deadCENTER Film

Pop Culture Junkie – Episode I: “Like the Weather”

Last fall as I was fulfilling my role as The Most Ironic Adjunct Professor Ever at Oklahoma Christian University,* I gave the students in my Print Media Design class a project to promote awareness of deadCENTER. The first step was to gauge their awareness of the film festival. Maybe two of the students had heard of it.

“Does it show, like, midnight zombie movies and stuff?”

“Maybe, but that’s not the focus of it or anything.”

“It sounds like a zombie movie festival.”

“It’s not.”

So I used last year’s Best Narrative Feature, Weather Girl, as an example of how “independent film” has a lot more to do with the process than the content.

“So here’s a movie that, for all intents and purposes, could’ve starred Sandra Bullock and opened on 3,000 screens in the middle of summer. Instead it’s got a small budget and stars a gal who’s in The New Adventures of Old Christine.”

Crickets.

“You know, that Julia Louis-Dreyfus sitcom? Wednesday nights? CBS?”

Blank stares.

“Look, see, it’s also got Mark Harmon from Summer School. And “Duckie” from Pretty in Pink.”

“We don’t know what you’re talking about.”

I quickly discovered none of the students had ever seen a John Hughes movie (a real one – Home Alone doesn’t count). I weep for the future.

“Wait, look! It’s got the blond chick from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. That show is AWESOME.”

Apparently none of these kids can afford cable, either.

“Anyway, it’s a thirty-something romantic dramedy and it was a big draw at deadCENTER last year. And it didn’t have zombies.”

So I left that first class confident in the fact that I’m old and those damn kids seriously need to watch a shitload more TV.

*I’m a flaming liberal, interracially-married Roman Catholic with a gay best friend, therefore, I am The Most Ironic Adjunct Professor Ever at Oklahoma Christian University.