I can neither confirm nor deny that a movie called The Hangover was filming
in Las Vegas a couple of weeks ago. I can also neither confirm nor deny
that it stars Bradley Cooper, Justin Bartha, Zach Galifianakis and Ed
Helms as a quartet of guys hitting Sin City for a bachelor party where
everything imaginable goes wrong. But if such a movie did exist, I
would have been on the set of it and sat down with the principals and
director Todd (Old School) Phillips.
The reason I can’t give you
any of this information is that the folks who may or may not have been
on this set visit were begged, pleaded and cajoled to reveal absolutely
nothing about this film. I’ve never been on the set of a comedy (if I
was in fact on the set of this one) that was dripping with so much
spoilerphobia. I bet everything I would have seen, had I been there,
would be revealed in trailers and commercials anyway.
Okay, time
to drop that ‘hilarious’ conceit. You get the point – I can’t tell you
jack shit about this movie. But I can tell you about Caesar’s Palace,
which is where I spent the entirety of my wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am 24
hour, in and out trip to Vegas. The group of visiting journalists were
taken care of in style, thanks to the vivacious and gorgeous director
of casino PR, Alyssa. First we ate like royalty at Rao’s and then
retired to the poker room for a late night tourney. I got cleaned out
fairly early (Paul from Movieweb was the big winner) and headed for the
blackjack tables, where I managed to get up 170 bucks before ending
down 70. Oh the fickle fate of me not going back to my room when it was
obvious I should do so.
And not just because of the blackjack; I was at that table until 3 or
so, and we had a 7am call time. I had to be downstairs and ready to
interview the talent at 7 in the morning! Suddenly the title of the
film came true. It was a rough day in spots, especially as we battled
exhaustion in a lounge waiting for the talent to be available, but in
the end the trip was worth it, if only for one thing: seeing Zach with
a Blue Blocker-wearing baby strapped to his chest; the baby would look
up at Ed Helms and cause the comedian to immediately crack up, and Zach
would soon follow, breaking down in laughter. Seeing them ruin take after take was great, as was watching them improv together, slowly refining their dialogue into something funny enough that Todd from IGN laughed out loud at it and ruined another take!
I’ll be bringing you some more from the set of the film as soon as the
embargo is lifted, including a bunch of interviews and the story of
Zach attending the Nick Cannon/Mariah Carrey party. Eat your fucking
heart out, TMZ.