On Sunday, Kmart began running 15- and 30-second TV ads directed by Spike Lee featuring Martha Stewart — an odd coupling, perhaps, but if they have good chemistry, why stop there? The Tempo Subcommittee on Unlikely Collaborations suggests these projects:
She’s Gotta Have It — Now. Stewart indulges her insatiable appetite for ordering staff around. In one farcical scene, she reduces an underling to tears as he labors to produce the perfect grapevine wreath.
Do the Good Thing. It’s sweltering in Martha’s Vineyard, Stewart’s central air is broken and her terrazzo-tiled swimming pool is closed for repairs. But with a dousing rod and a crane-operated bore, Stewart (sporting matching hard hat and overalls) digs a subterranean shelter and hits a fresh-water spring, all while throwing a dinner party for 20.
Mo’ Better Blues, Greens and Plaids. Stewart plays a torch singer who gives up a promising music career to launch a fledgling apparel line, using underpaid Third World garment workers.
She Got Game Hens. Stewart starts a pro gourmet-cooking league, and all goes well until an upstart sous-chef (Michael Jordan) gets in her face. Armed with skewer and greased poultry thermometer, Stewart makes the climactic cook-off a moment to remember.
Martha X. Learn how Stewart, a woman of Polish descent, crafted an alter ego as a haughty, aloof WASP and leader of the “Living” Nation. The closing sequence features a procession of faces, including Spike Lee, proclaiming, “I am Martha X.”
