Baubles, Bangles and the Awards Circuit
The months-long awards season that reaches its climax Sunday with the Oscars is a rich one for celebrities.
After the Independent Spirit Awards on Saturday, presenters and performers will carry home close to $6,000 worth of presents, and on Sunday, each Academy Awards nominee and presenter will receive a gift basket reportedly worth $20,000.
Included in this year’s Oscar gift basket are $500 worth of skin-care products from Sonya Dakar, the fragrance JOY, valued at $400, CJ & Me handbags ranging from $160 to $245, and a gift certificate for a “Zen-styled” $350 Gaiam Meditation Chair made from “sustainably harvested, kiln-dried alder wood,” according to the company’s press release.
Good for relaxing after carrying home the loot.
From the first contacts with companies providing the products until the final ribbon is tied, it takes between four and six months to assemble a gift basket, said Lash Fary, who with Jaimsyne Blakely runs Distinctive Assets. Their company has created gift baskets for more than two dozen award shows in three years, including the Independent Spirit Awards and the Grammys.
And Fary knows his celebrities, from dress sizes and favorite colors to pet causes and pet peeves. For this year’s Grammys, special items included tableware for Gwen Stefani and, of course, specially designed shades for Bono. Fary made sure that Grammy baskets for Alicia Keys and India.Arie, didn’t include the $1,900 platinum and diamond earrings being given to other artists, as both have spoken out against the diamond trade in the past, he said.
The art is in the customizing, he added. “Let’s face it, they can buy whatever they want.”
The gift baskets are “cost-effective marketing” for the sponsoring companies, he said. “There’s so much value in saying ‘Cher uses this product, Bono has these glasses.’”
Still, the politics of presents can be treacherous, Fary said. “Some celebrities will ask, ‘Why did Madonna get that and I didn’t?’”
Director’s Life Enhances ‘Kissing’
A filmmaker’s firsthand experience with his material doesn’t necessarily make for a better film, but “Kissing Jessica Stein” director Charles Herman-Wurmfeld admits that it helps.
At 21, Herman-Wurmfeld says, he fell in love with his best friend, a man who ended the relationship six months later because he wasn’t gay.
That traumatic experience gave him an advantage in directing “Kissing Jessica Stein,” which features a straight woman who falls in love with a woman she meets through a personal ad.
“Human sexuality is kind of like water,” says Herman-Wurmfeld, 35, speaking by cell phone from a subway platform in Manhattan. “It sort of leaks out of places where it’s unexpected or where it’s not supposed to be according to the culture at large.”
The film, co-written by its stars Jennifer Westfeldt and Heather Juergensen, opened a week ago in limited release to favorable reviews and solid earnings.
Thanks to the 1994 lesbian comedy “Go Fish,” says Herman-Wurmfeld, there is growing mainstream acceptance for gay romantic comedies.
“Kissing Jessica Stein” “has a universal quality in that Jessica’s homophobia opens the door for people who are uncomfortable with the subject matter,” he says. The movie “creates a space where any person regardless of their orientation could feel comfortable to experience the story.
“I hope the film champions tolerance,” he adds, “and creates an opportunity for conversation and debate among people who ordinarily wouldn’t be considering it.”
Quote/Unquote
“I want to die peacefully in my sleep like my grandfather did,” said Joan Rivers by phone from New York, testing new material for an April 5 stand-up performance at the Catalina Bar & Grill, “and not like the others in the car with him. I love that joke so much!”
