scaLast year I interviewed Ellen Barkin for the Todd Solondz movie Palindromes (I loved it, Dave Davis hatedhatedhated it), and she didn’t realize that her top was very unbuttoned and her boobs spilled out. Now she’s an older lady, but she’s a sexy older lady – truly a MILF – and this turn of events made for some highly bizarre and erotic moments. Suddenly I felt like I was actually IN a Solondz movie.

Barkin is taking that smoldering, AARP-approved sexuality to Ocean’s Thirteen, where she’ll play the new lady lead. In this one she starts an affair with young Matt Damon. The movie starts shooting July 21 in Burbank – the filmmakers will recreate a casino on the Warners studio lot because shooting in a real casino turned out to be too much of a hassle in the first film.

Brian Koppelman and David Levien, the guys behind the poker film Rounders, have written the script. While the females from the first two films – Julia Roberts and Catherine Zeta Jones – won’t be back, pretty much all the boys will be.