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Columns
"I'M WITH OSCAR!"
With a pared-down guest list, a drop-dead setting, and Jon Stewart making a beeline for the bar, V.F.'s annual Oscar bash (No. 13) was better than ever. Photographs by Larry Fink, Jonathan Becker, Patrick McMullan, Billy Farrell, Richard Young, and Eric Charbonneau
Columns
"I'M WITH OSCAR!"
With a pared-down guest list, a drop-dead setting, and Jon Stewart making a beeline for the bar, V.F.'s annual Oscar bash (No. 13) was better than ever. Photographs by Larry Fink, Jonathan Becker, Patrick McMullan, Billy Farrell, Richard Young, and Eric Charbonneau
Noël Coward said it best: "I've been to a marvelous party." Those were the words engraved on the silver Zippo lighters given as favors to the 165 guests of Vanity Fair's 13th annual Academy Awards viewing party. "The dinner was sublime," said Good Night, and Good Luck's Patricia Clarkson, who sat between rock god Mick Jagger and political curio Ambassador Joseph Wilson. Also monitoring the awards action on 13 flat-screen TVs at a transformed Mortons restaurant, in Hollywood, were columnist Maureen Dowd, novelists Dave Eggers and Zadie Smith, billionaires Barry Diller, Ronald Perelman, Rupert Murdoch, and Sumner Redstone, CNN heartthrob Anderson Cooper, and West Wing creator Aaron Sorkin, as well as Dennis Hopper, Faye Dunaway, and both of the infamous Collins sisters. After the telecast, the guests flocked into the 7,000-square-foot party space, which architect Basil Walter had fitted with bamboo floors, layered-fabric walls, and an undulating dropped ceiling of translucent triangles. Already seated in the carpeted lounge, on brown suede sofas custom-made by Australia's King Furniture Nicole Kidman and her boyfriend (or is that fiancé?), country crooner Keith Urban.
There had been some grumbling in town about the decision to cut the Oscar-party guest list by 500, but the result was a fabulous, cozy, Hilton-free evening, where you were the only person you didn't recognize. Before long, Naomi Watts, Steven Spielberg, Joaquin Phoenix, Jake Gyllenhaal, Heath Ledger, Michelle Williams, Dolly Parton, William Hurt, Terrence Howard, Hilary Swank, Jamie Foxx, Sasha Baron Cohen, Jennifer Aniston, Vince Vaughn, and Madonna were mingling. Then the Oscars began arriving in droves. Best actor Philip Seymour Hoffman greeted his Capote director, Bennett Miller, and co-star Catherine Keener, while best actress Reese Witherspoon accepted congratulations from Jennifer Lopez. Elsewhere, a shocked and thrilled Paul Haggis showed off the evening's only surprise Oscar, for best picture Crash; best supporting actress Rachel Weisz, seven months pregnant, glowed as she made the rounds; and the instant stars of Three 6 Mafia flashed gold on their teeth and in their hands—for their Hustle & Flow anthem, "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp," which won best song. An explosion of cheers from the red-carpet watchers outside heralded the arrival of ceremony host Jon Stewart. His first stop? The bar, for a much-deserved drink.
