’s incredible eye for finding the beauty in the desolation of the American Plains.
In case you don’t know, Charlie Starkweather was a 19-year-old kid who murdered the family of his 14-year-old girlfriend Caril Fugate and then went on a killing spree through Nebraska and Wyoming, eventually killing 11 people before they were caught. Starkweather got the electric chair and Fugate was sentenced to life, but she was paroled in the mid-seventies and still lives somewhere in seclusion under an assumed name.
Badlands is a fictionalized version of the story. Sheen plays Kit, not Charlie, and Spacek is named Holly. The killing spree goes through South Dakota and Montana, although the film itself was shot in Eastern Colorado.
Much of the interest in Starkweather and Fugate come from people asking why two kids would commit such heinous crimes. Badlands isn’t particularly interested in answering that question. It’s clear both of them are psychopaths who don’t think much about the consequences of their actions, but Sheen plays Kit with a self-assured belief in pretty much nothing. He never loses his temper and all the killing is pretty much business to him. He kills some bounty hunters because he says they were in it for the money, unlike policemen who are just doing their duty. He spares the life of a rich man whose house they invaded for no reason whatsoever—and then reflects on how lucky the man was that they didn’t kill him. He leaves a recording in a dictaphone telling kids to stay in school and listen to their teachers—a message that sounds absurd coming from a mass killer. After he’s caught, he treats it all as a game, gleefully handing out souvenirs from his trip to the National Guardsmen who are guarding him.
Sheen got the part because Malick and Spacek thought he looked like James Dean, and he kinda does. There’s certainly a message about celebrity in Badlands, but it doesn’t really explain Kit—he explains to the police that he always wanted to be a criminal, but maybe not so big a one. Celebrity is just another pointless part of the game.
Holly is almost as mysterious as Kit. She keeps the film together with a narration that sounds like an eighth-grader rotely reciting an essay on what she did on her summer vacation. Maybe a bit more literate. Before she hits the road with Kit, Holly insists they stop by school to pick up her books “so I don’t fall behind.” Holly claims that she followed Kit because he was the first boy who ever showed any interest in her. She also shows no emotion over the murder of her father (Warren Oates), although admittedly he killed her dog as punishment for not staying away from Kit. Eventually Holly comes to realize that she needs to separate from Kit. Not because of the killing—it’s more the sleeping in a car, not being able to shower, not getting any good food—that sours her on Kit.
The film does place the blame for the killings on Kit and portrays Holly as a kind of dispassionate observer. She makes excuses for Kit and never condemns his actions, but she doesn’t participate herself. Spacek plays Holly with the same kind of emotionless, detached psychopathy that Sheen plays Kit. Spacek and Sheen turn in two pretty terrific performances. Spacek said making the movie changed her career and her life and Sheen still insists it was one of the best performances he ever gave.
The film that immediately comes to mind with Badlands is Bonnie and Clyde, which makes sense as Arthur Penn was a mentor to Malick and gets Penn gets a thank you in the credits. But whereas Bonnie and Clyde had a sense of fun and laughs going through all the crimes, Badlands is pretty much devoid of humor. It’s as bleak and desolate as the landscape it takes place in.
No one captures the beauty in scenery of the American Plains than Malick. Both Badlands and his next film, Days of Heaven, which is set in the Texas Panhandle, are filled with glorious shots of natural landscapes, mostly at sundown. Malick consistently finds the beauty in the desolation and desperation in Badlands, which is amazing because he burned through three different cinematographers during the shooting of the film. Despite that, the film looks like the work of just one person—Malick. And it’s one of the more gorgeous films around.
Badlands is a beautiful horror story with a nihilistic message. There’s no reason these kids decided to murder all these people other than they could. You can get so caught up in the beauty of the landscapes or the powerful performances of the leads that the whole point of “two teenagers go on a killing spree” can get lost in the background. And that may be the whole point afterall.
Here’s the original trailer for Badlands.
Welcome back to everyone who skips the music and movies.
The Cubs have played their first nine games away from Wrigley and went 5-4. They were 0-2 against the mighty Dodgers, 2-2 against the Diamondbacks in Arizona (but should have been 3-1) and they swept the A’s in Sacramento and looked really good doing so. Although we can’t be sure yet whether that’s the Cubs looking good or the Athletics looking terrible—although Sacramento did go 2-2 versus the Mariners in Seattle.
So how are you feeling about the Cubs coming into the home opener? (Yes, I realize the games in Tokyo were technically home games, but c’mon.) Is 5-4 better than you expected them to go? Worse? About the same.
We know that the Cubs’ March/April is supposed to be the hardest month that any team has on the schedule this season. There’s still a lot of baseball to play in April, but so far the Cubs are holding their own.
So how are we feeling about the Cubs after nine games? Is the bullpen still a major concern for you? What about Pete Crow-Armstrong and Matt Shaw? Is their slow starts a concern? Or is everything coming up roses? Please tell us your thoughts in the comments.
Thank you again for stopping by. Please tell your friends about us. Get home safely. We want to see you here again. Recycle your cans and bottles. Check around your table for any of your belongings. Tip your waitstaff. And join us again for more BCB After Dark.