TOP OF THE EVENING

Ben and J.Lo cuddled, Hockney watercolored, and the Irishmen (O'Toole, Bono, Farrell) closed the place down. It was the fabulously eclectic No. 10 in Vanity Fair's winning streak of Best Oscar Parties. Photographed by Jonathan Becker, Eric Charbonneau, Larry Fink, Patrick McMullan, and Richard Young

OSCAR NIGHT

The line in the men's room: Barry Diller, Rupert Murdoch, Elvis Costello, and Donald Sutherland. It could have been the setup for some elaborate topical joke (minus George Bush and the Pope), but, in fact, it was Vanity Fair's 10th annual Oscar party, held, as it is every year, at Mortons in West Hollywood— a one-night-only Milky Way Among the 154 dinner guests, who watched the Academy Awards show on humongous plasma screens, were Sidney Poitier, Diana Krall, George Hamilton, Sheryl Crow, Fran Lebowitz, David Hockney (dashing off a few watercolors at his table), Donna Karan, Iman, and Kirk Douglas (who was visibly touched by daughter-in-law Catherine Zeta-Jones's win for best supporting actress).

Adrien Brody may have gotten the loudest cheers of the evening, both during dinner for his best-actor win and an hour or so later when he arrived at Mortons brandishing his Oscar. As the party spread into the "tent"—probably too functional a word for the gracious, beautifully lit big top that was erected over what is normally Mortons' parking lot—in walked a parade of postshow revelers, their spirits no doubt buoyed by an unusually short (three-and-a-half-hour) Oscarcast and Steve Martin's flawless M.C.-ing: best actress Nicole Kidman, best supporting actor Chris Cooper, Nicolas Cage, Meryl Streep, Cameron Diaz, Martin Scorsese, Kate Hudson,

Queen Latifah, Christopher Walken, Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins, Wes Anderson, Todd Haynes, and Janet Jackson. Did we forget Donald Trump, Ali G, and Geri Halliwell? And Buzz Aldrin?

Among the snacks were lollipops imprinted with the faces of V.F.'s Hollywood Issue cover boys; Salma Hayek enjoyed a sugary Edward Norton in tribute to her fleshand-blood boyfriend. Meanwhile, Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez greeted friends during breaks from discreet, divan-bound canoodlings. Staying until the not-so-bitter end, perhaps unsurprisingly, were a gaggle of Irishmen: Colin Farrell, Bono, the Edge, and Academy honoree Peter O'Toole. All in all, a night worthy of the previous nine and then some. In other words, sheer magic.

BRUCE HANDY