Welcome to another week at BCB After Dark: The coolest place for night owls, early risers, new parents and Cubs fans abroad. Come in and sit with us. It doesn’t matter if it’s hot or cold, the atmosphere here is cool. There are no cover charges. We still have a few tables available. The hostess will seat you now. Bring your own drink.
BCB after dark is the perfect place to talk baseball, music, movies, or whatever else you need to blow off steam, as long as it’s within the site’s rules. Those who sleep late at night are encouraged to party, but everyone else is welcome to join when you wake up the next morning and into the afternoon.
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Last week I asked you what was team USA manager Mark DeRosa’s biggest mistake in the loss to Italy in the World Baseball Classic. Forty-four percent of you said DeRosa should never have started rookie Nolan McLean. Another 25 percent thought replacing Paul Goldschmidt with Bryce Harper was his biggest problem.
This is the part where we listen to music and talk about movies. You can ignore this if you want. You won’t hurt me.
Tonight we present a classic performance by Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers from 1958. Lee Morgan is on trumpet, Benny Golson on saxophone, Jymie Merritt on bass and Bobby Timmons on pianto.
It’s “Don’t Whisper.”
So the Oscars were last night and One battle after another won the Best Film award. Unless you worked on the film. I’m telling you that you shouldn’t worry about it. I’ve seen way too many arguments about this online today.
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Tonight I continue my series of thoughts on the ten best films of 2022. BFI Sight and Sound critics’ poll of the greatest film of all time. Of all these polls, this one is considered the most “canonical”. Although none of them won the Oscar for Best Picture or Best Foreign Film, which ties in with my previous paragraph. But even with the BFI list, I don’t agree with all of the top ten choices in the poll and I imagine literally no one does. We all have our own opinions and that’s fine. As with the Oscars, have fun but don’t take it too seriously.
My plan was to make two shorts at a time on each film, but again, I got too involved in the writing. Nice work that I will postpone until later Mulholland Drive until next time. In any case, it would have been an achievement on my part not to talk endlessly about Mulholland Driveso I write a little too much about Nice work tonight is probably a good thing.
7. Nice work (1999). Directed by Claire Denis. With Denis Lavant, Michel Subor and Grégoire Colin.
Nice work (“Nice Work”) is director Claire Denis’ reimagining of Herman Melville’s short story. Billy Budd. The setting of this psychological drama shifts from a Royal Navy ship during the French Revolutionary Wars to today’s French Foreign Legion in Djibouti. The entire story is told in flashback by a former legionnaire with very little dialogue. The film is calm, thoughtful and poetic. Denis grew up in French colonial Africa and she definitely has an eye for the beauty of the continent.
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I have never read Billy Buddbut I saw the film version directed by Peter Ustinov in 1962 with Terence Stamp, Robert Ryan and Ustinov, so I am somewhat dangerously basing some of my thoughts on that. Denis makes some clever adjustments to Melville’s story. On the one hand, rather than focusing on the characters played by Stamp (Budd) and Ustinov (Captain Vere), Lavant plays Galoup, who is the equivalent of the role of Ryan, who is the villain of Ustinov’s film. So the villain of Billy Budd becomes the protagonist, but certainly not the hero, of Nice work. It’s an interesting change. Certainly, in Ustinov’s film, we are meant to identify with the unjust abuse Billy suffers. It’s just not very interesting for Denis. What is more interesting are the rather inscrutable motivations of the attacker.
Also, by defining Nice work These days, the death penalty is also taken off the table. So Denis had to find a creative way to solve this problem.
Galoup is our narrator, who tells us about his time in the French Foreign Legion in Djibouti. He has a local girlfriend with whom he goes dancing in clubs. He enjoys his service in the Legion and admires his commander Forestier (Subor). His entire conception of himself is linked to the image he has of himself as a Legionnaire. He enjoys the self-discipline and order that comes with being in the Legion.
Galoup’s world is shaken when a new recruit, Gilles Sentain (Colin), joins the unit. Galoup instantly takes a strong dislike for Sentain. Galoup believes that Sentain is a malignant force in the unit and in particular, he does not like Forestier’s interest in him. To be clear, Sentain gave Galoup no particular reason to hate him. He was just a quiet soldier doing his job. It’s something that comes from Billy Buddor at least Ustinov’s film version. (Reading a summary of the short story, Melville posits that Claggart envies Billy’s beauty.) Galoup warns Forestier of the malignant force he believes Sentain represents, but his warnings are ignored by Forestier because there is nothing behind them. Eventually, there is a confrontation between the two men that changes both men’s lives.
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There isn’t much dialogue in Nice work and the story is pushed by Galoup who talks about his memories after his return to France. Denis revels in the beauty of the East African desert and, honestly, in men. If you’re the type who enjoys a movie that features lots of shirtless men sweating while working and exercising under the hot African sun, this is the movie for you. There is a definite homosexual subtext throughout the film, but it never surfaces. Perhaps sexual attraction is why Galoup hates Sentain so much, but we have no reason to think either is gay and Galoup had a local girlfriend who he clearly misses after returning to France.
In fact, much of what makes Nice work a good film is everything that isn’t said. Denis lets the images of men, the desert and the battle between the two speak. It’s a series of beautiful, nostalgic images that tell a fascinating story.
Would I put it in my top ten? This is where the film loses me. Was I Siskel or Ebert in the 90s and I asked them my opinion on Nice workI would give it an enthusiastic thumbs up. But as one of the ten greatest films of all time? Certainly not. Denis was the assistant director of director Wim Wenders’ film Wings of desire (she was the one who brilliantly suggested Peter Falk for the film) and I think Wings of desire is clearly the best film. This film is a candidate for my list of the ten greatest films of all time. I could probably name close to a hundred films that I would vote for before considering Nice work. So while I agree that the film should be acclaimed and should be listed somewhere in the BFI Sight & Sound Top 250, I think number seven is way too high. But this should not be taken as criticism. You should still watch it.
Here’s a trailer for the 4K restoration of Nice work.
Welcome to everyone who skips music and movies.
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Ben Brown has a new lead. (Baseball flyers below. req. although if you subscribe to Apple News, it’s also here.) Ben Brown is thereHe is very impressive in spring training with his new sinker.
We’ve heard this story before. Brown was a very promising pitcher that the Cubs obtained from the Phillies in 2022 for David Robertson. He made his major league debut in 2024 and between this year and last year he bounced between the starting rotation and the bullpen. He was pretty poor (5.26 ERA) during his starting career. He’s been just “below average” as a reliever during his career with a 4.79 ERA.
Brown has struggled in his career despite some nasty stuff, an excellent strikeout rate and solid control. In this Baseball flyers In this article, Maddie Landis argues that Brown’s problem is that he has been a two-pitch pitcher. Although his fastball is around 96 miles per hour, it gets hit hard because, among other reasons, he catches too much of the plate too often. Her joint curve should be elite, but she argues that with only two actual throws, it’s too predictable. When major league hitters can guess what you’re throwing, even the elite stuff can get hit.
If that sinker proves to be a real weapon for Brown, Landis says Brown has the No. 2 starting potential. With a good third pitch, batters will no longer be able to guess on the other two pitches and be right at least half the time. (Brown also has a changeup, but he rarely throws it because it’s not very good.)
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The problem with Brown starting this year is that the Cubs already have a full starting rotation. Matthew Boyd, Cade Horton, Edward Cabrera, Shōta Imanaga and Jameson Taillon are already listed as the rotation to start the season. Justin Steele appears to be ready to go by Memorial Day.
Brown will therefore almost certainly start the season in the bullpen. But will he stay there? The pitchers are injured. Also, Jameson Taillon not looking great in spring training. He also wasn’t great in the World Baseball Classic for Canada. We talked Imanaga’s difficulties at the end of last season. If one of them continues to struggle and Brown comes out of the bullpen well, then the Cubs will have to consider making a move to put Brown in the rotation.
Of course, all of this assumes that Brown’s has as much success against regular-season hitters as he does against those in spring training. This also assumes that Brown can go deep into games and throw 90-100 pitches every five days instead of 15-20 two or three times a week.
So do you think Brown will be more of a reliever or a starter in 2026? I asked in which role he would throw the most innings, because it’s difficult to compare appearances as a reliever to appearances as a starter.
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Thank you very much for stopping by. We hope you had fun. Please return home safely. We want you to come back. Recycle all cans and bottles. Tip your servers. And join us tomorrow to learn more BCB after dark.
