TOKYO, JAPAN - MARCH 15: Jordan Wicks #36 of the Chicago Cubs pitches in an exhibition game against the Hanshin Tigers at the Tokyo Dome on March 15, 2025 in Tokyo, Japan. (Photo by Matt Dirksen/Chicago Cubs/Getty Images) | Getty Images It’s another Monday night here at BCB After Dark:the grooviest hipster cafe for night owls, early risers, new parents and Cubs fans abroad. We’re so glad you decided to join us this evening. We’ve always got room for one more.

There’s no cover charge. There are still a few tables available. The hostess will seat you now. 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 Phillies tonight 5-1 for their sixth-straight win. I think that’s worth a visit from Judy. Last week I asked which Cub was the most pleasant surprise so far this year.

Fully 55 percent of you said “Nico Hoerner,” who is certainly a candidate for National League Player of the Month at this point. Another 11 percent of you said Mo Baller—Moisés Ballesteros.Here’s the part where we listen to jazz and talk movies. You can skip that if you’d like.We’re approaching International Jazz Day on April 30 and in case you haven’t heard, the host for the event this year is Chicago.

No one is more associated with jazz and Chicago than the late, great Ramsey Lewis. So here’s Lewis in 2013 performing “Brazilica,” a song he wrote along with Martin Yarbrough and Maurice White of Earth, Wind and Fire. He’s performed this song with Earth, Wind and Fire as well.The only film I watched this week that I enjoyed was The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958) which was directed by Nathan Juran and starred Kerwin Mathews, Kathryn Grant and Torin Thatcher.

But really, the director and star of this film is the legendary stop-motion animator Ray Harryhausen, who created all the great creatures and stop-motion effects in the film.The plot of the film itself is simply an excuse to get to the stop-motion animation. In fact, the entire film was Harryhausen’s idea, who wanted to create some different monsters out of Arabian mythology. Sinbad (Mathews) and his crew land on an island where they find an evil sorcerer (Thatcher) battling a cyclops.

They escape the giant monster with the help of the sorcerer’s genie (Richard Eyer), but in the ensuing battle the sorcerer drops the magic lantern, which is then taken by the cyclops as treasure. Once they get back to Baghdad, the sorcerer shrinks Sinbad’s finacée Parisa (Grant) down to about four inches tall and says that the only way to cure her is to go back to the island that they were on to get the materials for an antidote. Of course, the sorcerer is evil and has no intention of getting Parisa back to normal size: he just wants to go back to the island to get the genie’s lamp back.So along the way, Sinbad has to fight a few cyclopes, a roc, a skeleton and a dragon as well as the evil sorcerer.

The skeleton battle was so successful that Harryhausen repeated it with dozens of skeletons in the famous climax of Jason and the Argonauts. (1963)These Ray Harryhausen films are some of the first movies I watched on TV when I was a kid. I don’t remember specifically having seen this one, but I very well might have. The stop-motion animation monsters were pretty state of the art for the 1950s and honestly, I still enjoy them today.

I believe that even as a kid, it was clear to me that the creatures were animated dolls and not actual monsters, but I enjoyed them anyways. They were cool adventure tales with fantastical creatures in them. You really didn’t care that they looked like puppets.

They were creative and exciting anyway and you’re able to enjoy them for what they are. I find it troubling that most young people today are not able to get over the old-fashioned nature of the stop-motion animation and appreciate a film like this like I did when I was their age. Kids are so conditioned to see modern CGI animation that they find this older style silly.

I know this because my wife is an English teacher who has tried to show her students Harryhausen’s later Clash of the Titans (1981) to teach about mythology and the kids just find it stupid. (She tells me that some kids do like it because they think it’s silly and cheesy, which I guess at least means they enjoyed it, but maybe not for the reason it was meant to be enjoyed)It’s too bad because I really enjoy Harryhausen’s work for the craft that goes into them and the way they bring a story to life, even if it’s not “realistic” looking. I still marvel at all the effort that went into The 7th Voyage of Sinbad.On the other hand, I also think that today’s modern blockbusters owe a lot to the films for which Harryhausen did the stop-motion animation. I very much object