Circle of Trust

Meet the Parents

Director: Jay Roach

Cast: Ben Stiller, Robert De Niro, Teri Polo, Blythe Danner, Owen Wilson

Released: October 6, 2000

Viewed in theaters: October 7, 2000

Oscar nominations:

Best Song - "A Fool in Love" by Randy Newman (lost to "Things Have Changed" by Bob Dylan from Wonder Boys)

Meet the Fockers

Director: Jay Roach

Cast: Ben Stiller, Robert De Niro, Teri Polo, Blythe Danner, Dustin Hoffman, Barbra Streisand 

Released: December 22, 2004

Picture it: Kansas City, Missouri, 2000. My mom and I are in KC for a weekend, just for funsies. We shop, we eat, we go to movies both nights we're there. On Friday night we see Remember the Titans and on Saturday night we see Meet the Parents. Okay, that's the extent of my story! 

Yes, I'm missing the third movie in this trilogy, Little Fockers, but it wasn't available on Netflix like the other two are and I heard it's pretty terrible, so I don't feel like I'm missing anything! 

The first movie begins in Chicago where Greg Focker (Ben Stiller (oh, and we will get to how horrendous that name is later on!)) is getting ready to propose to his girlfriend, Pam (Teri Polo). She's a kindergarten teacher and he has this whole thing planned out where he has her students arranged by the window holding up letters that read, "Will You Marry Me?" and he will surprise her by turning her around so she'll see the message. It's all very cute. Just as he's getting ready to pop the question, her phone rings and it's her younger sister, Debbie, telling her SHE'S gotten engaged. What are the odds of that? When Greg hears that her sister's fiance, Bob, asked permission from her father because he appreciates things like that, he decides to nix the proposal. Although, does it seem a little weird that he was planning to propose to his girlfriend without ever meeting her parents? I know her parents live in New York, but you would think they've been dating long enough that their paths would have crossed at least once. Lucky for him, Debbie and Bob are getting married in two weeks (seriously, WTF? They JUST got engaged and they're getting married in TWO WEEKS?) so he will be able to meet Pam's parents and ask her father for permission to marry her

Greg's trip to Oyster Bay (yes, I checked, and yes, it is a real place -it's on Long Island) doesn't start out so well when the airline loses his luggage which had a two-carat diamond engagement ring inside of it. Was he seriously planning on asking Pam to marry him the same weekend as her sister's wedding? Ehhh....not a good idea. Why is he trying to take away attention from the sister who's getting married? But man, I would be so pissed if they lost my luggage with a diamond ring in it! And the next three days for him are only going to get worse.

Greg meets Pam's parents, Jack and Dina Byrnes (Robert De Niro and Blythe Danner) and right away Jack gets in two jabs at Greg. This will be a running theme throughout the movie (and the next one!). He comments about their rental car and tells him, "Interesting color, you pick it?" (It's green.) Greg tells him the guy at the counter was the one who picked it out and Jack tells him, "They say geniuses pick green...but you didn't pick it!" Ouch. Also, I call BS on that. When Pam tells her parents that Greg lost his luggage, Jack asks if she got her luggage and she tells him she took a carry-on to which he replies, "That's my girl!"

This is the point of the movie where the viewing audience learns what Greg's last name is. Dina asks him how it's pronounced and he tells her just how it's spelled, F-O-C-K-E-R. You know they were hoping that wasn't the case! I have to admit, I laughed at all the Focker jokes. Because I'm 12. There's a few in this movie, but they're more prevalent in the second movie when we meet Father Focker and Mother Focker (hehehe). Speaking of Meet the Fockers, I was surprised they got away with calling it that! Little Fockers sounds even worse...try saying that three times fast and you're saying something completely different! While doing research for this movie (which is reading the trivia page on IMDb), I read that the MPAA would not allow them to use that name (it is a PG-13 rated movie, after all) unless they found someone who had that last name. Evidently they did. Just imagine, there are some poor schmucks out there with this horrible last name. And these movies probably didn't help them! By the way, if I were Pam, I would NOT change my name! (Spoiler alert: they get married!)

We're introduced to the Byrnes' cat, Mr. Jinx (who usually goes by Jinx or Jinxy). Now, I don't remember my reaction to first seeing Jinx, but I'm sure it was one of the following:
-I probably clapped.
-I probably "ahhhhh"-ed.
-I probably squealed in delight.
-I probably did all the above.
Why? Well, because Mr. Jinx was played by a Himalayan and I don't know if you remember (and you probably don't), but when I reviewed Homeward Bound, which also features a Himalayan cat, I mentioned I had a Himalayan cat. His name was Mac and he has since passed on, but he was alive when I saw Meet the Parents, so of course I was more then delighted to see a Himalayan cat being represented in the film industry, haha. Jinx belongs to Pam and she left him with her parents when she moved to Chicago, but they should have just made him her parents' pet. It didn't make any sense why she never told her boyfriend about her cat...you think that would come up on one of their first couple of dates; everyone loves talking about their pets! Also, Jack is ENAMORED with this cat, another reason they should have just made it his own. While I remembered the whole teaching Jinx to use the toilet trick, I had totally forgotten about his smaller, but still equally impressive tricks. When Jack calls Jinx ("Come here, baby! Come to Daddy!"), the cat jumps onto a chair, then into his arms. Super impressive. Also, when Jack tells him to say "hi" to Greg, the cat waves his paw. It's so cute! In another scene, Jack will feed him bacon from his mouth (that's not really a trick though, anyone can do that!). Jack tells Greg that he taught Jinx to use the toilet and when Greg makes a joke about having another guy around to leave the toilet seat up, the three human Byrnes just stare at him and Jack tells him, "He can't lift the seat, Greg. He lacks the strength and opposable thumbs." Pam drops the bomb that Greg hates cat and Jack just gives him this look which quickly tells Greg that if he wasn't already on Jack's bad side before, he certainly is now! And maybe that's the reason Pam never told Greg about her cat. I still think they should have just made Jinx her parents' cat. I did laugh when Greg tells the Byrnes he's more of a dog person and Dina, who is standing behind Jack, mouths, "So am I." How much do you want to bet he would divorce her in a second he had seen her?

Later, Greg will accompany Jack to the store when Pam suggests they go together so he can pick up some toiletries in case his suitcase doesn't arrive. It's the first time they're alone together and it's super awkward with small talk and just when Greg is about to have a serious conversation about his feeling for Pam, Jack asks him, "Greg, how come you don't like cats?" Greg tries to do damage control and tells him that he does like cats, but just prefers dogs over them. Jack calls them "an emotionally shallow animal" and that "cats make you work for your affection; they don't sell out like dogs do." Trust me, that logic doesn't work for my cat. If you give him food and pats and belly rubs, he is all purrs and cuddles.

Greg gets caught in a little white lie where he tells Jack that he grew up on a farm and pumped milk. At dinner that night, Jack asks him about it and Pam tells him that Greg is from Detroit. It cracked me up when Dina asks him, "Do they have many farms in Detroit?" I have never been to Detroit, but I imagine the answer is no! Greg has to clarify that he grew up in a farm-style house with lots of pets and he tells this crazy story about how he milked a mother cat (who apparently had a litter of 30 cats!) so he could feed a little runt that wasn't able to get any milk. He tells them that you can milk anything with nipples and this is when we get the most quoted De Niro line since he uttered "You talkin' to me?" in Taxi Driver (I'm joking, but I'm not), which, of course, is, "I have nipples, Greg. Could you milk me?"

This is also the scene where Greg accidentally knocks over the urn with Jack's mother's ashes and Jinx uses it as a litter box. Greg will do a lot of dumb things over the next two days, but this one is probably the worst. Jack surprisingly forgives him (well, sort of!) pretty fast. Greg tells him that he feels horrible about what happened and Jack replies, "Well, it was a horrible thing, but let's just put it behind us and enjoy the weekend."

Jack has a little chat with Greg right before they're all getting ready to go to bed and I'm sure if Pam knew about this, she would be mortified. He tells him, "I'm a realist, I understand it's the 21st century and you've probably had premarital relationships with my daughter." I love that Greg just stares at him, not giving any indication that he has or hasn't. You know if he says yes, then Jack will get mad. And if he says no, Jack will call him a liar and get mad. So it's a lose-lose situation for him. Jack tells him he will be sleeping in the den and he doesn't want any funny business because "under my roof it's my way or the Long Island Express Way." Now, even though he says it's the 21st century, it was actually still the 20th century as the 21st century didn't start until 2001.

There are a lot of jokes about Greg being a nurse and his legal name (Gaylord) and I feel like they wouldn't fly today, because, really, is it that big of a deal for a guy to be a nurse? I don't think it is. But I guess since it was still the 20th century, those jokes were still okay to make.

Greg was under the impression that Jack was a horticulturist, but finds out he was actually in the CIA for 34 years and Pam never told him because it was "strictly on a need-to-know basis." He was a psychological profiler and was used to interrogate suspected double agents. This is the scene where he sets up a lie detector test for poor Greg. He tells Pam that he asked him if they were living together, something Pam made clear that she did not want Greg to tell her father, but he was saved when Dina interrupted them and was able to get out of the room. Pam tells Greg that her father is a human lie detector. Now, if she knew this about her own father, why is she making Greg lie about this if she knows her dad will probably be able to suss it out anyway? Jack tells Greg that he is now in the "Byrne family Circle of Trust" which is a running gag that goes into the next movie.

We find out Pam has a younger brother, Denny, the next morning when she's about to get Greg more clothes to borrow from her dad and he tells her he feels weird wearing her dad's clothes and underwear. Pam tells him to borrow some from her brother, who's still sleeping. It appears that Denny still lives at home and he's either in high school or college, but it's just so weird that we've already spent an entire day with the Byrnes and weren't introduced to him or Pam didn't say something about him. I think this might be some kind of joke that he's invisible because there will be a scene later on when Jack is looking for him and he yells his name a couple of times and his son is literally in the same room, sitting on the couch. ("I'm right here, Dad!") Anyway, Pam really annoyed me in this scene because she tells Greg to go wake up her brother, who he has never met, mind you, and ask to borrow his clothes, which includes underwear. That's a bit of a forward thing, don't you think, PAM? Why don't you ask your brother if he can lend clothes to your boyfriend, PAM?

Besides meeting Denny, Greg also meet's Pam's sister, Debbie and her fiance, Bob and his parents. (His dad is played by the late character actor James Rebhorn. Even if you don't recognize the name, you would definitely recognize him as he's been in a ton of things). They are all going to have a pre-wedding lunch at the Best Man's house. Okay, let's see if I can get this straight: the Best Man, Kevin (Owen Wilson) is also Pam's ex-fiance and he and Bob went to lacrosse camp together. Greg is very intimidated by Kevin because not only does he get along great with Jack, but he lives in this massive house with an indoor pool where they play volleyball. Greg, Jack, Denny, and Bob's dad are on one team and Pam, Debbie, Kevin, and Bob are on the other team with the two moms watching. Poor Greg isn't doing too well so when his team has a huddle, Jack gets another jab into him and tells him, "Greg, nobody's expecting much out of you, so if I set you up with the ball, do you think you could spike it." So mean, but so funny. Greg gets a little too aggressive and he ends up smashing the ball into Debbie's face. It looked like she broke her nose because a lot of blood comes gushing out, but she's screaming, "My eye! My eye!" and in the next scene her eye is swollen shut. I love that Dina starts freaking out and jumps into the pool with all her clothes on. Let's review here: Debbie's fiance is in the pool. Her father is in the pool. Her sister is in the pool. Her brother is in the pool. There are plenty of people to come to her aid, and of course they all do.

Greg's day will only get worse when he accidentally sets the ornate altar that Kevin carved for Debbie and Bob's wedding on fire and when he loses Jinx by letting him outside when he's not supposed to. Naturally, this upsets Jack greatly, especially since they can't do the dress rehearsal without Jinx because he's the ring bearer! Debbie say, "We can't cancel the rehearsal because of some stupid cat." Outraged, Jack replies, "Stupid cat? How can you say that? That cat's been like a brother to you." I love he says that with Debbie's actual brother right there in the same room. Jack voices his concern for Jinx: "We're supposed to let him wander the streets without food, water, or toilet?" Pam volunteers Greg to look for Jinx. He goes to an animal shelter and sees a Himalayan that he's sure is Jinx but the guy points out in the photo that Greg brought with him that Jinx has an all black tail and this cat has a white tip on the tail. Greg spray paints the cat's tail and passes him off as Jinx. Surprisingly, it works and he's hailed as a hero. I really thought Jack was going to see right through him and know that cat wasn't his, but he gets a message from his neighbor that night telling him that they have Jinx at their house.

They all come home from a rehearsal dinner that night to find that the impostor cat has gotten into all the wedding things, including the wedding dress. Jack accuses Greg of getting a Himalayan and passing it off as Jinx. In return, Greg accuses Jack of being back in the CIA business because he saw him have a meeting with some guy at the drug store who gave him some passports and overheard him talking in Thai on the phone. (I seriously would not know what Thai even sounds like!) Jack says that he was planning a surprise honeymoon for the newlyweds to Thailand and is angry at Greg for ruining the surprise. Things are just spiraling out of control and even Pam thinks Greg should leave, so he heads to the airport with his bag which he has just gotten.

I was under the impression that Jack wanted his daughter to marry Kevin because they were buddies and he was really successful and he had respect for him and that's why he was such a jerk to Greg, but we learn from Dina that he didn't warm up to Kevin until after they broke up, which is a bit weird that her dad is buddy-buddy with her ex, but whatever. Dina tells him, "Nobody is good enough for your Pam" and he realizes this is true and heads to the airport to make things right with Greg. I'm glad they didn't have both parents be crazy and at least there's a reasonable parent, or I would have really felt bad for Greg! They wait to make both parents crazy in the second movie!

Meanwhile, at the airport, Greg has been kicked off the plane when he got into a fight with the flight attendant about his bag not fitting in the overhead compartment. He tells her, "It's not like I have a bomb in here! It's not like I want to blow up the plane!" This, of course, gets him kicked off the plane. Even in a pre-9/11 world, you could NOT say the word "bomb" on a plane! (The same actress will return as the flight attendant in the second movie for a brief moment and if I hadn't watched these movies back to back, I would have never even noticed that!) Jack is able to talk to him and asks him if he wants to marry Pam and Greg tells him, "I did until I met you" which is really sad that he would not want to marry the love of his life because he's terrified of his girlfriend's father. Jack feels bad about this and says, "If I lighten up, would you consider marrying my daughter?" (Spoiler alert: he does NOT lighten up!) Greg agrees to this after standing up to Jack and asking him not to interfere with their lives so much and to stop making fun of him for being a nurse. They go back to the house, where, of course, he proposes to Pam (and uses Mr. Jinx to carry the ring on a little pillow...how adorable!).

Now it's time to meet the Fockers! Greg and Pam aren't married yet, but they're having their wedding in the near future. In the meantime, they're planning a trip to Florida with Mr. and Mrs. Byrnes so the two sets of parents can meet before the wedding. Nothing can absolutely go wrong with this plan! It has already been established that Pam has met the Fockers several times. It makes me wonder how that went. If Greg was worried about meeting HER parents, I bet he was much more concerned about his girlfriend meeting his parents! But nobody really cares about Pam meeting her future in-laws for the first time and the funnier story is the uptight and conservative Jack meeting the kooky and hippie-dippy Fockers for the first time.

They're all driving to Florida from New York in a huge RV with a cat (Mr. Jinx is back!) and Jack and Dina's one-year-old grandson they call "LJ" for Little Jack. He is Debbie and Bob's son and they are watching him while his parents are in Thailand (you remember, where they went for their honeymoon) opening a clinic. Wait, what clinic? It really makes no sense for this tot to be in the movie. He is only used as a plot device for a couple humorous scenes. If this were real life and grandparents were watching their grandson, they would NOT go on a trip across the country to visit their daughter's fiance's parents. No, they would reschedule when they weren't watching a one-year-old. Also, taking Mr. Jinx sounds like a really bad idea too. I would be worried that every time the RV stopped for a pit stop and the doors opened, the cat would get out and run away.

Father and Mother Focker

When they get to Florida and meet Bernie and Roz Focker (Dustin Hoffman and Barbra Streisand), Dina at least has the decency to be polite, but you can sense the irritation coming from Jack. I can't say I really blame him. Bernie is one of those touchy-feely people who hugs people and plants raspberries on their necks. Look, a hug is fine, but don't kiss me, especially if we're meeting for the first time. Roz is a sex therapist for older couples and Greg wants her to keep that under wraps until they've gotten to know the Byrnes a bit better. He has to hide all these embarrassing statues and paintings of naked people in the den where Jack and Dina will be staying. His parents are very open about their sex life and this leads to a lot of embarrassing moments for poor Greg.

Bernie shows the Byrnes the "Wall of Gaylord" where they have displayed all of Greg's "accomplishments". Jack sees a medal ribbon and says, "I didn't know they made 9th place ribbons and Bernie tells him, "They got them all the way up to 10th place." (Really? I thought they only went up to 3rd place.) Jack is not impressed.

There is a good call back to the first movie when Bernie toasts Pam and tells her if he had a daughter, he'd want her to be just like Pam. Jack questions Greg about him telling him he had a sister and had milked her cat. Greg does not respond at all, just ignores him.

Pam tells Greg that she's pregnant and they decide to move the wedding up to June instead of October.They also agree not to tell anyone about the pregnancy until after the wedding, but Roz finds out and she tells Bernie and Pam ends up telling her mother, so Jack is the only one who doesn't know.

Even though I still maintain the baby had no reason being in this movie, there is a funny use of him in a scene where everyone is having dinner and the Focker's voluptuous Puerto Rican housekeeper, Isabel, who Greg had a crush on when he was a teenager, says hello to everyone and sees LJ. She automatically assumes he's Greg's and Pam's and says, "Ooh, he's a handsome little Focker" which elicited a giggle from me. Jack is quick to tell her that he's Pam's nephew and "he has no connection to Greg whatsoever." Even though they've made progress since the first movie, Jack is still not too keen on Greg and meeting his parents probably doesn't help matters. Greg is mortified when his parents reveal to the Brynes' that Greg lost his virginity to Isabel when he was 19. Jack does some investigating with this information and finds out that Isabel has a 15-year-old son, Jorge, who suspiciously looks a lot like Greg, who, coincidentally, was 19 fifteen years ago. The teenager has never met his dad and doesn't know who he is. He is sure that Greg knows about this and has been keeping it a secret from Pam and plans to out him by giving him truth serum at an engagement party Greg's parents are throwing for them. Fifty Fockers are expected to attend. "Fifty Fockers. What could be better?"

Jack invites Jorge to the party and introduces him to Greg, telling him that he's 15 and has never met his dad and plants doubt in Greg's mind that this could be his son. When he gives a speech, Greg reveals he may have a son he never knew about and that Pam is pregnant. It turns out Jorge is not Greg's son (maybe Isabel has a certain type) and everyone is angry at Jack when it is revealed he gave truth serum to Greg. Jack also finds out that everyone knew about the pregnancy and is hurt by this. He leaves, but Greg and his dad go to find him, yada, yada, yada, everyone is happy again and Greg and Pam get married.

Nights at the Museums

Night at the Museum
Director: Shawn Levy
Cast: Ben Stiller, Robin Williams, Owen Wilson, Steve Coogan, Carla Gugino, Ricky Gervais, Dick Van Dyke, Mickey Rooney, Bill Cobbs, Kim Raver, Paul Rudd
Released: December 22, 2006
Viewed in theaters: December 23, 2006

Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian
Director: Shawn Levy
Cast: Ben Stiller, Amy Adams, Owen Wilson, Steve Coogan, Hank Azaria, Robin Williams, Christopher Guest, Ricky Gervais, Bill Hader
Released: May 22, 2009
Viewed in theaters: June 1, 2009

Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb
Director: Shawn Levy
Cast: Ben Stiller, Robin Williams, Owen Wilson, Steve Coogan, Ben Kingsley, Ricky Gervais, Rebel Wilson
Released: December 19, 2014

Two years before the first movie being released, I had been to New York City with my mom where we had visited the American Museum of Natural History which had quickly shot to #1 as my favorite museum of all time ever. (What was #1 prior to that? To be honest, I had never given it any thought.) So when I heard about this movie where all the exhibits come to life at night, I thought it sounded like a cool concept and was curious to see it. While I enjoyed it, I was a bit nit-picky. Obviously, if you have been to the AMNH, then you know it was not filmed there! (Which I get.) But they could at least tried to make it as similar to the real one! True, it's been awhile since I've been there, but I do remember that the dinosaur on display in the main lobby was not a T-rex like it was in the movie, but in fact two dinosaurs: a mother barosaurus and her baby. I suppose a T-rex is more frightening and exciting for a movie audience, but there were more dinosaur bones upstairs that they never had come to life! Although I don't think the AMNH has a T-rex because if they did, it probably would be featured in the lobby as the first thing you see! I kept waiting for the movie to show this HUGE grizzly bear that I remember seeing in the North America section (you know, the same section where you would find Lewis and Clark with Sacagawea!). I would be way more scared of that than the three lions that are in the movie....but there was no bears, grizzly or otherwise. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Larry Daley (Ben Stiller), a divorced father of a son, gets a job as a night guard at the museum when times are rough for him and he just needs anything that will give him a paycheck. He replaces three nigh guards who are retiring (played by Dick Van Dyke, Bill Cobbs, and Mickey Rooney). They give Larry a list of instructions which he will soon find out will come in handy. Even though this movie is called NIGHT at the Museum, there are actually three nights that are shown. The other two movies only have one night.

The first night, naturally, is the introduction of the characters who come to life. A bored Larry ends up falling asleep at the front desk (sidenote: how come they only have one night guard now when they used to have three? Maybe they are trying to cut costs?) and when he wakes up he is baffled to see that the bones of the T-rex are gone and thinks Cecil (Dick Van Dyke) and the others have played a trick on him and that they have made the dinosaur bones vanish in a David Copperfield type illusion. But no, the skeletal dinosaur has come to life and starts chasing Larry who hides under his desk and grabs the instruction and reads them for the first time. The first one tells him to "throw the bone", which he does and the T-rex hurries after it like a dog, wagging its bony tail. While I definitely would be freaked out if dinosaur fossils came to life, I really wouldn't be worried about the dinosaur eating me as there is no digestive tract!

Larry soon realizes that everything in the museum has come to life. There's Attila the Hun; the aforementioned Sacagawea; cavemen; an Easter Island Moai; a large menagerie which probably has the most iconic character, Dexter the capuchin monkey, is part of. Dexter torments Larry by stealing his keys, peeing on him, biting his nose, slapping him, and he will continue to be a pain in Larry's ass for the next two movies. Teddy Roosevelt (played by Robin Williams) acts as Larry's guide and offers to help him the first night. He is a wax statue on a horse in the lobby. He brings up something later in the movie that I had been wondering: these are not the actual people that are being shown at the museum. As Teddy tells Larry, he is not the real Roosevelt, but a wax figure made in a factory somewhere. However, he acts like a leader and emulates many of the traits the real Roosevelt had as so many of the other figures with their real life counterparts. (That would be a little creepy if the museum had the corpse of Teddy Roosevelt on display!)

Two other characters who will prominently be featured in the next two movies are a miniature version of a cowboy named Jedediah (played by Owen Wilson) and his rival in the display next to him, a Roman general named Octavius (played by Steve Coogan). In all three movies there will be a running gag where the two of

them will be in some sort of dire situation and the camera will pull back to show a very calm scene. It's funny at first, but the camera pans back too many time that it stops being funny. In the first movie, they are getting blasted by air from a tire, but when the camera pulls pack we just see a car sitting there.

After the first night, Larry wants to quit and tells the curator (played by Ricky Gervais) he won't be coming back. But after seeing how proud his son is of him, he decides to stick with it. This time he goes in more prepared, or thinks he is anyway. He has read some history books so he knows a few things that might help him with dealing with the live exhibits. He has secured his keys to his belt and fakes Dexter our with a pair of plastic keys. He gives a lighter to the cavemen so they will stop bugging him and they are amazed by how easy it is to start a fire. However, one of them gets out of the building to start a fire in the trash and ends up turning to dust when the sun comes up. Is the caveman also a vampire? No, that is what happens to the exhibits if they are not in the building back in their poses when the sun comes up.

The third (and most adventurous night as he will soon find out), Larry brings Nicky so he can see the displays come to life. Nothing happens and I thought that they were purposely not coming to life because they only let the night guards see them, but it is soon discovered they are not able to come to life because Cecil has the tablet. Oh, I forgot to mention the reason why everything in the museum comes to life: so there's this Ancient Egyptian tablet and it brings everything to life. Yeah. I don't get it either. That's got to be worth a lot of money! I had totally forgotten this storyline where Cecil and the other two guards were the bad guys and wanted the tablet because apparently besides giving life to wax figures, it helps old men have more energy (there's a really bad joke I could insert here, but I won't go there) and they want it so they can stay healthy and spry. At one point Cecil does a backflip. It's just totally random and out of left field. Everything comes to life when Larry gets the tablet back and the exhibits help Larry and Nicky stop the three old men. It gets quite ridiculous because at one point Nicky is riding the T-rex through Central Park.

The only way to stop them is to awake the mummy (I think he was a real mummy and not a prop one because in the third movie we will find out he is an actual person who was awaken from the dead? I think?) It's an amusing scene because Larry and his son are really scared and when he unwraps the bandages you think it's going to be some deformed corpse, but it turns out to be a good-looking young guy, an Egyptian prince named Akhmenrah.

I thought there was going to be a romantic sub-plot between Larry and Rebecca (Carla Gugino) who works at the museum and is writing a dissertation on Sacagawea, but they just have one "coffee date" when she offers to tell him some information on the Native American when he asks her. There is a romance between Teddy and Sacagawea, but it mostly consists of gazing into eyes and hand holding. Rounding out the cast is Paul Rudd who plays Larry's ex-wife's new smarmy boyfriend.

Larry has an idea for bringing the museum to "life" at night (which everyone thinks are either actors portraying the notable figures or, in the case of the animals and dinosaur, animatronics) because in a weird plot point, the museum had been having low attendance which made me LOL, because, please....I really doubt the freaking best museum in the world ever has that problem! When I was there, you had to wait in a long line to pay for your ticket (totally worth it, though). Wait...this might have been in the second movie where this happens....shoot, I don't remember!

Before leaving this movie and the American Natural History Museum (because even though there are thousand of exhibits you could base on several movies, the other two movies take place at different museums), I had to share a cute story from when I visited that museum. While my mom was waiting in line, buying the tickets, I was sitting on this circular bench and there were people all around me (I'm telling you: there is no problem with low attendance!) and I overhear a conversation between a mother and her son, probably no older than six. She tells him he has the choice of either visiting the new frog exhibit or going to Central Park. The kid was quiet for awhile, pondering this decision and finally declared he wanted to see the frogs. I silently praised his choice. After all, the frogs were only temporary.

Battle of the Smithsonian is my favorite in the trilogy and that is mostly thanks to Amy Adams who is the MVP of these movies (even though she is only in the second movie). As you can tell from its title, it takes place at the Smithsonian in Washington D.C., another museum to which I have been. This time, Larry has only been working at the museum part-time because he has another job selling something he invented...I can't even remember what it was. He was an inventor in the first movie too and had invented the Snapper where you snap to turn off lights, but since the Clapper was already a thing (and way easier to clap than snap!), the Snapper did not sell. His new invention is a big hit and he has become successful. He finds out the museum is being renovated and they are shipping several of the artifacts to the Smithsonian. This pretty much includes every character from the first movie except for Teddy Roosevelt (Robin Williams is only in the beginning and end and has a small scene in the middle), the T-rex bones, all the lions, and the Egyptian prince who comes with the tablet, except that Dexter has stolen the tablet to bring it with them. So you guessed it....everything at the Smithsonian will be coming to life!

Because there are so many new characters, a lot of the exhibits from the first movie take a back seat. The only ones who have a pivotal role are Jedediah and Octavius, our mini friends. We have the antagonist, a corrupted pharaoh named Kahmunrah played by Hank Azaria (also the older brother of Akhmenrah who he is obviously jealous of). He wants the tablet because it will open a portal that will help him take over the world. Or something like that. He enlists the help of three bad guys from history: Ivan the Terrible (played by Christopher Guest) who insists his real name is Ivan the Awesome; Napoleon Bonaparte (played by Alain Chabat) who is very sensitive and snippy whenever someone mentions his height; and Al Capone (played by Jon Bernthal) who is only shown in black and white which I thought was a cool touch. In a funny scene where he's trying to recruit even more famous baddies, we see him talking to characters off screen saying how much an honor it is to meet them and the camera pans to reveal Darth Vader and Oscar the Grouch.  Kahmunrah has kidnapped Jededian and put him in a sand timer and tells Larry if he doesn't deliver him the code to open the portal in that alloted time, then his "little friend will die."

Helping Larry along the way is Amelia Earhart. (Not the real Amelia, of course, but a wax figure). This is where Amy Adams comes in and she is so delightful in this. She has a very 1940s, rat-a-tat-tat way of speaking and does it very effortlessly and I know that cannot be easy! She rattles out such lines as "You haven't been able to take your cheaters off my chassies since we met!" and "I think we've been jimmy-jacked!"

Instead of just famous figures made of wax and animals coming to life, this movie takes a new twist on things. Paintings come to life, sculptures come to life, the statue of Abraham Lincoln in the Lincoln memorial comes to life, the bobble-headed Albert Einstein toys come to life. (I feel like there are no rules to this magical tablet...pretty much any inanimate object can come to life!) Since there are so many new characters to meet, it's no wonder many of the ones from the first movie are all but cameos. There is a bust of Teddy Roosevelt that Larry and Amelia get advice from. He is, of course, voiced by Robin Williams and when he learns that there is a full-bodied Teddy Roosevelt at the Natural History Museum he gets very jealous.

My favorite scene is when they go the the Air and Space Museum and Amelia is just enthralled. We did see Larry walking through here before the sun set and they didn't do the best job of setting this scene up. While we see all the historic aircrafts, we didn't see any of the famous aviators that are now being shown. Unless they were like Amelia and woke up in the storage basement and then came to the Air and Space Museum? But don't you have to be a certain distance from the tablet to do that? See, these rules of the tablet are so sketchy. I guess it really doesn't matter. They're about to do a launch and Larry has to abort all of them. Yeah....that would be bad news!

In the end he and his friends defeat the evil pharaoh and he brings everyone back to New York with the help of Amelia and her small plane (which managed to fit everyone in there...it reminded me of a clown car when they all just come tumbling out one after the other). She flies back to the Smithsonian...hopefully she made it back before she turned to wax so she wouldn't crash the plane!

Okay, remember how I couldn't remember if Larry had the idea to bring the museum to life after hours in the first or second movie? It was this one. I remember now because he notices a woman there who looks like Amelia Earhart (played by Amy Adams without wearing the wig or aviation outfit) and he asks her if she's related to her. For a second I thought it was Amelia Earhart and she had disguised herself but that was so far-fetched...even for this movie!

The third movie takes place at the British Museum in London. Larry has to travel there with Akhmenrah (the Egyptian prince if you recall) and his tablet because something is happening to the tablet where it is starting not to work anymore so Larry has to go see Akhmenrah's parents (the father is played by Ben Kinglsey) who are exhibits at the British Museum. It's kind of sad that Akhmenrah was separated from his parents. So the only actual "real" people in this movie, in terms of exhibits, are the mummies. Everyone else is just made of wax. There's a whole back story at the beginning of the movie that explains the tablet and how it was found when a very young Cecil (you remember him...he was played by Dick Van Dyke from the first movie) was in Egypt with his archeologist father and they unearthed a tomb that held the tablet.

This movie does not really bring anything new in terms of things we hadn't seen from the first two movies. Obviously, since it is set in an entirely different museum we do see new characters and exhibits come to life, most notable Sir Lancelot who is trying to find Guinevere. There is a silly scene where he runs up on stage in the middle of a stage production of "Camelot" and pulls his sword on Hugh Jackman. Um....okay, if that happened in real life, security would be on that guy's ass in five seconds. But he and Jackman just start arguing over who Lancelot is.

Ben Stiller also plays a caveman whose main goal is to annoy Larry. He was created for the museum in honor of Larry and his features were used so the caveman looks exactly like him and so he thinks Larry is his dad and follows him around all the time.

There's a scene where Larry is having a heart-to-heart with Dexter (the capuchin monkey) after Dexter almost died when it looked like the tablet was doomed, but Larry managed to fix it in the nick of time. I thought Dexter was going to slap Larry or bite him on the nose, but he kisses him on the lips which was really cute.

Anyway, I enjoyed these movies. They're just mindless fun. I kind of get a Jumanji vibe from them.

You say, "Stay"

Reality Bites
Director: Ben Stiller
Cast: Winona Ryder, Ethan Hawke, Ben Stiller, Janeane Garofalo
Released: February 18, 1994

I knew Ben Still was in this movie and that he had directed movies (like Tropic Thunder) before, but I didn't know he had directed this one. Of course, this was pre-There's Something About Mary, so nobody knew who he was back then.

The movie follows Lelaina (Ryder) and her friends, recent college grads trying to find their place in the "real world" (otherwise known as Houston). Boy, am I'm glad I wasn't in my early twenties in the nineties! What a bunch of self-centered emo whiners! Oh, wait, I think I just described every early twenty-something throughout the course of history.

Lelaina, who was the valedictorian at her college, has scored a job as a producer for a TV show hosted by Frasier and Nile's dad, but gets fired and has to lower herself to a more pedestrian job. She's living in an apartment with her best friend Vickie (Garafalo) who is a bit of a slut (well, it's true!) and is worried she might have AIDS (oh, remember how popular AIDS were in the nineties - they even had an entire episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 dedicated to it!). Lelaina's other friend, Troy, also lives with them and he gets jealous after Lelaina goes on a date with Michael (Stiller), a video executive because, you see, Troy has feelings for her, but won't admit that he does. Lelaina also has feelings for him, but won't admit that she does and keeps dating Michael to make Troy jealous and Troy dates other women to make Lelaina jealous. Oh, the complications of love triangles!

Lelaina wants to make a documentary about her and her friends' life and always has a camera with her capturing moments of their everyday life. Michael tells her that he's found somebody in New York who's interested in buying the documentary, but when she sees an advanced screening of her footage, they've changed everything around and made it into a bit of a joke. This is where the movie gets its title because the documentary was called "Reality Bites".

This movie is probably most famous for introducing "Stay" by Lisa Loeb to the world. Who doesn't love that song? I never hear it on the radio anymore, but everytime I hear it on my iPod, I always have to sing along. I kept waiting to hear it in the movie, but they don't play it until the end credits...and it's the second song they play during the credits!