National Post from Toronto, Ontario, Canada • 49

MONEY INS FINANCIAL POST, SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2004 COMPARISON SHOPPING: MOVIE GUIDES TWO THUMBS UP FOR ROGER EBERTS FILM DIGEST; DVD VIDEO GUIDE PROVES QUANTITY NEVER TRUMPS QUALITY CHEAP TRICK SNACK RIDE Get a lift with delivery guy: If you ever find yourself a good distance from home, especially after a night out on the town, and you're feeling a bit peckish, you can get a snack and a lift home for the price of one. Just look around for the closest food outlet that both delivers and tickles your fancy, place your order and then ask if you can accompany your food home in the car. There's no reason why they'd say not. You've just saved yourself the price of a cab. Got a money-saving tip? Share it with us: Get it: Oscar night is arguably the longest Sunday night of the year, but you can dazzle friends and impress relatives by rhyming off facts about casts of winners past.

The best source for this info is Roger Ebert's Movie Yearbook 2004 (Andrews McMeel), not just because it's full of film arcana but because it's an entertaining read. Aside from film reviews, the eminent critic has included interviews with directors and actors, essays on films and awards, and notes from various film festivals he's attended. The reviews are categorized by title; an index by cast member is also included. However, reviews extend only to 2002 releases, so the book won't be of much help in handicapping this year's Academy Awards. $30.95.

Forget it: An argument can be made for quantity over quality. This view was clearly guiding the publishers of DVD 8f Video Guide 2004 (Ballantine). If you're looking for facts and figures, youll find lots of them among the movie reviews. Films are categorized by title, cast member and director, and the authors have included a list of alternate titles for hard-to-find movies. However, the reviews are largely dry synopses of plot lines, with none of Roger Ebert's wit.

And while there is plenty of these digests, the book offers little else. both available at most bookstores. Mary am Siddiqi COLLECTIBLES 'Grooms know names of cheeses they want' rainbow motif ($64) and rainbow gowns ($500 to Web sites such as also offer an array of wedding accessories for same-sex couples, including porcelain cake ornaments that feature two grooms or two brides (including the option of one butch and one femme), which sell for Although many same-sex couples are wary of the "gay for pay" syndrome, where conventional suppliers attempt to jump on the bandwagon and capitalize on the trend, they certainly have no shortage of choice. At the Gay and Lesbian show, 70 exhibitors will be vying for their attention. Even though Ms.

Milks has run two annual national wedding shows for the past 15 years, she admits she greatly miscalculated the size of the same-sex wedding market when she began planning the event last August. "We've already doubled the size of the show from our initial plans and we've been turning exhibitors away steadily," she says. "There's no question that this is going to become an annual event and that it will continue to grow." She notes that gay male couples in particular tend to be very sophisticated and highly focused on the design component of a celebration. Ms. Darnel confirms that perception.

"You typically have two grooms who know the precise names of the cheeses and the flowers they want. It's the reverse of a straight wedding two brides are often far more laid back." For businesses that enter this market early and strike the right note, the potential rewards are significant. "Gay consumers have a record of tremendous loyalty," notes Angus Praught of GayVan.com, a Vancouver-based Web site and publisher. "Businesses that make the effort to extend a specific welcome MCMURDY Continued from Page INl "The older couples are so accustomed to being discreet and low-key about their relationships, they aren't looking for a big to-do, they just want to make their union legal," Mr. Tremaine observes.

"The younger generation was raised with different rules, they're more in your face about it." Marti Milks, who organized Toronto's Gay and Lesbian Wedding Show, says that at this point there is more interest in learning more about same-sex wedding options than outright demand for the services. "We're seeing a lot of people who just want to get married and are anxious to make sure they don't lose that opportunity. But the next wave will be couples who are less pressed and want to emphasize the celebratory aspects." She adds that "because they often don't have children, and because their parents aren't the ones paying for it, it's all about them and their upscale tastes." Those who want to make a splashy statement can turn to former national roller skating champion, Jaime Crouch, at Thunderstar in Toronto. He used to plan straight weddings but now caters to same-sex couples prepared to spend $50,000 to $100,000. He admits that this high-end part of his business is only slowly starting to emerge.

To date, he has organized 10 gay wedding celebrations, including a "forest fantasy" at a Georgian Bay estate, where he lit the entire property with amber lights to create "a paradise-on-Earth effect." Both Mr. Tremaine and Ms. Darnel says that gay couples have a strong preference for dealing with gay suppliers and others who are in tune with the gay community. "At a big hotel you don't want the staff fidgeting and rolling their eyes waiting for the fags to kiss," Mr. Tremaine says.

"You want to deal with people who know how to make you comfortable, people who really get it." Reg Dennis of Weddings by Design in Ottawa explains that "getting it" means offering such items as tuxedos custom-designed for women ($1,500 to men's vests and cummerbunds that incorporate the usually find that they build a solid following in the gay community, and it's a connection that lasts." Financial Post The work of controversial homoerotic photographer Robert Mapplethorpe has become an accepted art icon, and other erotic art may soon follow suit. Photorealistic paintings of pin-up fantasy women by Hajime Sorayama, top right, sell for as much as a Tom of Finland sketch, centre right, can fetch while works by Olivia De Berardinis, bottom right, go for up to 'Forbidden art' is poised to break into the mainstream over the next five to 10 years as prices for works by artists like Tom of Finland and Hajime Sorayama soar Sex on a wall Deirdre McMurdy is co-host of Global TV's MoneyWise. dmcmurdyglobaltv.ca Once they start, scrapbookers are 'hooked for life' chain of scrapbook supply stores, says more men are taking up the hobby. Take Ralph Burin, a New Jersey art history professor: he has elaborate books recording his travels abroad, embellished with exotic textiles and pen-and-ink drawings. "It gets your photos out of a shoebox," Mr.

Burin says. Indeed, the organizational aspect of scrapbooking is a strong selling point. Leslie Stevenson, a librarian and self-described "pack rat," has a scrapbook in which she has neatly arrayed all the photographs, theater tickets and cocktail napkins from her frequent trips to New York City. "I've dabbled in other hobbies but this feels productive while you're being creative," she says. "Who needs another potholder?" The New York Times Orange.

Miss Naomi, who paid for it in 2000, has it insured for She estimates that many works have tripled or quadrupled in value since she bought them. Paintings and sketches by Etienne, who was strongly influenced by Tom of Finland, now sell for 10 times what they were worth in the 1970s, says Pet Sylvia, who runs Art(at)Large, an erotic art gallery in New York. Among contemporary works, those of John John Jesse, whose Catholic-fhemed paintings cross over into the "lowbrow" category, have nearly tripled in value over the last 18 months, says Mr. Sylvia, a self-described "heterosexual drag queen." "It's through word of mouth. We're dealing with an inventory of his that we can't keep in the house long enough." Nude paintings on wood of less-than-perfect human subjects by Frances Turner have also escalated in value since the British artist died of a brain tumor last July at age 38, Mr.

Sylvia says. "She found beauty in everyone, whether they were heavily tattooed, obese, an amputee." "We're becoming more comfortable with human sexuality, so those artists creating erotic art will have a lot more vehicles to showcase their work says Mr. Dehner of the Tom of Finland Foundation. For that reason, "now is a very good time to purchase erotic art," he says. "In the next five to 10 years, it's going to make much deeper inroads into the mainstream." Reuters has become an accepted art icon.

Photorealistic paintings of pin-up fantasy women by Hajime Sorayama sell for as much as while those of Olivia De Berardinis go for up to Tom of Finland's fantasy sketches, featuring incredibly well-endowed men, are now on permanent display in museums in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Helsinki, among others. Thanks to this change in status, a Tom of Finland sketch that cost in 1978 now sells for Mr. Dehner says. Still, a 21-inch-wide 1989 poster by the artist is available at the foundation's Web site for as little as "We're on the edge of where the value of erotic works will probably start increasing at faster rates," Mr. Dehner says.

"If people can feel that something is held in high regard, they're more comfortable with it." Where does the difference lie between art and pornography? The answer is clear to "Miss Naomi," who has acquired 4,000 museum-quality works worth millions of dollars over 12 years. "Pornography gives you one message: 'Let's get it says the author of Forbidden Art: The World of Erotica. "Erotic art engages you in a thoughtful process. It's an interpretation about it, the unusual or beautiful way the art is displayed." Among her notable artifacts is a 31-inch-long white fiberglass phallic sculpture that was featured as a murder weapon in the movie Clttkwork By Richard Chang Erotic art is stepping out of the closet and into museums and galleries as a growing mass of collectors is openly enjoying its aesthetic and sensual thrills and willing to pay top dollar for it. "There's a realization that art can be sexy and erotic and you can show it in your home" says Allena Gabosch, director of The Wet Spot, a not-for-profit group that organizes the annual Seattle Erotic Arts Festival.

"It's becoming more permissible." More and more people seem to agree, judging by the festival's attendance, which doubled to 4,000 at its second annual show that took place the first weekend of this month. On display were 500 works priced from to by 187 artists from 10 countries. "We're moving into a renaissance in that the number of artists producing erotica is growing," says Durk Dehner, director of the Tom of Finland Foundation in Los Angeles. The nonprofit group was founded in 1984 to preserve and promote the work of homoerotic Finnish artist Touko Laaksonen, who signed his drawings "Tom of Finland" when he started submitting them to American muscle magazines in 1956. "Forbidden art" has come a long way from the days when it was published only in the underground press.

Controversial photographer Robert Mapplethorpe SCRAP BO OK Continued from Page INl Jeanne Wines-Reed, editor of Scrapbook Retailer, sees no signs of the market plateauing. "I don't see interest ever declining," she says, because once a person starts scrapbooking, "we're talking hooked for life." Indeed, because scrapbooks document significant moments in their lives, people seem to take them more seriously than other hobbies. "Scrapbooks give you an important sense of self," says Lorell Rogers, a preschool teacher in Meridian, Idaho, who spends three to four hours a week working on her books. "They tell you who you are, where you've been and what you've done." About 98 of those who make scrapbooks are women, according to Creating Keepsakes, a monthly magazine with a circulation of 250,000. But Brian 01m-stead, a founder and senior vice-president of AVchiver's, a U.S.

A scrapbook idea from magazine Creating Keepsakes: 98 of the hobby's aficionados are women..