Its existence is fairly well known in Washington — there's even an Amazon show about it — but this week Senator Chuck Schumer, Senator Dick Durbin and Rep. George Miller opened up their D.C. frat house to CNN, and things got weird.

As we noted at the Los Angeles Film Festival, Animal House is turning 30 this year. Thankfully, this is one of the few pop culture movies that I can say I was too young too truly remember. Vague images of John Belushi and togas linger in my waterlogged, alcohol-soaked brain, but I'd never experienced the phenomenon that is the John Landis-directed flick first-hand. With promises of beer and babes, I headed to the Bergamot Station Arts Colony, a 16,000 square foot facility where the Writer's Boot Camp is located. Founded by Jeffrey Gordon, Writer's Boot Camp, besides drilling in the basics of Structure and Exciting Incidents into the minds of many aspiring screenwriters, also hosts parties. This one delivered on its promise to bring together members of the cast and crew, including Landis himself, to a panel discussion. Also: did you know that it's possible to talk about Animal House for TWO HOURS?Making my way through the gargantuan Colony, I stopped and took a picture of a "Junker Garden," an art project by Farmlab. A Mercedes filled with dirt and plants. Très cool.

It was relatively slim pickings at the festival Monday, especially after Guillermo del Toro's live-in-person monster-rhapsodizing was pushed to Thursday and alas, we missed our 4:30 screening about transsexuals in Colorado. Plan C seemed reasonable enough: Drop by the Geffen Playhouse to see a father-son chat between Ivan and Jason Reitman, in which we figured we might catch Dad's jealous flare-up over Juno's success or Son's symbolic shove of his old man into the shadows at stage right. We got neither, though Jason did come clean about that whole nepotism thing.