Shark B-Movies
How I Procrastinate on Vacation
Photo by Francesco Califano on Unsplash
I’ve woken up at 4 a.m. every day this week. It’s Spring Break for me. Instead of naturally waking up around 6:30 a.m., I’m waking up close to two hours earlier regardless of what time I’d gone to sleep the night before.
I had a list of things to do this week and I’m only a bit ashamed that I haven’t finished anything on the list. Over the weekend I did absolutely nothing. By nothing, I mean that take-out and my queue lists on various streaming platforms were visited. Everyone needs a weekend off, but I would accomplish something once the week got started.
I’ve managed to finish my laundry and organize a few boxes I had in the closet. My big-ticket item was to go to my storage unit. Since Saturday, I’ve been building up the momentum to go, then this morning I received an email that my storage unit is undergoing maintenance and the elevators would be out of service until this weekend. It means that I’m supposed to take it easy this week.
I have a pretty decent memory when it comes to my things. More out of being territorial than having a good memory. I went to my storage unit last week and I counted 8 bins. I can close my eyes and visualize the contents of 5 of them. The other 3 could have been beamed down by aliens and I’d believe it because I haven’t a clue what they are. My procrastination, I believe, has more to do with these 3 bins possibly being Pandora's boxes than a problem with my actual memory.
How do I prepare myself for the task at hand? I put my headset on and play music while I picture myself organizing the bins once I get them home. I’ve pictured it enough that I can hopefully get it done in a few hours next weekend.
In the meantime, I’m procrastinating with tons of television. I’ve exhausted my backlog on Apple+, I’m caught up on CNN+, I watched a few shows on Netflix, and I absolutely loved the pilot for Halo on Paramount+. I’m not going to subscribe to that now, I’m going to wait for the entire first season to be done and then I’ll binge it over a weekend.
Early this morning after getting ready to go somewhere, then hopping back into bed, I stumbled across a list of shark b-movies. I enjoyed Sharknado. It was originally stupid and fun to watch. Today, I saw a bit of Santa Jaws - a kid draws a picture of a shark wearing a Santa hat using an ancient pen he found, cursing his family into being hunted by Santa Jaws. I skimmed through a few of these gems.
What caught my attention was Mega Shark vs. Crocosaurus. Here’s the text convo I had with my friend about this.
Me: I was watching a movie about a priest that turns into a dinosaur, which lead to Shark Jaws, which brought me to Mega Shark vs. Crocosaurus
Priscilla: omg. You would watch something like that.
Me: They went to the Congo to recruit a hunter. he said, “You’re either here about blood diamonds. Or a village that isn’t allowing you access to gold and you need me to intervene. Or.. your mining woke up a prehistoric creature you need me to catch for you.” LOL!
Priscilla: Look. I’m going to work. Are you watching these dumb movies all day? What’s the plan?
Me: They’re actually an allegorical way of looking at serious topics like climate change and how we’re doomed to repeat the past if we don’t respect what came before. Urkle’s in the movie.
Priscilla: I hate you.
She knows better than to take a deep dive into films with me right before work. That’s a long convo for the evening once everything is done and she calls me to chat. We haven’t lived in the same state in years, but we always manage to watch a film together once a week while chatting on the phone.
She’s been wary of my film and television choices since I picked The Dress a few weeks back. An Oscar-nominated short that follows a maid in a small Polish town as she lives her day-to-day life while being a bit different than the average person. I admit it, I was a film student, I chose this because I knew there would be layers to it and I was interested to see how they would approach it in a short.
When Priscilla and I watch and critique a film, it isn’t Mystery Science Theatre 3000. We will say the most NSFW, horrible things that come to our minds. I believe it’s that honesty that has made us friends. If we watch a true crime story, the theories we throw back and forth could get us thrown out of a courthouse. With The Dress, I learned that I’m more pessimistic than she is.
The gray tones and melancholic attitudes of the main characters made me believe we were watching a tragedy unfold. Not one that would end in deep despair, but one that would end in a dull pain that was already there, to begin with. Priscilla thought we were watching a phoenix from the ashes moment. We use humor to deflect sadness and nerves, and it was in full force during the first two acts of this short. When the film reached its climax, I was happy to see our differences as viewers.
Priscilla: What did I just watch?
Me: That’s what I thought would happen, but I’m still sad about it.
Priscilla: Why would you guess that was going to be the outcome?
Me: Well, with the color tones and the setting I just guessed-
Priscilla: Stop it. F this short. It shouldn’t have ended that way.
Me: I like that we saw this. It shows your optimism and how you see the world, always hoping for the best.
Priscilla; Fuck you, I know the world is a shitty place, but I didn’t think it would end like that. You just guessed it because you were concentrating on the setting and character arcs instead of watching it in real-time.
Me: Want to watch something else?
Priscilla: I don’t trust you to pick anything right now.
I will bug her later this week about shark b-movies. The line-up since has been The Bubble, Thaw, and Pieces of Her.
This was a long tangent that explained that I haven’t really gotten much done this week, but the conversations about film and television have been lively.