The scene: An advance press/promotional screening of "Sex and the City" Tuesday night at the Edwards Cinemas at River Park.

The gimmick: A half-hour broadcast of the red-carpet arrivals at the New York premiere of the movie. Hosted by the hyperactive (and slobbering) fashion critic Steven Cojo, whose odd blond bangs make him look like Prince Caspian without as much testosterone, we watch such "Sex and the City" notables as Kristen Davis, Chris Noth and Sarah Jessica Parker endure excruciating questions and grainy close-ups of their pores.

The mood of the audience: near open rebellion. With the theater darkened and the movie not starting for half an hour, there's nothing much to do than listen to the deafening barks of the paparazzi ("Look this way, Sarah!" "Smile, Chris!" "Look at me, Kristen!") and try to combat eye strain from the slightly blurry images. As the red-carpet show proceeds, people in the Edwards theater crowd start yelling back at the screen.

The worst question: when Cojo asked Davis, "You are so calm. Are you tranquilized?"

The second worst question: when Cojo asked Noth, "Unless you're pretty shallow, and I know you're not, this must be an emotional moment for you, right?"

The low point: when all the stars got into the theater a few minutes early, and we were left with a random shot of low-level studio publicists, still photographers, TV crews and all those losers who didn't merit a ticket to the actual screening, all milling around. Desperate, Cojo pranced in front of the camera and led a countdown to the movie.

The fascinating part: getting to watch the way that the celebrities pose and preen for the photographers. It's as if they're trained seals and are performing for pieces of fish. At one point, director Michael Patrick King's head whips around so quickly in response to requests to look at various cameras that he resembles a marionette on a string. When Chris Noth, who plays "Mr. Big" in the movie, strikes a pose for his pics, he stands up straight and sucks in his gut. Some people think of big "movie stars" as somehow aloof and better than the rest of us, but when you see the behind-the-scenes process of how those red-carpet shots come to be, it takes away some of the glamour.