Thursday, June 07, 2007

Cinevegas Day 1...



I rolled into Las Vegas around 2:00 yesterday for the Cinevegas film festival. What had started as a huge team of Film Threat people got whittled down to me and my good buddy Mark Bell. Fine by me! I got to our digs at Planet Hollywood and checed in. As Borat would say, "verrrrry niiiiice!" I chilled for a few, took a shower and went to blow a few bucks gambling. Nice, huh? I broke even and then Mark and I headed to the "Red Carpet" for "Oceans 13."

I've never really been on a red carpet and this was a pretty monstrous first red carpet. Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Ellen Barkin, Don Cheadle...Matt Damon. They were all there and mark and I were squashed along the ropes trying to take pictures. I took some and so did Mark and I've posted them below. Marks are at: http://www.filmthreat.com/blog/?p=744 but I think I took those too. I dunno. It was nuts! I don't get star struck unless it's by someone I really, really, really like...and that's not celebrities. But motherfucking George Clooney, Brad Pitt and Matt Damon? Come on. It got me pretty much like a kid in a candy store to be 5 feet away from those guys.

After the red carpet clusterfuck, we went into the screening and saw the movie. It's pretty awesome! I mean, it's silly and pretty impossible to do what they do (and have done in all the "Oceans" movies) but all the characters are great as always, there's some plot twists..yadda yadda. If you like the other ones, you'll love this one. So Mark and I sat front row for that and then ehaded to the Playboy Club for an invite only after-party.

Trent (from five a.m.) and I always talk about how weird it is doing something that isn't really "work" because it's not 9-5 and doesn't pay the bills...but it's what you truly want to do. Then, you do it and it's frigging awesome, then you're back to work at your real job. Rather than take the defeatist approach I always take (as in, "yeah, this is great...but it's back to real life Monday") I decided to think backwards from that. For instance, last night, we saw a huge movie premiere with the biggest stars alive. Then, we went to a party on top of a hotel in Vegas with about 15 half naked chicks dancing around. Drinks were free too. Then, thinking back to the day before, I was playing Uno with four 8 year olds at work. When you look at it backwards, it becomes really pretty funny rather than frustrating.

One thing that sucked was, we were having fun at the Playboy Club (duh) but when the party ended, the drinks cost money. "Hey," I thought, "this is Vegas...they practially give booze away!" So I got me and mark 2 more rounds. Then it got crowded so I settled my bill. $45.00. Damn. It. They got me good.

Anyway, I'm having fun and might lay low and have some drinks today. There's a movie I want to see, but it also plays tomorrow at 3:00 so we'll see. Stay tuned for more tales of screwage, celebrity and debauchery...

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