George Clooney on the red carpet: It's not the heat--it's the stupidity (Photos: STV)

The Reeler has never met a red carpet it did not like (OK, fine--there have been one or two), and was thus magnetically attracted to the New York Film Festival's opening-night premiere of George Clooney's Good Night, and Good Luck. As you likely know by now, the film takes a crisp black-and-white look at CBS newsman Edward R. Murrow's stand against red-baiting Wisconsin Sen. Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s.

And as such, the frothy mass of party-coverage ideologues flanking the carpet brought their intellectual "A"-game for Clooney and co-stars David Strathairn and Patricia Clarkson (when they were not battling the tourists who flooded the photo well by the dozens). Because The Reeler cares for its readers and wants to make its weekend-spent-institutionalized-and-recovering count for something, here are the pertinent nuggets as extracted Friday by New York's probing entertainment reporters:

George Clooney: What would Murrow say? Probably not much, since he was not a critic. Mike Wallace and Walter Cronkite like the movie. I enjoy directing. Matt Damon is shorter in person.

David Strathairn: Edward Murrow was an important man. Journalism is a noble profession that he performed well. It was important to stand up to Joe McCarthy. George Clooney was a pleasure to work with.

Patricia Clarkson: I play a reporter married to Robert Downey Jr. This is a really important story. All the King's Men is coming out soon. I loved working with George Clooney.














There. Hopefully, that will save you a few bucks on next week's Star, unless you are still nursing a hard-on for Lil' Federline or all this Ashton-Demi kerfuffle. I am afraid I just cannot help you there.