Day 154: James Franco

Woke up kinda early today and headed downtown to the Lobero Theatre. It's one of the oldest theatres in Santa Barbara and was holding the Writer's Panel. There were rumors that Aaron Sorkin, one of the best screenwriters around (Social Network) was gonna be there. These Rumors were true.

I was stoked to get one of the best seats in the house.

It was surprising to hear that Sorkin had a very strong Boston accent and sounded a lot like JFK. Pretty much every time he stopped speaking, there was massive applause.

Other writer's on the panel  included Scott Silver (The Fighter), Michael Arndt (Toy Story 3), Lisa Cholodenko (The Kids Are All Right), Charles Mitchell (Get Low), and the dopest, old Brit you'll ever meet, David Seidler (The King's Speech).

If they were to give an audience award to one of the writer's it would have easily gone to David Seidler. There were two really awesome moments: 1.) He described the first real showing of The King's Speech at the Toronto Film Festival with a theatre filled with over 2,000 people. After the King delivered his speech, the audience erupted and then at the end there was a huge standing ovation. He said, "After having a stutter in my life, it felt like my voice had been heard for the first time". (Everyone in Lobero went "awwwwww"). and 2.) This guy with weird hair asked David about writing about a King who was accused of being a semite (Seidler himself is Jewish). Seidler gave a long, well argued, historical answer that made everyone in the theatre applaud and made the guy who asked the question look like an idiot. It was awesome.

You can watch it all here  http://www.lynda.com/home/DisplayCourse.aspx?lpk2=79039&srchtrk=index:3%0Alinktypeid:2%0Aq:sbiff%0Apage:1%0As:relevance%0Asa:true%0Aproducttypeid:2

Walked by the SB Museum of Modern art and saw a bunch if homeless people sleeping.

Then I went to the Women's Panel (There wasn't much else going on) and it was surprisingly educational. It was also fun to hear Jasmin embarrass herself in front of five women who had either won an Oscar or were nominated for one this year.

I saw a shorts program and it wasn't very good. But then it was time to see James Franco. This was one of the nights I was looking forward to and it turned out better than expected.

James Franco is fucking awesome. The event was supposed to start at 8:00pm but at 8:20pm, Roger came out and announced he was late because his Academy Award hosting rehearsal went over. Then at like 8:35pm, his car pulls up and he literally posed for pictures and signer autographs for another half hour. People in the Arlington started to boo when Roger announced this but I thought it was awesome and yelled at the snobby elites to shut the fuck up. One person near me agreed.

When the tribute actually started, James was fucking hilarious. And I'm talking unintentionally hilarious; the best kind. He was also sipping from a cup that I'm assuming was alcohol. I learned a lot about him, like that he never smokes weed and that he's gone to like four colleges and is still attending like two.

Then Seth Rogen came out and stole the show. He had a rock solid stand up routine that included him calling The Arlington the only theatre that was built inside a Mexican restaurant, shat on the Golden Globes (like three times), said he had never smoked with with James Franco, and then said he regrets that he didn't play Saul in Pineapple Express because he would be getting The Performance of the Year Award while James Franco would have had to drive up to SB to give a shitty five minute speech. I was crying.

Once it was over, we went out the back and saw a bunch of people waiting for autographs (including Joe) but my group wanted to go to the after party so we left. Franco signed everyones autograph and took pictures. I wish we would have stayed.

But then we got to the after party at Stearns Wharf and had dank ass food and free drinks. It was a good night.

All high quality pictures courtesy of Ryan Turner.