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| September 2009 |
| Billie Silvey |
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| Night at the Museum |
| Museums stir the imagination. Probably everybody has stood at a display in a natural history museum and imagined the figures or animals coming to life. Well, in 2006 it happened—in the movies at least. That was the year the 1993 children’s book by Milan Trenc was made into a movie by Shawn Levy and 20th Century Fox. Ben Stiller plays the divorced father, threatened with the loss of his son, who is seeking a job he can stick with. He applies to work as night watchman at the American Museum of Natural History at Central Park West at 79th Street in New York. The venerable museum, established in 1869, is the perfect setting for the mix of history, ancient Egyptian curses and movie magic. |
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One of the largest and most celebrated museums in the world, the American Museum of Natural History is made up of 25 interconnected buildings that house 46 permanent exhibition halls, research laboratories and a renowned library. The collections maintain over 150 million specimens and overlook Central Park, the setting of the movie’s climactic action. |
| Theodore Roosevelt, Sr., the father of the president, was one of the museum’s founders, so it is fitting that one of the first full-size historical displays to come to life is President Teddy Roosevelt, played brilliantly by Robin Williams.
A Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton flits down the halls. A full-size diorama model of Sacagawea, the native American guide for the Lewis and Clark Expedition, is played by Mizuo Peck and is the object of Roosevelt’s frustrated affection. Ricky Gervais plays Larry’s nemesis, museum director Dr. McPhee, while Dick Van Dyke, Mickey Rooney and Bill Cobbs play the previous night watchmen, who volunteer to “show him the ropes.” |
| With the aid of doctoral student Rebecca Hutman (Carla Gugino) Larry begins to learn the history behind the exhibits he guards to use that knowledge to control the mahem. He is thwarted by a quartet of Neanderthals and a mischievous capuchin monkey. But he is aided by two pint-sized heroes from scale model dioramas, the cowboy Jedediah (Owen Wilson, right) and the Roman General Octavius (Steve Coogan). |
| The museum itself is used for external shots, while museum displays were reconstructed on a sound stage in Burnaby, Canada.
According to museum employees, guests often ask to see the displays used in the movie. The highest grossing film its opening weekend, Night at the Museum expanded its success over the four-day Christmas holiday weekend and opened in 83 additional theaters the following weekend, maintaining its #1 position three weeks in a row. Though it received mixed reviews, I loved it for its evocation of the magic and mystery of museums. |
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| A sequel, Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian, was released this year. Set in the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., the largest museum complex in the world, it features several new characters, including Amy Adams as pilot Amelia Earhart. |