Oceans Eight
Watched a casino inside a casino last night. This mind-bending exercise took place in a Gold Class Cinema within the Crown Labyrinth – first a sneak peek at Oceans 13 and later a spree on the baize tables of Las Vegas, 3001.
So the new movie? Danny Ocean and his ever-chewing cohort Rusty Ryan amass the same crafty gaggle to rip off the next casino down the Strip. Out of 13 I’m giving the sequel 3, or maybe 4 if Cool has the power to compensate.
We all know Fran Chise, that wealthy Hollywood dowager, insists on doubling or trebling the box-office booty by submitting the same successful characters to more of the similar – but forgetting the bottom line for a second…
Lesser sequels don’t kill the golden goose, they stuff it too.
The real fun began in the real casino downstairs where the house offered table and chips to a bunch of media strays, including gossip columnists, Age scribes, Channels 10 and 7 crew, plus some misfit Sunday Life freelancer. The game was Texas Hold Em, and the new vocab took the best part of three lagers to master:
Blind – the Texan version of the ante which sets the bidding yardstick – and how players need to be to bet $500 on a pair of 2s
Bluff – what Channel 7 news chief Steve ‘Scary’ Carey thinks will spook Channel 10’s news department in a single hand, but bluff runs deep. Tonight on Table 8 we see the bull in bulletin.
Burn – dispatch a card to the trash pile, or the after-effect of Toulouse hotdogs and profiteroles combined
Call – see See
Double Blind – see Blind and double it
Flop – the first three community cards lain on the table – or your average journo manoeuvre around 1am on Southbank
Frank – our Polynesian dealer who was bloody patient with seven babbly rookies and could tell what we held in our hands at a glance. If cards don’t make his career I can recommend ASIO.
Pot – what players drink to fuel the desire of winning the monetary version at Frank’s elbow
River – last community card, or a water hazard best avoided in a rubbery state
See – what we call Call nowadays
Oceans 13 may be a tepid romp, but at least I came away richer for a whole new lexicon. And poorer too. But then again the chips belonged to the House before we even shuffled.