Election, AFI and Yacht Rock

Election!
I voted in Santa Monica that day and it that it was an amazing night. I'm so glad that Barack Obama is our new president. This is going to be a time of new growth (in many ways) and I couldn't be happier. I'm disappointed that Prop 8 passed in California since I think discrimination in any form is wrong and I honestly don't care if people want to marry their dogs. Seems like a stupid waste of time to fight people loving each other.

AFI

Landon got us guest passes to AFI Film Festival. I only saw two films, but they were both great. Che - Steven Soderbergh's new 4 HOUR film about Che Guevara (staring Benicio del Toro) and Slumdog Millionaire - Danny Boyle's (Trainspotting) new film about an Indian boy playing Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. Slumdog is FANTASTIC. It's the best movie I've seen all year.

Yacht Rock
My new obsession. 70s soft rock, but with a boating theme. Holy crap - it's the best thing ever. Hall & Oats, the Pina Colada song, Brandy...love, love, love. Levi, Tatiana and I met Jessie and her sister at King King in Hollywood. I can't wait to go again...Also, Bridgette, Jenny and I went to see Spring Awakening in LA - it was a Lab project and won a Tony for best musical last year. I had seen it on Broadway in NY, but it's really fantastic if you get a chance to see it.

Fake Halloween Fun

Ugh...I love Halloween and I hate it. I love dressing up, but I hate that women all dress like slutty nurses or slutty schoolgirls or french maids. Tatiana and I got stuck at a really boring party which we managed to salvage with Tat's "party photo" idea. The idea is that if you're at a lame party, you spend your time taking photos of yourself that look like you're having fun. Sort of like positive thinking. It totally works.

Sundance Gala

One of my favorite events of the year - the annual NYC fundraiser for Sundance Institute. People forget that Sundance is a nonprofit arts organization. They think we have tons of money because they see photos of celebrities carrying shopping bags of free stuff at the Festival. That is not the Festival - those are people that ambush the Festival and take away resources from the nonprofit. They make Park City super crowded and drive up the prices of hotel rooms and basically annoy all of us that work all year round to support independent film and theatre artists. The Gala is a fundraiser to help raise money for all of our amazing year round programs - the Summer Labs, Grants, Screenplay readings, etc. This year the Gala was amazing. Tom Colicchio from Top Chef designed the menu and we had a lot of actors/directors/writers/theatre artists come out to support the cause, including Alec Baldwin, Chevy Chase, Judah Friedlander, NPR's Ira Glass, Rosie Perez, Jane Fonda and Norman Lear.