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Night Vision

6th June 2007: Ocean's 13We continued our recent tour of the West End’s finest cinemas this evening, by heading out to yet another free film screening. This time, it was Ocean’s 13 at the Cineworld in Haymarket. I was actually rather looking forward to this one. Not, of course, because I wanted to see how they’d managed to stretch a thin premise onto a third film, but rather because we saw it being filmed when we were in Vegas last year. So I was eager to see how that scene where Al Pacino walks into a bar at the Bellagio ended up on the big screen.

Al Pacino! Now there’s a celeb spot: sadly the best one I could manage today was Marcus Brigstocke, who walked past me looking a bit lost while I was waiting for Sal at Piccadilly Circus. (Oops, sorry, I’ll come up with a haiku later…)

I wasn’t quite prepared, however, to be accosted on the way in by security who demanded to search our bags. Cue a rather nervous moment while we worried that they might confiscate our ice creams. But no, they were actually looking for film pirates. As we did have any of them hidden in our bags, we were allowed in.

A little while later, ensconced in our seats and with our magnums in hand, one of the security chaps–a slightly intimidating, beefy, old school east end gangster type–addressed the audience to warn us against attempting to record the film.

“These”, he said, brandishing what looked like a pair of binoculars, “are night vision. I’ll be watching you, so make sure your mobile phones are off. I don’t want to be hauling any of you out of the screening because you’re texting your mates.”

“We’re here as security on behalf of the film company. They don’t want this film being leaked before it’s released”, he added, by way of explanation, before heading to the back of the room to stand around looking a bit menacing.

Blimey. At the free Time Out screenings a nice American lady gets up and tells you to enjoy the film. It’s not quite the same, is it?

And I don’t know why the film industry always harps on about people videoing films in cinemas: surely most of the ones that leak onto the internet are really screeners sourced from people inside the industry. And why would I want to video the film when I can find a torrent to download just by typing “Ocean’s Thirteen torrent” into Google (look: I just did and I found one in less than 2 minutes). Oh, I’m sorry, did I say all that out loud? Of course: all leaked movies have been taped in cinemas by terrorists. And home taping is killing music.

Oh, and it was nice to see that Cineworld and Warners have their priorities right: the sound cut out on at least 6 different occasions during the film. At one point we missed at least 5 minutes of dialogue. Mr Anti-Piracy, who had only a short while earlier been ostentatiously scanning the crowd with his night vision, stood impassively, doing nothing until the sound came back.

I almost felt like going up to the manager on the way out and complaining that the poor sound quality had really messed up that pirate recording that I was trying to make. But as I hadn’t paid any money that I could demand him return, it all seemed a bit pointless.

Oh, the film? Well, I’ve cleverly circumvented their hardcore security measures by escaping from the cinema with the contents of the film in my head: if you’ve seen either of the first two, then you know what to expect. Clooney and his mates have a bit of a laugh, and the good not-really-bad guys all triumph in the end. There’s a weird bit at the beginning where Eddie Izzard pops up, acts a bit badly, and promptly disappears, not returning for the rest of the film (almost as if his later scenes all ended up on a cutting room floor somewhere). There’s some moderately funny lines towards the end, and some awful gags at the start. It’s all, you know, a bit predictable, but perfectly passable. The sort of film that would make a perfect inflight movie. (I’ll have the chicken, please, and red wine, thanks).

And it made me want to go back to Vegas. A lot.

[The “Pacino walks into a bar” bit did indeed make it into the film, about an hour in, where he goes to the Gaming Expo event to buy Bernie Mac’s funny domino game. I almost jumped up and down shouting “I saw that! In real life!” but I was a bit scared that Mr Security might mark me down as an undesirable and throw me out. So I settled for quietly tapping Sal on the shoulder and smiling.]