Busy Weekend

If You See One...

So now we have roaches. Fan-FRICKIN-Tastic.

Not just roaches, either. Oh no. Not five minutes after seeing one crawl across our rug we find a centipede hiding in a corner of the wall. Centipedes prey on pest species rather than eat food scraps, so, you know, it was actually doing some good there, but that's a small comfort when you've just found out your apartment is supporting an entire uninvited ecosystem.

We've vaccuumed the carpet and put all the food on high shelves in a vain attempt to banish the cockroach spirits from our abode. Honestly, I don't think we could afford an exterminator at the moment, and even if we could our options of places we could stay in the meantime are limited. For now, it's a problem we'll try to fix ineffectually by tossing a few roach traps around and hoping for the best. Here's keeping our fingers crossed.

Easton Mall

So I went to Easton Town Center for the first time yesterday. I have to say, that was the first time I'd ever been to an outdoor mall. It was also the first time I'd encountered what I insist on reffering to as a smaller mall inside the mall movie theater. The whole place was impressive overall.

I've noticed a trend towards these "mega-malls" in recent years. They built like three of them within short driving distance of each other out where my boyfriend lives. They've even got a sort of mini-mega-mall over on High Street now, just off South Campus. The one with all the blue lighting set into the sidewalk for no apparent reason other than to look nice.

I'll admit, though, some of it seems just a tad bit...excessive. I worked the merchandise department at Geauga Lake & Wildwater Kingdom over the summer, and we didn't have anything half as nice as what I saw at Easton. In the entire park. Do we really need malls nicer than our amusement parks now? Actually, the malls almost are amusement parks; I saw that GameWorks center in the movie theater. Heck, I grabbed an actual souveneir map of the mall on the way out; maybe the parallels are intentional on some level.

Serenity

On Thursday I went to the midnight showing of Serenity. For anyone that doesn't know, that's the film based on the sci-fi series Firefly, the one done by the guy who did Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It's had a very strong cult following despite the fact that it was cancelled not halfway through the first season for reasons relating to "ratings."

I won't give away anything about the film. Doing so in even the smallest way would only serve to detract from the experience of going to see the film. I will, however, say that based on this film, I would be willing to bear Joss Whedon's child.

Nevermind the fact that that's a biological impossibility. The film was that good.

Film Rant: The Valley of Gwangi

WARNING: Potential Spoilers for a four-decade old film you've probably never heard of anyways.

FURTHER WARNING: This isn't a "review" of the film so much as it is me ranting about my impressions of it.

Okay, granted, it's a B-grade "horror" film one usually lumps together with the likes of THEM! and The Giant Claw. And, granted, the general populace usually tries it's best to ignore films like this. But this film really stands out for me among other B-movies. For one thing, the special effects were done by Ray Harryhausen. That right there would get it a ringing endorsement from me, I'll admit. But even beyond that, it has so many varied and tantilizing elements to it:

*Cowboys. Not many B-movies have any sort of Western element to them (those that do are generally better off for it, in my opinion). Even fewer take place in the old west, making this one stand out even more.

*Mexico. Here we even have a different flavor than the traditional Western element, as the film takes place south of the border.

*Gypsies. You'd think with the film taking place in Mexico at the turn of the (previous) century, and a group of people denouncing a nearby valley as "evil," you'd think that group would take the form of a local Native American tribe or something. And you'd be wrong, as in Gwangi it's gypsies. This manages to add a further "Old World" element into the mix.

*Dinosaurs. Any of the above three combined with dinosaurs would, by themselves, make for an interesting twist on the traditional "when dinosaurs attack" B-movie. Instead we get all four, which is even better.

*Obscure Paeleontological Refferences. How many films are there where they've mentioned the word "Eohippus," period?

*A Midget. Enough said.

*Ray Harryhausen. I know he's already been mentioned, but then that's how much of an element he adds to a film.

Perhaps more suprisingly, they managed to throw in a decent enough plot to fill the spaces between dinosaur attacks. You never really get the sense that the sole existence of these people is to be killed messily by "the creature" later on (as is characteristic with many other B-movies I could mention). They even had a woman in a role other than that of "complete incompetence" (a trait of horror films from this era in general), and there was only one point in the entire film where I cringed on behalf of the imaginary feminist watching it with me. Honestly, I'm sorry I've never rented the film before now.