Filmmaker Delaney Ruston with local premiere of Screenagers, Oct. 26.

That stuff about the Indians being in the World Series was fun for a while, until everyone started jumping on the money train and grubbing for bucks in relation to the home games. No broke, laid-off Clevelander can really afford to attend (but they’re buying tickets at Progressive Field anyway), and even the viewing parties are prohibitively expensive.

For Cleveland Movie Blog readers looking for a cheap-or-free non-baseball diversion, here’s a good one; while the rest of the city goes sports-mad, a nationally known documentary filmmaker  is quietly sneaking into Parma for a personal appearance.

Delaney Ruston, of New York, has made acclaimed nonfiction features on mental health and society. Wednesday night at 7 p.m. she brings her latest documentary, SCREENAGERS, to Parma, for a showing and Q&A.

Using Ruston’s parental dilemma as a mother of teenagers, choosing to buy a new, tempation-filled smartphone for her daughter, the film addresses the world-wide web of headline-making issues over youngsters in the digital age: cyberbullying, sexting, getting lost in virtual-reality gaming worlds, and social-media alienation from family as kids lose themselves in little glowing devices that were unknown a generation ago.

Admission is free but registration in advance is requested. Call 216-661-4240.

It happens at the Parma-Snow Public Library, 2121 Snow Road in Parma. Unless someone has sold Delaney Ruston on a bargain $800 game-day ticket for a lawn chair in the parking lot, and she decides to head downtown instead.

GhoulardiFest revives memories of Cleveland television past, October 30, 31 and November 1

Event preview by Charles Cassady, Jr.

Hurricane Patricia was poised to smite North America several days ago, remember, with some of the strongest winds ever measured? So what happened to that alleged "storm of the century?" Now meteorologists finally have an answer; when Patricia got close to the eastern seaboard, all the fatal shootings in Cleveland these days spooked her off, and she dissipated in the mid-Atlantic. So give our community a gold star there.

Still, if one wants to celebrate the Halloween season this year in the inner-ring suburb with the fewest chalk-body outlines, the place to be is Ghoulardifest this weekend in Parma.

Taking place at the LaVilla Party Center at 11500 Brookpark Road, the festival is three days of special guests, local TV and media nostalgia, and the Ghoulardi-grade brand of science-fiction, comedy, fantasy and horror cinema.

It's virtually impossible to imagine North Coast culture
without Anderson, who, as host of WJW-TV's "Shock Theatre," put on a garishly phony goatee and Fu Manchu mustache and spiced up B-grade horror and sci-fi flicks for insomniac viewers in beatnik-comic fashion for a few brilliant years there in the mid-1960s. The silver-tongued announcer, unrecognizable now, would do blackout comedy bits (some including a young sidekick named Tim Conway), sound effects, songs and the catchphrases. "Turn Blue!" "Ovaday!" "Dorrrothy..."

A Halloween Ghoulardifest, Oct 31 to Nov. 2 in Parma

Event preview by Charles Cassady, Jr.

Other than LeBron James, the only thing significant about Cleveland, as we know, is GhoulardiFest, happening as an apres-Halloween treat this weekend in the only place it could happen - Parma.

It's virtually impossible to imagine North Coast culture without channel 8's Ernie "Ghoulardi" Anderson, who, as host of WJW-TV's "Shock Theatre," put on a garishly phony goatee and Fu Manchu mustache and spiced up B-grade horror and sci-fi flicks for insomniac viewers in beatnik-comic fashion for a few brilliant years there in the mid-1960s. The silver-tongued announcer, unrecognizable in his fright-wig disguise, would do blackout comedy bits (some including a young sidekick named Tim Conway), sound effects, songs and the catchphrases. "Turn blue!" "Stay sick!" "Ovaday!" "Dorrrothy..." And offscreen his family grew to include filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson (MAGNOLIA and othes).

' Reject' screens in Parma on May 3 at 1 pm with filmmakers present

Event preview by Charles Cassady, Jr.

Bullying, the hot-topic documentary subject of recent years, comes home in the new nonfiction short film REJECT, made by New York-based producer-director Ruth Thomas-Suh. After its appearance at the 2013 Cleveland International Film Festival, followed by engagements in the UK and France, REJECT makes an appearance, with a panel discussion, at Parma High School on Saturday, May 3.

The film crosses the country to present two cases of youthful pathologies that resulted in abuse, and worse. Right here, in Mentor, two bereaved parents, Jan and Bill Mohat, recount how the long-term persecution of their son Eric culminated in his suicide at age 17. In Oklahoma, meanwhile, Justin, only age 5, is already in constant trouble and displaying the psychological profile of a bully-in-training. Experts in the fields of medicine, law and social work lend their thoughts about what factors contribute to an unhealthy, bullying environment.