Los Angeles, January 15, 2007 – We always find the atmosphere at the Golden Globe Awards to be looser and more fun than at the Academy Awards. Attendees are a bit more adventurous in their choice of clothing, and they seem more relaxed and intent on having a good time, especially after hitting the bar. The majority of folks appearing on the show, even those just presenting awards, willingly stop backstage to schmooze with the media – something celebs usually need to be cajoled into doing.

At Monday’s Globes, the catcalls and whistles that broke out in the press room when Terrence Howard groped multiple winner Helen Mirren prompted him to say, “You’re making a black man blush, and that’s hard to do”. Ugly Betty’s Salma Hayek declined to pose solo for photos, embracing her cohorts and saying, “We’re a team; we don’t do that”. Either it was the Globes environment or singlehood agrees with her, but to our amazement, even the normally uptight, paparazzi-suing Reese Witherspoon was relaxed, waiting patiently backstage to greet Sacha Baron Cohen, while he finished up some interviews.

Meanwhile, several of the after parties are conveniently located right there in the Beverly Hilton Hotel, making drunk driving unnecessary. InStyle’s bash was so huge that there must have been 1,000 people waiting in a line that snaked around the hotel. And this wasn’t just us nobodies – celebs like Heidi Klum and Seal queued up like the rest of us. Justin Timberlake showed up at the party shortly after his ex, Cameron Diaz, and he left after just a few minutes. Cam stayed on all night. Teri Hatcher was with her new man, Stephen Kay, and Chad Lowe brought a date, but refused to be photographed with her! We didn’t get this on camera, but Linda Cardellini’s shoe strap broke as she left the party, and the ER actress fell down, hard. We hope she’s OK.

Also swirling around the hotel at the Weinstein and Paramount parties were Hilary Swank, Rosario Dawson, Ludacris, new parents Maggie Gyllenhaal and Peter Sarsgaard, Warren Beatty and Annette Bening, Sienna Miller, Mischa Barton, Sharon Stone and Rachel Weisz.