Celebrity party gossip at Soho House with mentions of high‑profile individuals

Arch gift card for free McDonalds hamburgers. A bargain is a bargain, rich people run around like lunatics, collecting gifts for their housekeepers. Among the shoppers are Steven and Heather Mnuchin, Viacom’s Deborah and Philippe Dauman, Tamara Mellon, Christine Taylor and Ben Stiller, Cate Blanchette, Susan and Robert Downey,Jr., and Debra and Hugh Jackman. Next stop is The Weinstein Company’s Pre-Oscar party at the Soho House, sponsored by MontBlanc, celebrating their new charity partnership and $1 million dollar donation to the Princess Grace Foundation-USA. Long gone are the funky Miramax Saturday night parties where nominees spoofed their own films in homemade costumes and ad-libbed hilarious skits. Grown men would dress as Anna Paquin and play the piano in hopes of winning a Max Award. There is social anxiety at the Soho House garage entrance. Guests patiently wait as super stars whisk by. A four hundred pound gorilla refuses to let me on the elevator until I spot Benny Medina. Once on, I see the radiant Jennifer Lopez in the corner and remind her we met on Len Blavatnik’s yacht in Cannes. She graciously pretends to know me. Her manager, Benny Medina is kicking me. I slip into Colin Firth’s booth by the front bar to have a tete-a-tete with him and his wife Livia Giuggioli about tomorrow night. Jokingly, I suggest when he wins to say, “I’m speechless”. Colin patiently assures me many people, far more clever than I, have already mentioned this. He then says that others are waging bets on whether he might subconsciously stutter. I grill him about his wardrobe, assuming he will be wearing a new Tom Ford tuxedo. He tells me both he and Ford will be in older models as Ford only designs classics. I tell him I made director Charles Ferguson, front runner for the financial documentary “Inside Job” spend $6,000 dollars last week for a new Tom Ford tuxedo. In the back room Jennifer Lopez is now seated with Weinstein’s wife Georgina Chapman. Nominee Helena Bonham Carter, her husband Tim Burton and her mother Elena circulate. Celebs have now drifted over from The Night Before Party. The star power includes Adrien Brody, Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, Cameron Diaz, Camilla Belle, Chace Crawford, Claire Danes and Hugh Dancy, Darren Aronofsky, Emma Stone, Jaime Foxx, director John Wells, Kerry Washington, Piers Morgan, Rachel Zoe, Russell Simmons, Sean Parker, Sir Ben Kingsly, Zack Braff , Michelle Williams and Leonardo Dicaprio with Bar Rafaeli. “Speech” filmmakers are functioning on high anxiety. Sunday, February 27, 2011 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_012697