The Apartment

I love LA.
I love the weather.
I love seeing celebrities.
I love all the random things you can do.
And I love seeing celebrities do awesome, random, #onlyinla (ok, and maybe nyc) stuff.

Case in point: The Live Reads at LACMA, directed by Jason Reitman.
To refresh your memory, Jason wrote and directed Thank You For Smoking and Up in the Air. He also directed Juno. He also seems like someone I could hang with at a party.

So he has this series at the museum wherein he gets a bunch of his actor friends together and they read a movie script on stage. His friends are all people you wouldn’t mind watching reading things on stage. Some of them have Oscars. I’m just saying.

Last month they did Breakfast Club, but I was in Haiti so I missed it. As soon as tickets went on sale for this month’s event I jumped onboard even though they hadn’t announced the movie. You just kinda know with these things…it’s going to be good.

I wasn’t disappointed. Jason slowly revealed the details via twitter. The first announcement: the movie: The Apartment.

It was my younger sister who first introduced me to The Apartment. It’s unusual she would see a movie – much less such a classic – before me, but there she was, telling me not only that I would like it, but that it made her think of me.

I guess if I’m going to remind someone of a Shirley MacLaine character, better this one than Ouiser, right?

Speaking of characters…the cast of tonight’s performance included Mindy Kaling, Jake Johnson, Nick Kroll, Ken Jeong, and Collette Wolfe. And for the top three roles: JK Simmons as Sheldrake, Steve Carell as Baxter, and Natalie Portman as Fran Kubelik.

All for $5.

I know.

So we get there and Jason informs us JK Simmons wasn’t able to make it. Bummer. (Jason said he too was bummed because JK is in everything he’s ever done.) And then Jason casually announced that Pierce Brosnan was going to read Sheldrake instead and I think we all forgot we were bummed because HOLY CRAP THERE’S PIERCE BROSNAN.

They all sit down and, with Jason reading stage directions, do a table read of The Apartment. And it’s the most fun thing that’s ever happened. And you see can tell how incredible the script is because aside from a few background slides, it’s the words painting the pictures, scenes, and emotions. And it worked. Well.

Everyone had good timing and great expressions and fun voices. They cracked each other up which was also fun. They didn’t really act out any of the movie, but at one point Sheldrake was to take Fran’s hand and kiss it, and Pierce complied. I don’t think Natalie minded. I know we as an audience didn’t.

One of my favorite nights – and activities – ever. Who’s easy to please? This girl.