Gifts worth $168k make Oscar losers smile
Twenty Oscar-nominated directors, actors and actresses went home on Sunday without a coveted statuette — but they weren’t entirely empty-handed.
For them, there were swag bags worth $168,000 each, put together by a Los Angeles niche marketing outfit called Distinctive Assets.
“This year’s bag is the most valuable collection of swag ever assembled at an Oscars gifting suite,” said Vanity Fair magazine on its website.
The contents ranged in value from $5 to $20,000, including a year of free car rentals, a high-end train trip in the Canadian Rockies, $25,000 of furniture and $4,000 of liposuction treatment.
Among the more eccentric items: a $250 laser vibrator, $280 in maple syrup, herbaltea-based lollipops and a $20,000 astrology reading, according to Vanity Fair and other US news media.
The value of this year’s “gift bag” is double that of last year’s — but under US tax law, recipients will have to declare the contents as income.
Birdman soars
Birdman — a showbiz satire about the dark side of fame — soared to Oscars glory, taking four Academy Awards including the coveted best picture prize on Hollywood’s biggest night.
Emotions ran high at the Dolby Theatre on an evening marked by political statements about women’s rights, racial equality and the lives of Mexican migrants.
And there was disappointment for the team behind coming-of-age drama Boyhood, a longtime best picture favorite that lost steam as Tinseltown’s awards season came to a close, with just one prize for best supporting actress Patricia Arquette out of six nominations.
Birdman, the fanciful yet dark story of a washed-up superhero film actor battling to revive his career on Broadway, was a grand triumph for Mexican director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, who personally won three of the film’s four golden statuettes.
“Fear is the condom of life. It doesn’t allow you to enjoy things,” Inarritu said of the creative process behind his film, which won plaudits for its long, complex, unbroken shots — looking like one continuous take.
“So I took the condom off and it felt real.”
Win for crime caper
Stylist crime movie The Grand Budapest Hotel also won four Oscars, but several of them came in technical categories, while jazz drumming drama Whiplash scored three, including best supporting actor for veteran actor J.K. Simmons.
Best actor went to Britain’s Eddie Redmayne as astrophysicist Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything, while veteran Julianne Moore took best actress as a professor suffering from early onset Alzheimer’s disease in Still Alice.
Inarritu, the second Mexican in a row to take the best director Oscar after Alfonso Cuaron won last year for Gravity, dedicated his award to his fellow countrymen.
Talking about Mexican immigrants living in the United States, he said: “I just pray that they can be treated with the same dignity and respect as the ones who came before and built this incredible immigrant nation.”
Disney’s Big Hero 6 was named best animated feature, while Poland’s Ida took the best foreign language film prize.
Host Neil Patrick Harris launched the three-and-a-half hour show with a song and dance routine about the movie industry itself — including a joke about the lack of any nonwhite actors in the four acting categories.
“Tonight, we honor Hollywood’s best and whitest ... sorry, brightest,” he said, earning laughs from the star-studded audience.