Shortly after we offered a tip of the Santa hat to last season's agency Grinch for improving upon the cheap, Santee-Alley-quality electronics it handed out in 2005 by upgrading to Apple gift cards, we received this report of the comparative lump of coal dropped in the stockings of CAA's wrong-coasted staffers:
As part of our continuing efforts to publicly celebrate the generous and chastise the miserly during this industry holiday gifting season, we pass along two more reports of what agencies are giving to employees and lower-ranking business associates this year. A reader lets us know that evil agenting monolith CAA has significantly improved upon last December's feeble offering:
Our latest holiday gift report comes from an ICM staffer who considerately provided us with this brief review and photo of the company's small (estimated retail value: $3.95) token of appreciation for its employees, which doubles as a subtle reminder that as long as one is part of the ICM family, all of one's time belongs to the agency:
The industry gifting season seems to finally be upon us, as we've received a couple of reports that UTA's present to assistants lucky enough to regularly handle the agency's calls have arrived; unfortunately, they seem to have squandered an opportunity for gift-giving creativity, falling back on last year's Wonka-inspired Lucky Bar (pictured—feel free to send in a picture of this year's version for comparison purposes), perhaps hoping to clear out some boxes of spare chocolate they had left over from Christmas '05. Says a reader:
With the holiday season now officially upon us, Variety reports on this year's expected entertainment industry gift-giving climate, and for a second straight year, things don't look good. Bosses can expect their desks to soon become cluttered by cards reading, "A donation has been made in your name to the William Morris Agency Association for the Advancment Of Agent Peoples," while those who've endured a year of blunt objects crashing off their skulls as they attempt to roll calls have another season of Chinatown-back-alley-quality electronics and edible lottery tickets. The disappointment from the downwardly-trending Hollywood gifting culture is enough to make one teary-eyed for the relatively heady days of freely exchanged baked goods:
Of all the many Canada-mocking opportunities afforded us by the Toronto Film Festival, perhaps none is riper than this report on the sad state of the festival's swag bags and gifting suites. Paltry to begin with by our obnoxiously generous standards, celebrities are opting to pass on the freebies completely this year, as daunting visions of filing international IRS tax forms dance through their heads:
We may have a winner for worst holiday gift, courtesy of Untitled Entertainment, a company that manages the likes of Lindsay Lohan, Madonna, Demi Moore, Lucy Liu, Kirstie Alley, and Courtney Love. Says our profoundly disappointed reviewer:
Reports from UTA's holiday sweepstakes, in which the agency divided the town's assistants into Golden Ticket winners, bitter, chocolate-eating losers, and a third, progressively more bitter faction of those snubbed entirely, have been trickling in all day. Suffice it to say that those who found themselves with $100 to $5,000 of unexpected cash are pretty delighted with the results (our new thousandaire pals at SorryIGotDrunk are already wasted and busy with lapdances, we think), but the others, well, we haven't heard of any candy-related assistant-on-assistant violence yet, but this review of the gift sums it up:
A delighted recipient of CAA's assistant gift, the semifunctioning CamCorder that will no doubt precipitate scores of defections from studio desk duties to promising filmmaker careers, sent in this camphone pic of the high-tech gizmo's artfully written packaging. Indeed, the agency Santa Claus haggling down the Chinatown stall vendor to $20 per box of 300 showed the "nobellest" of taste in his gift selection.
With the end-of-year holiday quickly approaching, it's time for agencies to show their appreciation for the gatekeepers who prevent their Very Urgent Messages from disappearing into circular-file oblivion by greasing their palms with token "assistant gifts." A Defamer operative embedded on one of the big studio lots demonstrates his gratitude by offering this review of the trinkets CAA just dispatched to the call-rolling class:
