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If any of the big names behind Ocean's Thirteen thought the fun was over once work on the final film in the trilogy ended earlier this year, they were given a wake-up call at last month's Cannes Film Festival.
So raucous and joke-filled was the press conference to promote the movie's world premiere that director Steven Soderbergh and stars George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon and Ellen Barkin may as well have been back on the set.
Only this time, they were playing not to one camera but scores of them, as well as to an audience of journalists — one that spilled into the aisles, filled the conference room doorway and attracted dozens of others to CCTV monitors outside — that was by far the largest of the 12-day event.
All this fuss over a breezy comedy-caper, which opens in Singapore today, whose sole aim is to dazzle and draw laughs — and that wasn't even in competition for an award.
Not that any of its stars looked particularly surprised at the pandemonium they had caused.
After all, a laugh-filled romp it may be, but Ocean's Thirteen is a timeless classic that ranks right up there with Lawrence of Arabia, The Ten Commandments and Gandhi in the pantheon of towering movie epics. Err, isn't that right, George?
"This script may go down in the history books as the greatest of all time," Clooney deadpanned when an oh-so-serious British journalist asked for his take on the matter. "This movie is basically a cry for peace, wouldn't you say, guys?"
Unable to contain it any longer, the 46-year-old star promptly broke into an ironic grin that the others at the table — and virtually everyone else in the room — seemed to take as a sign that it was finally safe to laugh.
With that, the tone was set for the next 40 minutes of often ludicrous, but always amusing, questions and answers.
THE CAST VERSUS PACINO
Although it's fair to say that no one in the room was unfamiliar with the work of Academy Award-winner Al Pacino, even this Hollywood icon wasn't immune to some needling from his fellow cast members.
In Ocean's Thirteen, the 67-year-old star of classics such as The Godfather plays Willy Bank, a conniving casino owner whose betrayal of business partner Reuben Tishkoff (Elliot Gould) is all the impetus Danny Ocean (Clooney) and his con artist baker's dozen need to stage yet another in a series of daring, multi million-dollar heists.
As in the previous films, each team member has a job to do: There's tactician Rusty (Pitt), eager decoy Linus (Damon), money-man Terry (Andy Garcia), mechanical genius Basher (Don Cheadle) and sleight-of-hand expert Frank (Bernie Mac), among others.
As the villain of the movie, Pacino's Bank keeps his distance from Ocean's crew but it was a different story for the actor himself, who was a newcomer along with actress Barkin in a cast that had forged a close bond while making 2001's Ocean's Eleven and its 2004 sequel Ocean's Twelve.
"Naturally, he was nervous at first," Pitt said with a sly smile of his veteran co-star, who had half a dozen Oscar nominations by the time Pitt earned his first starring role.
"But he seemed to take notes well and settled in after a few weeks. He has a bright future."
The 43-year-old actor added with a chuckle of Pacino, who wasn't at the press conference: "He raised our respectability a little bit and we certainly brought his down."
As for Barkin, Soderbergh said the 53-year-old former femme fatale in thrillers like 1989's Sea of Love — opposite Pacino — originally had a sexy scene with Damon in Ocean's Twelve that ended up on the cutting room floor.
As a way of making up for the slight, the director cast Barkin as Bank's right-hand woman in the new film and even gave her another racy scene with Damon, albeit one where his character sports the "disguise" of a Cyrano de Bergerac-like long nose.
"It felt very good to play … with all of them," she said with a giggle of her co-stars, provoking laughter from everyone but the slightly red-faced director with sly hints that Damon's false nose wasn't the only human appendage she had handled.
THE CAST VERSUS SODERBERGH
It wasn't the last time that Soderbergh seemed powerless to do much more than be the straight man — and favourite target — for the comedians around him.
Sure, the 44-year-old film-maker may have wanted to talk seriously about a career that saw him win the top prize at Cannes in 1989 for Sex, Lies and Videotape and a Best Director Oscar in 2001 for Traffic — and even grudgingly field questions about the universally panned Ocean's Twelve — but that wasn't about to happen with wits like Damon around.
When an Australian reporter shamelessly prefaced his question to Soderbergh by saying, "Ocean's Twelve was smokin' hot", the 37-year-old star of The Departed couldn't resist piping up in mock disbelief: "Oh, so he's the one who liked it!"
After Clooney added his two cents — jokingly slamming a Croatian journalist who had praised Ocean's Thirteen earlier as being "far better" than its predecessor — Damon one-upped him with the claim that the Australian had good reason to like the earlier film.
"You're Steven Soderbergh's brother, aren't you?" he said with a laugh.
Finally given the chance to pose his question, the now visibly uncomfortable Australian just managed to stammer out that he was curious as to why Soderbergh chose such a "jazzy", "New Wave" look for the film.
"I'm curious, too," Damon said with a grin. "What were you smoking, Steven?"
Shrugging off the latest one-liner at his expense, Soderbergh said the Ocean's movies had given him the chance do things visually that he couldn't do with more serious works and that his caper movie trilogy might well be as interesting as his self-consciously arty films such as last year's The Good German.
"In fact, we want to be in competition here," he added with mock outrage.
"We don't understand why we're not. There's got to be a category we could win."
Seizing the chance for another dig at Damon, Clooney chimed in: "There's like a 'Cyrano' category that you could win, Matt."
"I'm counting on it," Damon shot back.
THE FINAL WORD: 'NO JERKS'
An award for Best Ridiculous Prosthetic Nose wouldn't look all that impressive next to Damon's Best Screenplay Oscar for 1997's Good Will Hunting, but it might be preferable to another dubious honour the actor's in line for.
Even in an era that has seen the release of a sixth Star Wars film and the tenth installment in the Star Trek franchise, Damon's appearances in not one but two "threequels" this year — the third Ocean's film and the forthcoming follow-up to 2002's The Bourne Identity and 2004's The Bourne Supremacy — is not something that fills him with pride.
"Other than feeling a bit like a prostitute for putting out two No 3s in the same year," Damon said with a laugh, he has few regrets about shedding his super-spy Jason Bourne and "Ocean operative" Linus Caldwell characters.
Still, like co-star and verbal sparring partner Clooney, he didn't rule out the possibility of coming back if there's an Ocean's Fourteen.
"In terms of leaving it behind, it's sad thinking that this group won't do another one," Damon said wistfully. "I hope we do and we'll see. I'm leaving all my options open."
Neither Pitt nor any other cast member would commit to another installment, though it was tempting to see Soderbergh's parting shot as being the final word on the matter — not to mention a response to the verbal jabs he had been enduring for most of the past hour.
"When we began the process of making the Ocean's films years ago," the director said. "We made a rule that we weren't going to bring anyone on the movie that had a reputation for being unpleasant. That solves everything: 'No jerks'."
It was unclear if this meant Clooney and Damon had smart-talked their way out of their Ocean's roles, or if it was simply Soderbergh's way of ensuring he had finally gotten the last laugh. - TODAY/sh
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