It’s another week here at BCB After Dark: the grooviest gathering of night owls, early risers, new parents and Cubs fans abroad. Thank you for stopping by. Come on in and join us. There’s no cover charge. We still have a few tables available. 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 beat the Marlins tonight 5-2. Colin Rea turned in a quality start and Dansby Swanson and Seiya Suzuki both hit two-run home runs. The “easy” part of the schedule has begun and the Cubs need to take advantage. Tonight, they did.
Last week I asked you if you thought Marlins pitcher Sandy Alcantara was still the kind of pitcher the Cubs should pursue at the trade deadline. I know there’s time to change your mind before the deadline, but eighty percent of you at the moment think the Cubs should stay away.
Here’s the part where we listen to music and talk movies. You’re free to skip that if you want. You won’t hurt my feelings.
Tonight we have a classic from the Horace Silver Quintet, playing Silver’s signature tune “Song for My Father.” I have to admit that everytime I hear “Song for My Father,” I think I’m going to hear “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number,” since Steely Dan stole the opening notes for that song from this one.
Silver is on piano, Bennie Maupin on tenor sax, Bill Hardman on trumpet, Johnny Williams on bass and Billy Cobham on drums.
This is from Copenhagen in 1968.
The Dutch-French film The Vanishing (1988) is rightly considered a classic psychological thriller. Directed by George Sluizer, Spoorloos, as it was called in the Netherlands, is a neo-Hitchcockian story of crime and obsession. Based on a novella by Tim Krabbé (who co-wrote the screenplay with Sluizer), it revolves around Hitchcock’s classic definition of suspense: We, the audience, know much more than the characters and we’re helpless as we wait for the metaphorical bomb to go off.
The Vanishing is about a Dutch couple, Rex (Gene Bervoets) and Saskia (Johanna ter Steege) who are going on a biking vacation through the south of France. They have a brief fight, make up and then stop for supplies at a gas station. Saskia goes into the convenience store to buy some drinks. Saskia never comes out.
There’s really no question as to what happened to Saskia. Raymonde (Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu), a chemistry professor, husband, father and self-described sociopath, has taken her. But while we know that, Rex and the authorities don’t. Rex is, of course, frantic about Saskia’s disappearance, but the authorities are understandably less worried since they don’t know that she didn’t just run off.
Spoilers, if you’re worried. But I kept it light.
The film then jumps to three years ahead in time and Rex is still obsessed with what happened to Saskia. He even has a new girlfriend, but almost all of his spare time is still spent searching for Saskia. His obsession is all-consuming. Likewise, through flashbacks, we find out that Raymonde’s obsession to do something horrible is all-consuming as well.
The two men are on a collision course, as Raymonde, either out of pity or annoyance (probably both), decides to put an end to Rex’s obsession by revealing what happened to Saskia, but only if Rex does exactly what he says. Rex is so consumed by the need to know that he actually goes along with it.
End Spoliers
Donnadieu gives an appropriately chilling performance as Raymonde. He’s the classic serial killer personality. He’s a good husband and father whose family loves him, even if they sense there’s something “off” about him. (His wife thinks he’s having an affair.) We get his reasoning and preparations to commit his crime and how he was continually foiled in his attempts until he finds Saskia. (Raymonde even steals a trick from Ted Bundy, although that Bundy did it first is not acknowledged.)
Bervoets as Rex will immediately bring to mind Jimmy Stewart in Vertigo. He’s a mostly good person, an ordinary man, driven by an overpowering obsession. The obsession is certainly understandable—we’d all be somewhat obsessed by the disappearance of a loved one, especially if you think you’re somewhat responsible. But Rex’s obsession is destroying his life.
The Vanishing is a movie where most of the action takes place in the audience’s head. We know, or strongly suspect, most of what happened to Saskia, but we don’t know everything. But the piecemeal way that the film fleshes out the story causes us to fill in the blanks in our own heads, which is where most of the horror lies.
The Vanishing was a big hit in the US, for a Dutch import at least, so of course 20th Century Fox wanted to do an English-language re-make. They even hired Sluizer to direct the English-language version. It’s common for Hollywood to turn a well-made foreign film into an atrocious remake, but usually that’s because they give the film to a director with no respect for the original material. In the 1993 remake, it’s Sluizer himself that butchers his own masterpiece. I haven’t seen the remake, which stars Jeff Bridges, Kiefer Sutherland, Sandra Bullock and Nancy Travis, but I know that it completely changes the ending to make the film more palatable to American audiences. Roger Ebert wrote the new ending was an insult to American audiences that made absolutely no thematic sense. American audiences seemed to get the insult and rejected it as the film flopped. Anyway, if you’re going to watch The Vanishing, be sure to watch the classic Dutch original and not the basterized remake. One is a classic. The other is a forgotten artifact of the nineties.
If you’re looking for a scary neo-Hitchcock film that might keep you up at night, you couldn’t do much better than The Vanishing.
Here is the trailer for The Vanishing (1988)
Welcome back to everyone who skips the music and movies.
Tonight’s question builds off of this article in The Athletic by Sahadev Sharma on the “under-the-radar” performances from the 2025 Cubs. (sub. req.) Sharma’s point is that while Kyle Tucker, Pete Crow-Armstrong, Matthew Boyd and other usual suspects have been important in the Cubs’ strong start to the year, there are others that have not gotten the same kind of attention.
The ones that Sharma mentions are Colin Rea, Ian Happ and Brad Keller. Rea was considered a minor depth signing by a lot of us around here, as noted by 58 percent of you giving the signing a big “meh” and the “nays” slightly outnumbered the ‘yays.” But Rea was thrust into the rotation with the injury to Justin Steele and he’s responded with a 3-0 record with a 2.48 ERA.
Maybe you think Rea isn’t “under-the-radar” anymore. Maybe you think Ian Happ deserves some more credit. Happ is the longest-tenured Cub, but he certainly doesn’t grab attention the way that Kyle Tucker and Pete Crow-Armstrong do. Happ’s power numbers may be a bit down this year, but Sharma notes that he’s still hitting the ball just as hard he always has. Happ also has cut his strikeout rate down to 18.7 percent, which, if you remember Happ from 2017 and 2018, seems somewhat miraculous. He’s become a quality leadoff hitter with a career-high .364 on-base percentage.
If Colin Rea was an under-the-radar signing, then Brad Keller didn’t even register. Keller was signed to a minor-league deal with an invite to Spring Training and as such, we didn’t even give him his own article announcing the signing. After all, the Cubs sign several non-roster invitees each winter and only every other year or so does one make the roster. Even less often does one make an impact in the majors like Keller does.
Other than one absolute meltdown against the Dodgers (and I think we can excuse melting down against LA, especially since the Cubs ended up winning that game), Keller has been a bright spot in a bullpen that’s been pretty shaky at times. Keller has the highest strikeout rate on the team and the highest ground ball rate.
I’m going to add two more candidates to the vote. One is Daniel Palencia, who was in Iowa until April 15 and was shaky last season when he was in the majors. But since he’s recall, he’s entered manager Craig Counsell’s “circle of trust” as he’s pitched 13 innings over 11 appearances and has a 1.38 ERA. He still walks more than you’d like, but so far he’s cut his walk rate in half to something that is manageable for someone who gives up as little contact as he does. Palencia looks like a closer-in-training at the moment.
The other one is Nico Hoerner, who never seems to get mentioned unless it is to point out that he’s one of two regulars in baseball who hasn’t homered yet. And yes, Hoerner’s offensive output has been more “acceptable” than good with an OPS+ of 90. But a big reason for the Cubs’ success this year has been defense up the middle. Pete Crow-Armstrong certainly deserves all the attention he gets for his defense and Dansby Swanson’s defense got mentioned all the time when he was in that bad hitting slump earlier this season. Plus, he made this incredible play to seal the win over Arizona. [VIDEO] But Hoerner has been about as good defensively as Swanson up the middle.
So yeah, this is a little like saying “Who is the most underrated?” which is a dumb question because as soon as you mention who is “underrated,” then that player isn’t underrated anymore. But think of it as which player should we be talking about around here more? Who should we be writing songs about other than the obvious choices?
Poll
Who is the Cubs biggest “unsung hero”?
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Daniel Palencia
(0 votes)
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Someone else (leave in comments)
(0 votes)
0 votes total
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