June 5-6, 2007 – Ocean’s Thirteen swept over the West Coast like a rogue wave this week, with Tuesday’s premiere in Hollywood followed by another in Las Vegas on Wednesday, when the casino-heist film opened the CineVegas Film Festival.

At the L.A. debut at Grauman’s Chinese Theater, everybody brought dates, sort of. George Clooney, one of the most eligible bachelors on the planet, apparently couldn’t line up a date, so he brought his mom, Nina Clooney. But Brad Pitt brought Angelina Jolie, and Matt Damon had his wife, Luciana, on his arm. On the red carpet, Clooney joked with photographers, asking why they were shooting him when Brad Pitt was coming.

Ellen Barkin, amazingly svelte at 53 years old, told us the best thing about shooting Ocean’s Thirteen was, “Being with thirteen gorgeous men, and being the only girl.” Casey Affleck was sporting a shock of bleached blond hair.

The next day, the stars spent about one hour in Vegas, in total. Their plane arrived late, and each was driven to the Palms Casino in a separate Cadillac Escalade. They signed autographs for ten or fifteen minutes before going into the screening to introduce the film, and then they came back out, got into the Escalades, drove back to the airfield and flew back to L.A.

Matt Damon’s wife Luciana Barroso was the only date to accompany the gang to Vegas; everyone else flew solo, and Brad Pitt once again kept his sunglasses on at all times.