The 2011 Las Vegas CinemaCon is a 3 day event and trade show which includes screenings and roundtables with people like James Cameron and George Lucas (that’s tomorrow).  Click here to check out the schedule of events.  The booths at their trade show are offering all the stuff of movie theaters from pop corn to White Castle and Hebrew National hot dogs to comfy leather theater seats to really big speakers.  The four day event is taking place at Caesars Palace and will culminate on Thursday night with an awards ceremony.  Helen Mirren, Ryan Reynolds and Vin Diesel are expected to receive awards on that night.

On Monday night, Paramount kicked off the con by putting on an exciting presentation in the massive Colosseum showroom currently home to the Celine Dion show.  During this presentation, audience members were treated to never-before-seen footage of Super 8 and Captain America, among some other trailers and such.  Jeffrey Katzenberg spoke along with Jennifer Yu-Nelson, director of Kung Fu Panda 2.  Jack Black showed up and so did Thor‘s Chris Hemsworth.

I have to note that from the additional footage of Captain America that I saw, it looked like it’s going to be a pretty good movie.  My only concern is this romance that seems to be going on between him and the chick from the trailer who shoots at him.  The extra footage showed her as trying really hard to pretend as though she has no feelings for him but then she gets angry when she finds him and some cadet making out.  Maybe it was the direction or the acting, not sure, but I wasn’t feeling the supposed sexual tension.  It is kinda cool, though, that we get to see Tony Stark’s dad as the scientist who creates Captain America.

After the Paramount presentation, I found a card in my bag o’ shwag that said the screening event was protected by something called “PirateEye:  The industry’s first fully automated anti-piracy solution.”  Here is the description from the card:  “PirateEye eliminates the need for security personnel with night vision goggles, metal detectors, bag inspections, or cell phone confiscation, resulting in substantial savings as well as an improved experience for moviegoers… PirateEye has already protected over 10,000 public showings and has resulted in arrests and prosecutions throughout the U.S.”  I didn’t see anything but a guy who was pacing up and down the stairway glaring at everyone.  It was kinda distracting, especially when he yelled out “No cell phones!” during a trailer.  Other than that it was pretty exciting. Here are more pics from the event.  It only looks deserted because I took these the night before the con started.  During the day this place is wall to wall people…

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