Ginormous red carpets are kind of like a round of speed dating. That is if the pool of your potential dates are those that keep US Weekly in business. Heather Graham gives you a once over and then makes a face as if she ate some sour milk as she saunters past. George Lucas pauses, thinks it over, and decides nah, why make me the happiest lad on the carpet (and I actually liked Jar Jar)? On your end, it's a series of split second bizarre calculations your mind is not meant to make. For instance Kenneth Branagh and Joseph Gordon-Levitt walk up to you at the same time but you can only talk to one (some skilled practitioners of the red carpet arts would say grab both but perhaps I'm not there yet), right? What do you do?

Yesterday was my second Globes red carpet. When we arrived I was thrilled to see we had a lovely position next to the giant "Extra" platform (we'll see in the weeks to come if some of that Mario Lopez je ne sais quoi rubbed off on me) and a USA Today reporter who literally almost poked Penelope Cruz's eye out with her umbrella. Read more...

George Clooney doesn't do interviews anymore. Those of us on the junket/red carpet beat have come to accept this in recent months. Sure, he'll do a press conference here and there. And yeah he'll walk a red carpet and kinda sorta stop and say hi but he rarely will stop and chat. In Toronto at "Up in the Air" premiere he slowed his gait JUST enough for every reporter to think they had a moment with him--they didn't.

Clooney even confirmed his new no interview stance in a recent interview. So even though I knew he was walking the National Board of Review red carpet the other night here in NYC I didn't think there was a chance in hell I'd get time with him. Stupid Josh. This is what happens when the most charming man on the planet decides to blindside you and actually chat. Topics covered: "Sunset Beat," beards, and "Jersey Shore."

Every year, it seems, awards season gives us some sort of feel-good Cinderella story. We all remember the “Slumdog” kids, or Keisha Castle-Hughes… hell, heartwarming awards season tales go all the way back to folks like Harold Russell in 1946’s “The Best Years of Our Lives.” Well, the tradition is continuing this year with one of the greatest real-life success stories we’ve heard in a awhile, and it involves Jason Reitman, a tape recorder and an unemployed musician who was in the right place at the right time.

“At that point I was telling myself ‘This is all I can do’,” St. Louis native Kevin Renick remembers of the fateful day he attended a lecture hosted by the “Juno” director in February 2008 and, out of sheer desperation, snuck him a cassette tape of a demo he had recorded. “I thought ‘This is not going to work. He’s probably going to throw the thing in the trash.’ But I thought I’d try it anyway.” Read more...

FROM MTV.COM: For the past several weeks, juries and critics groups that basically no one beside Hollywood insiders and awards season prognosticators know anything about have been doling out accolades. On Tuesday morning, the mainstream arm of awards season begins when the Golden Globe nominations are announced.

What films are likely to be recognized? Which performances are the ones that will be remembered? MTV News took a look back at the year in movies and came up with our picks for the actors, actresses and their films that are most likely to be selected for the big show.

Continue reading George Clooney? 'Precious'? We Preview The 2010 Golden Globe Nods

FROM SPLASH PAGE: Recently I attended the premiere for “Up in the Air,” and had a conversation with a friend about how amazing it is that “Sexiest Man Alive” regular George Clooney has somehow managed to dodge the vitriol that dudes typically have towards beefcake leading men. My theory on how he gets away with it? The guy loves to make fun of "Batman & Robin."

Remember when you were a kid, and bullies would pick on kids to feel them out? Some would spaz and just make things worse. Others would laugh at themselves before the bullies got a chance, thereby being in on the joke rather than being the butt of it. And in the years since he played the world's greatest detective in Joel Schumacher’s disastrously awful 1997 superhero film, Clooney has been smart enough to laugh along with the rest of us.

Continue reading George Clooney Explains Why 'Batman & Robin' Should've Won Him An Oscar

FROM MTV.COM: "Up in the Air," the new Jason Reitman movie, is difficult to describe. It's not a romantic comedy, although it's very funny, and romance is one of its subjects. But it's not a straight drama, either, even though it pokes around in some dark corners of contemporary life. The picture is really one of a kind. And it's virtually perfect.

George Clooney, in one of his most supple performances, plays Ryan Bingham, corporate executioner. Ryan spends his life flying around the country at the behest of downsizing companies that bring him in to break the bad news to the employees they're laying off. It's a hideous job, but Ryan loves the life. He loves the anonymous luxe of his business-hotel suites, his VIP car-rental accounts, the first-class airport lounges and the massive amounts of frequent-flier miles he racks up. Who needs friends when there are always fellow passengers to talk to up in the air? Who needs a relationship when transient sex abounds? Who even needs a home? (Asked on a flight where he's from, he says, "I'm from here.")

Continue reading 'Up In The Air': First Class, By Kurt Loder

FROM MTV.COM: Ryan Bingham has rules — rules about airport security lines, per diem travel expenses and overnight stays in fancy hotels. It's all part of his meticulously planned quest to amass 10 million frequent-flier miles for no other reason, it seems at first, than that vanishingly few people on Earth have reached that stratospheric plateau and enjoyed the first-class perks along the way.

In "Up in the Air," though, all is not as it appears, and as played by Oscar winner George Clooney, Bingham's airport-hopping mission soon reveals itself to be as much blind diversion as it is joyful journey. Director Jason Reitman ("Juno") has spent months traveling from runway to runway as he promotes his film, often with Clooney by his side. So what are the perks of traveling with one of Hollywood's most famous men? And — heaven forbid! — could there possibly be a downside?

Continue reading 'Up In The Air' Director Jason Reitman Reveals The Real George Clooney

FROM MTV.COM: Already early favorites to win the major trophies of this awards season, director Jason Reitman and stars George Clooney, Anna Kendrick and Vera Farmiga walked the red carpet of their star-studded premiere Monday night. And naturally, the evening's buzz had them floating "Up in the Air."

"I'm trying to look very poised and elegant," a dressed-to-the-nines Kendrick grinned. "I don't know if I'm succeeding."

"I'm nervous right now because I'm outside my premiere for my movie, and that's always an exciting moment," explained Reitman, whose first two films ("Thank You for Smoking" and "Juno") received awards-season recognition, starting a streak he'll likely keep alive. "Particularly at this theater, because we're at the Mann Village Theatre in Westwood; I've lined up on this street for movies since I was 10 years old."

Continue reading George Clooney, Anna Kendrick Bask In Buzz At 'Up In The Air' Premiere

FROM MTV.COM: Wes Anderson is comfortable with his crew of Hollywood buddies, a bunch he started cobbling together along with college roommate Owen Wilson for his debut feature, "Bottle Rocket." In subsequent movies, Anderson's hipster squad grew to encompass Jason Schwartzman, Bill Murray and others, as he continued to cast them in films like "The Royal Tenenbaums" and "The Darjeeling Limited."

So when it comes to his first animated film, the stop-motion Roald Dahl adaptation "Fantastic Mr. Fox," no one should be surprised that Wilson, Murray and Schwartzman lend their voices to the animal characters. But was it always going to be this way? Did Anderson have these actors in mind from the beginning, or did the decision to cast them develop later on? And how did Oscar winners like George Clooney and Meryl Streep sneak into this tight-knit group?

Continue reading How Were George Clooney And Bill Murray Cast In 'Fantastic Mr. Fox'?

FROM MTV.COM: What went wrong with this movie? The subject — the U.S. military's apparently actual flirtation with paranormal warfare — has rich comic promise. And the cast — George Clooney, Ewan McGregor, Kevin Spacey, Jeff Bridges — couldn't be much stronger. But while the trailer for "The Men Who Stare at Goats" suggests a quirky, Coen-esque romp, the picture itself lacks the Coen brothers' sardonic intelligence and deft pacing. It wanders and wilts and very quickly falls apart.

The story begins in 2003, with aspiring combat reporter Bob Wilton (McGregor) waiting in Kuwait for clearance to cross over into Iraq. Biding his time, he encounters Lyn Cassady (Clooney), a man with a strange tale to tell. Cassady says he's a "Jedi warrior" (wink, wink) in the New Earth Army, a sub-rosa military unit dedicated to psychic battle strategies — mind-reading, "remote viewing," the whole new-age imaginarium. He says he's been reactivated to locate Bill Django (Bridges), the ponytailed Vietnam vet who founded the NEA back in the early '70s and has now gone missing. Wilton senses a story here, and decides to tag along.

Continue reading 'The Men Who Stare At Goats': Destination Nowhere, By Kurt Loder