A Place to Sit Back and Just Relax a Bit

After last year’s blowout at the Four Seasons when host Elton John took home the Oscar for the theme song from “The Lion King,” Captain Fantastic decided he wanted to make his AIDS Foundation Oscar night benefit “smaller and more intimate again.”

So this year, the charity event returned to Maple Drive in Beverly Hills. The experience began with a 250-seat, black-tie, invitation-only dinner at $1,000 a plate, which raised $250,000 to assist people with HIV and AIDS.

Among those keeping company with John--who by the way, could have taken home the best-dressed award with his black Gianni Versace jacket with four fake diamond buttons and matching earring--were Steve Martin and Stevie Wonder.

“I want people to have a good time and feel that they’re in a relaxed environment,” the singer said, surveying his crowd of guests. And relaxed it was. Anyone who expected the excitement level to kick up once the Oscar-viewing was over, would have been disappointed. By 10:30, the tables were cleared. So had most of the crowd. What revelry there was occurred in a makeshift VIP area, cut off from the rest of humanity by a security corps of Dabney Coleman look-alikes.

There, the trophy-sporting Nicolas Cage (with wife Patricia Arquette) and Emma Thompson hobnobbed with Tim Roth, Jim Carrey, Laurence Fishburne, Sandra Bullock, Tim Allen and the artist formerly known as Prince.

While the winners and their coterie shunned the media, best supporting actor nominee Ed Harris, who was gracious enough to put the evening into perspective.

“I feel good, you know?” he said. ‘Because I’m with my folks and wife and I’m going back to see my little girl. You know, it would be nice to have the gold man here. But he’s not.”