and the oscar goes to...

we were graced with the presence of a production/direction duo of nyc hipsters (stephen and hadleigh) on sunday night when amy and i held our first ever oscars party...it just randomly happened that they were out filming a documentary on the weekend of the oscars and we were lucky to find them at our house during the oscar night magic.

as the kids slowly went to bed one by one upstairs, i printed out the ballots and we fast-forwarded through much of the red-carpet hoopla to more award show hoopla.

our ballots can be seen below. a circle indicates one's preferred winner and a check indicates a prediction of whom the academy will choose. we will compare our award show to that of the academy...


the tick marks at the top of the page indicate the number guessed correctly. the night was tense as we vied for the top predictive position, but it soon became apparent that stephen was pulling away on the strength of his guesses in the shorts and documentarys. i barely pulled from last place to a tie for last with my wife amy (who had only seen 4 of the 9 best picture nominees.)



one caveat before we unveil the winners from our own prestigious academy, 3 of us had seen eight of the nine best picture nominees. amy had seen four. stephen is vowing not to see king's speech on some undefined, undecipherable moral stance. and the winners are...

on the strength of hipster voting, major discrepancies were found. winner of best picture to social network and best director david fincher (also social network.)

i voted for king's speech as best picture and amy voted for toy story (although she cynically predicted that black swan would win the academy's hearts.)


for best actress natalie portman was the unanimous winner in our balloting (although amy abstained not having seen any of the actresses ply their wares.)

and lastly, on the strength of resident highland voters colin firth took home the top male acting prize while the hipsters split for jesse eisenberg and jeff bridges (with a nod to 'the dude'.)

and there you have it. the moment you've been waiting for. do you agree? did the academy get it right. one of the best moments of the night came when trent reznor won an oscar for his score in the social network. it was sad to see the social network flounder so thoroughly. it was a unique and fascinating look at the rise of facebook and its founder that was probably deserving of a few more accolades...

that being said, the king's speech was the best movie i saw all year (followed closely by 'how to train a dragon')

the city that never sleeps...

my brother's pilot premiere was on thursday night. my dear mother was kind enough to offer to watch the children while we attended. and since we were unable to go cruising and our tenth anniversary year ends in a matter of days we were excited to take a few days in a city we both love.

we left wednesday after amy stayed up late packing and i worked through the night. hannah took the girls to violin and we dropped michael at school and ella at co-op. we rushed to the airport and flew off.

on the flight i met my favorite mormon (post-mormon) director--richard dutcher. i'm not in the habit of meeting famous people, so i asked, 'is your name richard?' 'yes' 'richard dutcher?' 'yes' 'hi my name is paul frandsen and i am a big fan of your work. god's army 2? great.'

and that was that. he was nice and the encounter was brief.

stephen and hillary picked us up from the airport--very kind of them to brave the traffic. amy and i were beat after sleeping so little so we went out for pizza and crashed at stevie's. stephen did not crash as he had a night's work ahead of him. he and the director of the pilot worked through much of the night on finishing the color etc...

thursday was the premiere so while he finished final preparations we went directly from the subway in brooklyn to the natural history museum off central park. i had never been and thoroughly enjoyed it. below are the pictures from the museum.


the natural history museum is impressive fare. favorites? the big whale and most of the ocean exhibit. the exhibit on evolution. meteor rocks. and the dinosaur bones! lots and lots of real-life bones with impressive evolutionary trees showing their progression and time-line. the earthquake-meter.

after spending several hours in the bowels of the museum we surfaced for air and realized we hadn't yet seen the city skyline in the light of day (the museum has an underground subway entrance.)

i love the new york skyline. the enormity of the city is astounding. its scale is grand but old, dirty and dilapidated at the same time. after seeing the skyline from the window of the museum i got the itch to strike out on the town. we headed out on the subway to rockefeller square and did the very touristy tour of nbc studios. the highlight was seeing diddy dirty money during his photo shoot for snl. we also saw jimmy fallon and toured his set. at the end, amy and i did our own faux news broadcast. i captured a shot of amy in front of the green screen, but the final product was $30 for the footage. amy is an adorable weathergirl. i would tune in :)



we rushed from the rockefeller tree to fontana's bar in chinatown near where some of the scenes from the pilot were shot. we stopped in for chinese dumplings with stephen and hillary where we met some friends of theirs (liz and brian) and joined them in a quick bite to eat. brian is a creative executive for AMC and liz teaches at a charter school in harlem.

the premiere was great. it was a fun melding of personal and professional acquaintances of stephen and hadley. the different groups melded well and there were a lot of hugs and smiles. there was cheering and clapping through the closing credits. it was fun to see stephen and hadley's relief build as they carried off the project well. they both looked ready for a long nap and relaxing weekend after staying up most nights all week in preparation for the premiere.

stephen did all the music for the project and it was a shining element of the show. there were multiple comments about how great the music was. the color was beautiful, suspense held the group's attention, and the violence etc was tasteful :) my favorite part was hanging out after the premiere with friends and co-workers of stephen's lingering. it was fun to hear them speak highly of stephen--including his professionalism, work ethic, convivial nature etc. etc. my favorite moments of the trip were the random relaxed moments with stephen, hillary, and amy...

we took pictures together near the impressive photo/poster that stephen and hadley produced.

adam and kellyn posing with us...

brothers...

stephen and hillary were our perfect hosts on the weekend...

friday was a day for more culture. we started out at the 'frick' museum (the best named institution we visited on the weekend.) it was a cool example of a private art collectors gallery turned museum. a little renior...

we left the 'frick' for the apple store with the floating apple and the burger joint (hidden in the parker-meridian hotel.) notice stephen's signature 'i love apple' salute.

then it was off to free MOMA night presented by target. i love the MOMA. highlights? the eye. starry night. picasso. the line exhibit.

my impressionist impression of the painting...

and for the grand finale that night? the new neil la bute play, 'the break of noon.' neil is a former mormon and renowned modern playwright. he attended byu with aaron eckhart.

the play was provocative. we went not knowing exactly what to expect. la bute is a former mormon who converted to mormonism at BYU and is known for his portrayals of evil/badly behaving men. his play in the late 90's of lds people doing violent things lead to him ultimately parting amicably with the church. he has developed into one of the more renowned modern american playwrights. his play, 'the break of noon' premiered off-broadway 2 weeks ago with david duchovny as the lead.

the play chronicles the story of 'john smith' who survives an office massacre where the gunman shoots 37 people and then himself. smith claims to have had a vision of god wherein he spared john's life. he then interacts with police, ex-wife, lover, stranger and detective. each interaction shows the duality of duchovny's nature as he is both good and evil in turn. mormon undertones include 'john smith' as modern day prophet (joseph smith), mutiple versions of his vision--each more elaborate than the last, and 'jesus wants me for a sunbeam' was played at one break between scenes. pretty veiled mormon ties i know. duchovny is on stage the entire play and acts opposite 3 other actors who play dual roles. the play had a lot of language and john smith is not a 'good guy' per se.

it was interesting watching the play with a presumably secular new york audience for whom it seemed very natural to laugh at the man's shortcomings and brush off his religious ministrations and manipulations. i also felt that as a believing mormon the play took on greater depth as i was asked to confront this man's shortcomings in the context of joseph's shortcomings. all the while asking me to maintain my belief in both.

the play ultimately asks the audience to accept an imperfect man as a prophet. the final scene ***plot spoiler***involves duchovny speaking in church before an audience in a sort of evangelist setting. he levitates in the final moments of his monologue and la bute asks the audience to accept that this man is what he claims.

we went for eggs benedict after the play (divine) and headed home for a movie at stephen's apartment.

oh, and on the way out of the play i met mr. michael moore and had my picture taken with him...

the next day was broadway day. we stood in line for cancellation tickets to lion king (while a scalper tried to hustle me into some 2nd row tickets that i turned down after he walked me around times square introducing me to his scalper buddies.)

amy loved the show. i thought it was so so. beautiful lighting, costumes, vocals, but still the same lion king plot-line i've seen 20+ times on tv. i would however love to take the kids someday...

times square from the minskoff theatre.



in between broadway shows amy speed shopped at H&M and we met stephen and hillary at the temple/stake center before his performance for the stake christmas concert
the final show of the evening was billy elliot. i loved it. the dancing was breathtaking, the musical numbers were powerful and the message of hardship, sacrifice and committing to yourself were motivating. the 11 year lead was an amazing dancer and brought incredible suspense at times.

that night we went 80's dancing. great times...

church was inspiring in stephen's brooklyn branch.

a relaxing sunday and waffles topped off the trip.

thank you so much stephen and hillary! congratulations on the successful premiere...

dance party...

guess who's here from new york!?

the night before hillary and stephen arrived michael kept waking and coming to the top of the stairs to ask if they were here...what we didn't tell him is that after he ultimately fell asleep granpatty came by the house (thanks mom!) so that amy could pick me up from work enroute to the airport. we then attended the 12:45 am harry potter premiere! i love the books, but my brother refuses to read them. it was definitely a coup that he accepted our invitation! i dressed up and there were not as many people dressed up as when i went to the star wars premiere as darth vader. but, what would life be without the people that dress up for movie premieres?

oh, and stephen loved it...

friday was the main event--andrew wright's wedding--congratulations andrew!

when the wedding festivities finished, the nyc hipsters made their way again to our house and the kids were able to bask in their energy as you can tell from the dance party photos and video!



we are dancing to bekah's latest favorite song...

in limbo...

check out the trailer for my brother's pilot premier in new york on december 2nd at 8pm...

IN LIMBO TRAILER from In Limbo on Vimeo.