AFS is 20!
I had no idea the AFS party was going to be such a huge bash! I got there at 6:45 and the food was already getting scarce. But that certainly did not dampen the spirits of the hundreds, I dare say thousands, of people who showed up at the Austin Studios tonight to wish the Austin Film Society a happy 20th birthday. There were people who came in from out to town just for this event. It's really great to see everyone you know in the Austin film community in one place. What was really strange was to see people that I met for the first time in LA here at the party.
What I heard and what I saw: JP was all around, MD better have taken pictures, the other JP showed me some of her artwork, BP showed off his increasing mane of facial hair, KJ told me about her new zombie flick, LD mistook me for a childhood friend, DZ and NZ (the Z-Bros) are just about to head off to Sundance, DC is chillin with Gary Busey, BB just wants to party, JD has a scoop that really isn't a scoop but he should hold off on publishing anything until MD gives the a-okay, MB is one cool customer, and the L's are just plain crazy.
BTW, if you held off on seeing War of the Worlds because you thought it might be really really stupid like I did, you should check it out because it's not all that stupid. Maybe just a little, towards the end -- Spielberg just can't bring himself to end a movie without beating us over with either a family-values-gavel or a strange sexually-stunted transmorgrafied terrorist cumshot. I mean really, what is the ending of Munich all about? Can someone out there shed some light on that icky mess of a closer? (Wouldn't it be great to cut all the endings of all his movies together on one reel and see the evolution of a man lose all sense of reason? Don't get me wrong, I was his biggest fan growing up... Empire of the Sun? Genius. Raiders? Perfect. Batteries Not Included? Excuse me while I clean the bile off my bullwhip.)
