level of confidence would be if Cade Horton started game one<\/a> of a playoff series? Most of you wouldn\u2019t hit the panic button at least as 40 percent of you would rank your level of confidence at \u201c3\u201d, meaning the game could go either way. Another 32 percent of you gave your confidence level as a \u201c4,\u201d meaning you\u2019d think the Cubs were more likely than not going to win.<\/p>\nHere\u2019s the part where I talk movies and listen to music. Not in that order, actually. Anyway, you\u2019re free to skip ahead to the Cubs part at the end if you want. You won\u2019t hurt my feelings.<\/p>\n
I think it\u2019s been a while since I featured Miles and even longer since I featured anything from Kind of Blue, which I and many others think is the greatest jazz album of all time. So here is Miles Davis and the first great Miles Davis Sextet with \u201cFreddie Freeloader.\u201d Miles is on trumpet, Julian \u201cCannonball\u201d Adderley plays alto sax, John Coltrane in on tenor sax, Wynton Kelly plays piano, Paul Chambers on double bass and Jimmy Cobb on drums.<\/p>\n
I try to stay away from writing about new movies because I think you can find dozens of other people writing about them on the internet and some of those people actually know what they\u2019re talking about. But I make exceptions for foreign and independent films, and director David Cronenberg\u2019s polarizing new film, The Shrouds, counts as that. (Canada\u2019s foreign, right?) The Shrouds is a fascinating mess of a movie that throws a lot of stuff at the wall, but what holds it all together is a mediation about loss and grief.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m going to admit that my film knowledge has a major blind spot when it comes to Cronenberg. I don\u2019t think there is a major North American filmmaker that I\u2019m less familiar with than him. For the most of Cronenberg\u2019s over fifty-year career, he\u2019s dealt with horror and body horror in particular, and I\u2019ve made no secret of the fact that I generally struggle with anything other than the most campy horror. So as far as Cronenberg goes, I\u2019ve seen Scanners and . . . well, I\u2019ve seen Scanners. So I may not be the best person to offer my insight into The Shrouds, which may be Cronenberg\u2019s most personal film. (Or it may not. What do I know? I\u2019ve seen Scanners.) On the other hand, if you\u2019re also coming into the film unencumbered by what Cronenberg has done before, then maybe I am the right person to write about The Shrouds.<\/p>\n
Vincent Cassel plays Karsh, a wealthy entrepreneur who has been a widower for four years and is still grieving his late wife, Becca. (Diane Kruger). To deal with his wife\u2019s death and to remain close to her, she\u2019s buried in a high-tech \u201cshroud\u201d that allows him to watch her decay in the ground through an app on his phone. He owns the cemetery where she\u2019s buried along with several other rich people whose families want that similar experience. You wonder just what type of family would want such a burial arrangement, but as Karsh tells a blind date (Jennifer Dale) in the opening scene, \u201cHow dark do you want to go?\u201d<\/p>\n
Becca\u2019s body is thankfully mostly just bone by now as he checks in on her. But Karsh notices some odd abnormalities on her bones that he hadn\u2019t seen before. He tries checking in with the oncologist who treated her, but he\u2019s mysteriously disappeared.<\/p>\n
Karsh\u2019s only two friends seem to be Becca\u2019s (apparently) twin sister Terry (also played by Kruger) and her ex-husband Maury (Guy Pearce), who designed a virtual assistant Hunny (again voiced by Kruger) that this high-tech mortician uses to plan his life. Terry is dog-grooming conspiracy theorist, to the point where she gets sexually excited by talking about conspiracies. She\u2019s also convinced her sister was murdered\u2014or at least illegally experimented on before her death. Maury is tech nerd who is still obsessed with Terry to the point of creepiness.<\/p>\n
After an act of vandalism at the cemetery, The Shrouds goes from being a morbid techno sci-fi piece into being the conspiracy thriller of Terry\u2019s dreams. Who vandalized the graves and why? Can Maury be trusted? Can Hunny? Karsh is also introduced to Soo-Min (Sandrine Holt), the blind wife of a dying Hungarian billionaire who wants to be buried in one of Karsh\u2019s cemeteries but is concerned about security. That sends Karsh down a rabbit hole where he realizes he can\u2019t guarantee the absolute security of his system, leading to even more paranoia.<\/p>\n
Not content to go through sci-fi and conspiracy thriller territory, Cronenberg returns to familiar \u201cbody horror\u201d territory as Becca returns to him with her naked body dismembered by her cancer. These scenes tread the line between flashback and hallucination, but they\u2019re clearly designed to show how Karsh is dealing with grief.<\/p>\n
So Cronenberg is juggling three films: a sci-fi tech parable with Frankenstein undertones, a conspiracy thriller straight from the seventies and Cronenberg body horror movie. There\u2019s also a bit of dark and absurdist humor, like when \u201cHunny\u201d turns herself into a Koala bear for no particular reason. This is where people who hate The Shrouds get angry: the film ultimately doesn\u2019t care about any of it. The film is about grief and the rest is just window dressing. I admit this dropping of all the balls is frustrating and I still don\u2019t know whether to be frustrated and angry or, like Cronenberg, just not care. But I keep thinking about it, so I guess that\u2019s a positive sign.<\/p>\n
The Shrouds was written after Cronenberg\u2019s wife of 38 years passed away from cancer in 2017, and you can see he throws everything he has into the character of Karsh. He even cast Cassel, who looks exactly like a slightly-younger and more-stylish version of Cronenberg himself. When Karsh says he wanted nothing more than to get in the grave with Becca, you know that Cronenberg is actually talking about himself and his late wife.<\/p>\n
The Shrouds was originally conceived as a television series for Netflix, who cancelled the project after seeing the script for the first two episodes. It may be that all those dropped balls are just leftovers from the TV series. David Lynch\u2019s masterpiece Mulholland Drive had a similar origin story and a similar issue with dropped threads. No one cares in Mulholland Drive because it\u2019s such a fantastic film otherwise. (Also, no one expects a David Lynch film to make sense.) The Shrouds isn\u2019t that good. Is it good enough? I think so, but your milage may vary.<\/p>\n
So in the end, The Shrouds is a lot of interesting ideas and only a few of them go anywhere. But it looks great, is well-acted and kept me thinking about it long after it was over. Is that enough? It was for me, but it\u2019s a close call.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s the trailer for The Shrouds.<\/p>\n
Welcome back to everyone who skips the music and movies.<\/p>\n
Miguel Amaya\u2019s minor league rehab is over as he\u2019s spent the maximum 20 days on it. So unless the Cubs find something physically wrong with him and restart his time on the injured list, he\u2019s going to be activated on Tuesday and added to the major league roster. Amaya is out of options, so he can\u2019t be sent back down to Iowa.<\/p>\n
I count only 39 players on the Cubs 40-man roster, so Amaya could be activated without designating someone for assignment. But there also isn\u2019t a position player with options that could be sent down to Iowa to make room for Amaya on the 26-man roster, so someone is going to have to be DFA\u2019d. Michael Busch, Pete Crow-Armstrong and Matt Shaw all still have options, but get serious. None of those three are going down to Iowa. Everyone else is going to have to get a DFA to make room for Amaya.<\/p>\n
The obvious choice is to designate Reese McGuire for assignment. McGuire was added to the roster when Amaya went down and he\u2019s done a solid job being a backup catcher. His on-base percentage is a miserable .250, but the six home runs he\u2019s contributed means he has a very good slugging percentage of .459 and an OPS+ of 101. Fangraphs, at least, loves McGuire\u2019s work behind the plate and, combined with his offense, give him an overall WAR of 0.8, which is pretty good for just 27 games. (Baseball Reference is not quite as enthusiastic about the defense and have him with a WAR of 0.3. Still not bad though.)<\/p>\n
So would you DFA Reese McGuire? Or maybe you think the Cubs should carry three catchers and release Jon Berti or Justin Turner? Teams rarely carry three catchers these days unless one of the catchers can play another position, and really none of these three can. So were the team to go with three catchers, that would mean that they\u2019d have to DH a lot to get at-bats, and that means fewer at bats for Seiya Suzuki.<\/p>\n
The problem with designating McGuire for assignment is that if another catcher gets hurt again, McGuire won\u2019t be available to call back up to the majors. I guess it\u2019s possible that no one claims McGuire on waivers and he accepts an assignment to Iowa, but I wouldn\u2019t count on it.<\/p>\n
On the other hand, the Cubs do have Mois\u00e9s Ballesteros in the minors and he\u2019s a catcher, even if the Cubs are reluctant to let him play there in the majors at the moment. They also have Carlos P\u00e9rez in Iowa, who is having a terrific year at the plate, albeit in the International League. So it doesn\u2019t really count.<\/p>\n
Still, a lot of you have been calling for the release of Jon Berti and\/or Justin Turner. So if you think McGuire would be more useful on the bench than those two, maybe you want to go in that direction.<\/p>\n
We may know the answer to what the Cubs are going to do by the time you read this, but I\u2019m not asking you what the Cubs will do. I want to know what you would do.<\/p>\n
So who would you give the boot to to activate Amaya?<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not giving you the option of designating Amaya for assignment. That\u2019s just dumb.<\/p>\n
Thanks for stopping by tonight. I hope we brightened up your off-day. Get home safely. Tell your friends about us. Recycle any cans and bottles. Tip your waitstaff. And join us again tomorrow night for more BCB After Dark.<\/p>\n
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