R.I.P., MICHAEL JACKSON

I feel compelled to take a moment to recognize the unexpected death of Michael Jackson.

Yesterday we were all in the carpool line to pick up Sabrina from camp.  Cory wanted to listen to music, but when the radio came on, it was on a news station, and we heard "the death of Michael Jackson."

Huh?

Now, there used to be a radio interviewer here in L.A. called Michael Jackson, probably in his 70s now, and my instant thought was, "It must be the radio guy.  I mean, it can't be theMichael Jackson."

And Cory clearly felt the same way.  "What?  No.  What?--"  It just didn't make sense.

It reminded me of how I felt 12 years ago when I was sitting in a condo in Telluride, Colorado, hanging out while waiting to go to one of those late-night film festival parties that don't get going till 11:00, channel-surfing.  We flipped past a station where we heard "with the death of Diana" -- and flipped past -- and froze.  "Diana?"  How many "Dianas" could there be whom someone would call by just their first name on the news?

I was stunned then, even though I'd never been a major Diana fan (though of course I'd seen the wedding, and she was always in the news).  And I was stunned in the same way yesterday.  I was never a major MJ fan.  I drove past the dozens of fans hanging out across the street from the family house back in the '80s, but was never tempted to join them.  I never went to a concert.  I sang along with his songs on the radio, but I didn't rush out to buy every album as it came out.

So why does his death affect me at all?

Part of it is, I think, because there are so few people who have a worldwide impact, a cross-generational impact, and in hearing of his death, I know how many thousands, even millions, of people are feeling the loss.  I think of our friend's son who, at about 8 years old, ripped up the dance floor at Family Camp a couple of years ago doing perfect Michael Jackson routines... and I wonder how he feels.  I read the Facebook posts of people for whom MJ's music was the soundtrack of their lives... and I feel their loss with them.  And I think this kind of communal loss is a good thing.

Part of it is also, I believe, that Michael Jackson didn't get the third act of his life which he so sorely needed.  He lived through the downhill spiral of Act Two, the loss, the corruption, the pain... and never got that shot at redemption, that chance for recuperation and triumph, for victory out of the ashes, for which we all yearn.  Just like Diana.  That's part of what it means when we say someone died before their time.

Yes, there was the undeniable weirdness -- which got weirder and weirder over time.  The desperate attempts to regain childhood.  The molestations and rumors of molestations.  The retreat from the real world in so many ways.  The loss of self as seen through the grotesque mutilations of his own body.

And yet... there was the talent.  That boy could sing.  He could dance.  And he did it in a way that captivated millions and millions of people around the world.  I still remember how my jaw dropped when he performed "Billie Jean" (and the first moonwalk) on the Motown 25 special -- one of the few TV performances ever that jumped out from the screen and grabbed me.

How sad that MJ's immense talent got so dissipated along the tortured, twisted paths he chose to take his life down.  That sadness keeps me from enjoying the snarky nastiness of so many of the "obituaries" popping up today.  And that sadness is part of why I mourn him today.  I mourn because he never got back on a good path.  I mourn at the loss of the songs, the dances, the performances that might have been.  And I mourn because so many others mourn.  And that's a good enough reason.

In memory... Here is a clip you probably didn't see and certainly wouldn't remember, but which shows us a glimpse of what was and what might have been...  This is Michael Jackson at about the age of 18, dancing with tap legends the Nicholas Brothers...  

Rest in peace, Michael Jackson, you poor, tortured soul.

ON FELINES AND FORGIVENESS

Our cats Luke and Leia (I know, I know) have a tendency to transport small objects around the house for no apparent reason.  Sometimes it's the pink clip-on tiger tail that Cory acquired at some party.  Or Snowflake, one of Sabrina's fave stuffed animals, a tiny Siberian husky.  Or the ever popular drinking straw, always good for shoving under a rug.

Lately, however, they've been carrying around what Sabrina calls her "Chinese hackysack" -- this is a fluffy pink feather anchored by a fairly heavy weight.  It shows up in some odd places.

Our cats also have a disturbing tendency to claw at a couple of rugs.  One of them is the "water lilies" rug in my office.  When they claw, we yell "No!" Sometimes this works.  If it doesn't, we clap our hands.  If that doesn't work, we sometimes throw something in their general direction.  This tends to spook them enough that they leave off the clawing.

Last night, Leia started clawing my rug.  She didn't respond to my "No."  Or to Sabrina's "No" and clapping.  So Sabrina picked up the Chinese hackysack, which had been previously deposited in the middle of the carpet by said cat, and tossed it more or less toward Leia.

But Leia chose that exact moment to run away from my office rug -- and ran smack into the falling weights of the hackysack with a loud THUNK.  Right in the face.  Ouch.

Clearly stunned and in pain, she crept off into a corner of my office.  When Sabrina tried, ever so slowly and cautiously, to approach her, Leia streaked out the office door and ran to hide in the bathroom where her litter box is.  And there she stayed.

So this morning, when the household began to stir, I was a bit concerned.  Would Leia still be upset?  Would she avoid Sabrina, who had caused her such shock and pain?

Making some rather embarrassing meowing sounds, I trolled the house... and found Leia curled up with Sabrina in bed, helping her read her book.  She looked up at me with her "What's your problem?" look as if to say, "What pain and shock?  You say the person I love most in the world hit me in the face with a large, heavy weight?  What are you talking about?"

...I wish I could be more like that.

MEDITATIONS ON A WEEK OF VACATION

As vacations go, it wasn't particularly exotic.  A year ago, we had the opportunity to book a week at a lovely new time-share resort in Newport Beach for a great price.  Why not, we said.  We might need a week of vegging after graduation.  

Boy, were we right!  And veg we did.  For a whole week.  Now, we've had quite a few almost-a-week vacations as a family (3 days here, 4 days there) over the past years, and there's always Family Camp, but I can't remember when we went away for a whole week without all sorts of plans and limits and lists of stuff to do.

This time, all we did was pack some beach stuff and our Disneyland passes, and head off with no plans.  Very unusual for me.  Amazingly, I adjusted.

You don't want to hear all the details,

because there really aren't many to tell.

So here instead are some random musings on a week with no schedule:

•One has hope for the future of the universe when looking around a pool and seeing that 90% of the people there are reading books.

•That being said, it takes careful practice to match your sitting-by-the-pool time with the reading material you bring down.  I finished the book Sabrina has been insisting I read, all the magazines I brought, and each day's newspaper, but didn't quite make it through all the comic books which were the only "work" reading I brought.

•It's amazing to stay in a place with a fully outfitted kitchen.  It allows you to think about all the meals you could cook if you weren't eating out all the time.

•If the grilled fish sandwich at the pool is tasteless, there's no hope for the burger.  And if the cheeseburger is tasteless, you really shouldn't waste your money on the chicken.  Raising the important question:  Can a place really call itself a resort if the pool food sucks?

•One is not required to go to the beach.  Even if the back of the car is packed with beach stuff.

•And anyway, the water temperature was so freezing, who would want to go to the beach without a wetsuit?

•It is very strange to watch one's home team win the championship sitting in the bar of a restaurant filled with people who really don't care.

•Being on vacation is a perfectly acceptable reason to buy lots of those wonderful mini peanut butter cups from Trader Joe's with no guilt.  And if you want to call peanut butter cups and tart TJ's frozen yogurt "breakfast," well, who's to say that it isn't?

•If one chooses one's arcade games right, one can win a blender to replace the one that got broken in the move.

•Very few phone calls really need to be returned the day you receive them.

•However, the northernmost end of Tom Sawyer's Island turns out to be an

 excellent place to return phone calls and e-mails.  Cool, quiet, and fully serviced with wi-fi.

•I remember being amazed at the robotic efficiency of Disneyland's parking system back in the day, before the giant parking structure was built.  Yesterday, however, it took us 25 minutes to find an open entrance to enter the parking lot, so mislabeled or unlabeled were the roads.  What has happened, Walt?

•Disneyland is also having problems with its computers.  We bought 4-day passes at Costco for Christmas, have now used 4 days with them, and still have 2 days left.  If I were a Disney stockholder, I might not be happy with this.  (On the other hand, maybe letting people in for free is fine if you can get them to buy $3 bottles of water and $7 hot dogs.)

•The Blue Bayou is just as magical, in its own rote way, as it was when I was in high school and me and my friend Jeff saved our allowances to be able to eat there.  It sure is a whole lot more expensive, though ($22 for a Monte Cristo sandwich!).  And shame on them for being out of crab cakes!

•The absolute best place to eat at Disneyland is the Storytellers Cafe at the Grand Californian Hotel.  Delicious food, relaxed atmosphere, beautiful rooms, excellent service, and prices in line with what you get.   Get your hand stamped and go.

•When the website and the entrance at the parking lot both say California Adventure is open till 10:00, the park should be open till 10:00.  The park should not announce at 9:28 that the park will be closing at 9:30, then refuse to let you on the ride you're in line for.  I'm just sayin'.

•Disneyland is still the original, with all the imagination and "name" rides and whatnot.  But for my money, California Adventure has the three best attractions across both parks:  Soaring Over California, the "Aladdin" musical, and the new Toy Story Midway Mania ride.  And CA Adventure is just so much less frenetic.

•I will respectfully stand aside for the people who brought their own wheelchairs to Disneyland, and have great sympathy for the extremely pregnant women using wheel

chairs to get around the park.  But when you're in your 20s or younger, have nothing obviously wrong with you, and hop out of your wheelchair like you're ready to dance all night, please pardon my cynicism about your desire to get to the head of the line.

•But there's an even better way to get to the head of the line, Disney's biggest secret, discovered by us this trip (though perhaps known by the cogniscenti all along):  The Single Rider line.  45 minutes to ride Midway Mania?  Only 6 in the Single Rider line.  50 minutes for Soaring Over California?  Only 15 in the Single Rider line.  I pass this hint along to you freely and

 without reservation, as long you promise not to use it on the days I'm at Disneyland.

•I finally broke 100,000 points on Midway Mania.  (Perhaps the fact that I was able to ride 4 times, thanks to the Single Rider line.)  My new high is 111,400.  Sadly, Lee's new high is 111,600.   (Both of which, however, pale in comparison to Cory's 183,000.)

•Why is it not okay to sit on the rails while waiting in line for a ride, but it's okay to stand on them when trying to see a parade?

•How often do they rewrite the Genie's jokes in the "Aladdin" show?  We were there in January, and all the jokes were different this time.  I'd happily go back next week to answer this question.  

•And is it a union show?  We assume it must be, because surely someone in Equity would scream if it weren't.

....And those musings, sadly, bring us back to the real world, the world where phone calls must be returned and where no one comes in to change the linens every day and where the biggest concern of the day is no longer if you're wearing enough sunscreen.

A real vacation.  Who'd'a' thunk it?  I'll have to do it again sometime.

...LADEN WITH HAPPINESS AND TEARS

What a week we have had...

Last weekend, Cory had a co-starring role in his school's production of Fiddler on the Roof.  He played Fyedka, the Russian whom Tevye's third daughter, Chava, falls in love with, thus shattering her community's traditions and and severing her relationship with her family.

The kids worked hard on the musical, rehearsing for hours after school every day.  And they had a blast.  Cory looked great with his hair all slicked back, in his tunic and boots.  (He looked so good that I was besieged by moms swooning all over how handsome he was... then approached by pretty 13- and 14-year-old girls commenting on how terrific he looked... and it was when other boys started to rave about how great he looked that I really sat up and paid attention!)

Four performances.  Lee and/or I attended every one.  Lee baked a zillion cookies to sell at intermission.  We schlepped to and from the cast party.  And that should have been it.

Except for one thing.  I was in Fiddler on the Roof myself, back in high school.  It was, as probably most school musicals are, one of the great highlights of my high school days.

And as a result, I was utterly overcome.  

I expected, attending my first performance, to well up a bit during "Sunrise, Sunset."  I mean, who wouldn't.  Instead, I started crying the second the first Anatevkan strutted onstag

e singing "Tradition."  I mean, I sobbed.  And I cried throughout the entire performance.  I had to stock up on napkins during intermission because I had shredded every excuse for a kleenex I could find in my purse.

I remembered every word to every song.  I remembered every dance move (when you lease the rights to perform Fiddler, you also lease the choreography).  I noticed every dropped line and could have recited the line that was dropped (it didn't happen often, and I guarantee no one noticed but me).  I remembered the performances from my own show -- David's sharp sardonicness as Perchik, and Cindy's stooped shyness as Chava, and my dear, beloved, late friend Jeff's rickety-old-man performance as the Rabbi, so believable that my dad thought we'd brought in a real old person to fill the role.  I remembered tucking back every wisp of hair under my head covering, remembered how I said every one of my lines.

And it was overwhelming.

I got better during subsequence performances.  Though I still leaked tears during "Sunrise, Sunset."  Oh, and during "Little Bird."  And who wouldn't cry during "Anatevka"?  And I got great joy out of the presence of my dear friend David (aka Perchik all those years ago) coming to see Cory in "our" musical.

Cory was great.  He was very present, in the moment, appropriately charming, projected well when his mike cut out temporarily, and firm in dealing with Tevye.  Because Cory was by far the best dancer of the Russians, he was also their dance lead, and led off the Russian-Jewish dance during "L'Chaim" -- which I thought added some nice subtext, since there he was dancing with the future father-in-law who would later reject him.  

And only a few days later, there I was back in a folding chair again, watching Cory again, as he graduated from middle school.

How did that happen so fast?!  Wasn't it just yesterday I was making sure his shirt was tucked in for the first day of kindergarten?  But there he was, giving his graduation speech (in his case, the lyrics of a song he wrote for the occasion), joining in a last chorus of "L'Chaim" with his class (lots of Fiddler themed comments from the faculty, including my favorite, the headmaster quoting "A piece of paper and get thee out" to the grads).

And while I was there, I was missing Sabrina's elementary school graduation.  Yes, missing it.  In a perverse coincidence, both kids' graduations were on the same day at the same time.  (We had the kids choose which of us would go where.)  

Off they go, to the same school, Cory into high school, Sabrina into middle school.  Latin and Algebra and Electronic Music and Chorus and Fencing and Volleyball all loom before us.  It's all official.  Diplomas in hand, ready for the next step.

I didn't cry at graduation.  Well, not much.  At least this time I was smart enough to wear waterproof mascara for the occasion.  But overall, I felt as if I'd traveled a lifetime in a week -- from my own high school, to my children setting off to high school...

We head off for a week of real vacation tomorrow.  I thought the kids would need it after the flurry of the end of the school year.  But maybe I'm the one who needs it.  I have to start steeling myself for the next big graduation.  After all, it's only four years away.

Sunrise, sunset...  Sunrise, sunset...  Swiftly fly the years...   One season following another... Laden with happiness and tears...

ON THE DEATH OF THE L.A. TIMES

Lots of verbiage everywhere about the death of newspapers.  Lots of actual newspapers shutting their doors.  As a voracious reader and a concerned citizen, I'm concerned with the rapidly accelerating trend.  I don't necessarily equate "journalism" with "newspapers," of course, and I do think a new paradigm is possible in which real journalism occurs within a digital framework.  But I don't think that paradigm is in place, and I am concerned that it be found or created before the last newspaper dies.

Because, without my realizing it, the death of the newspaper has reached my own household.

I started reading the daily newspaper -- in my case, the L.A. Times -- in college.  Very soon, I was in the habit of starting my day with it.  I'd get it, grab something to eat, and curl up back in bed with breakfast and the newspaper.  I had my whole reading routine down:  Front page first, then local news, then the op-ed pages, a quick glance at the front of the business and sports sections, then the whole of the arts/entertainment section, then the features section, ending with the comics (which, INTJ that I am, I also read in a certain order, least-to-most-favorite).

After I was married, Lee fell right into the same habit.  He even bought me a lovely breakfast tray to use, with little slots on the side that held the newspaper.  Sundays it could take a good two hours, maybe even close to three, to work my way through the paper.  I'd section it off, read parts before church, parts later... A leisurely way to end one week and begin another.

When I was pregnant for the first time, a friend who already had two kids (and possibly envied my ability to have breakfast in bed) told me, with some glee, "Your days of reading the newspaper every morning are over!"

I was warned.  And yes, things changed a bit.  I learned how to balance the paper with a nursing baby, began splitting up the paper into sections and reading it a bit here and th

ere throughout the day.  But inside, I was a bit smug.  Sure, I'd altered the routine, but I was still reading the paper every day.

And so it stayed for years and years.  Magazines came and went, but I read the paper every day.

Gradually, though, I realized that while my routine hadn't changed, the paper had.  It was... lighter.  In every way.  Even the Sunday paper wasn't taking two hours to read anymore.  An hour.  Maybe.

And the paper was losing its bearings in other ways.  Favorite sections or features got axed.  Typos abounded.  And I was embarrassed when the L.A. Times decided to feature an ad masquerading as a fake story on its front page.  Ewww.

And then we moved, and rebooted our subscription.  And somehow it was very, very hard for the L.A. Times to get a newspaper delivered to a clearly-marked address, a task that 10-year-old boys seemed to manage for years and years with no problem.  The non-delivery issues went on for at least a month, during which time I was lucky to receive two newspapers a week.

And during that month, I realized a few things.

I realized how dirty my hands are after reading the paper.  I realized what a pain it is to fold the newspaper back so I can read the continuation of an article while I'm trying to eat lunch at the same time (oh look -- now I'm reading the paper at lunch, not breakfast, when it's closer to being "news").  I realized that virtually every piece of real news I read I already know about from the internet, from the radio, even from Facebook.  Why turn to page 3 to see the map of how far the latest Santa Barbara fire has spread when I know that map was printed last night, and all kinds of damage has happened since then?  I don't even need the paper for movie showtimes or TV listings anymore.

As for the Sunday paper... well, I like some of the "Sunday" content.  Maybe the travel pages.  But the book section is gone, the opinion (op-ed) section is gone, the local news section is gone (all shrunken down and subsumed into other sections), the weekly magazine is now a monthly, and most of the entertainment news I either already know or it's too "outside-looking-in" for me to be interested.  The comics.  I still like reading the Sunday comics.  But it sure doesn't take 2 hours to do that.

It all clicked in for me a few days ago.  I was baking rolls for dinner (oh look -- I'm now reading the paper at dinnertime, when the news is a full 24 hours old), and the paper was sitting on the counter, and I figured I'd take a look at it while the rolls baked.  12 minutes, with the timer set.  At least I could get through the front section by then.  

So I read, and flipped huge pages of newsprint, standing there at the counter, skimming past news I already knew about, while the rolls rose and browned.  And I finished one section of the paper and moved on to the next, and the next.  And just as I finished the last comic... the timer went "ding."

I had read the entire newspaper in 12 minutes.

And at that moment I realized how really easy it would be to live without the newspaper permanently, how little it contributed to my life.  And thinking back to how much it used to matter... I was sad.

I won't cancel my subscription.  It's only about 40 cents a day, and it's worth that much just for the comics.  

Journalism -- real journalism, not tabloid celebrity-fixated "journalism" -- won't die.  At least I hope it won't.  Journalists are the prophets of our time, often the only ones in a position to speak the truth, regardless of the cost.  

But I sure hope that paradigm change can come quickly.  Because in my house, the newspaper has died.

"STUFF CHRISTIANS LIKE"

This is my new favorite click-to on the internet.  Very funny and sometimes very piercing thoughts.  

Because I am a "California Christian," my reaction to some of what Jon talks about can be summed up as:  "Huh?"  (Psalty?  What's a Psalty?)  But all too much is spot on.

Enjoy

REREADING HARRY: GOBLET OF FIRE

My first read of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire was a spectacular one.  I had been extraordinarily stressed, taking care of many people in one way or another, and a wise friend suggested I needed a mini-vacation.  When I mentioned to Lee that I'd love to just a way to read Goblet of Firein peace when it was released, he put the two ideas together.

Off we went to stay for 3 days at the old Biltmore Hotel in Santa Barbara.  I spent those absolutely lovely days sitting by the pool, waving over cabana boys when I wanted a drink or some lunch, and reading.  At night, Lee and I would go out to dinner, but otherwise I really don't know what Lee did during that time.  I was in another world.

I really loved Goblet of Fire on my first read.  I loved the fact that it was 752 pages, a length that I felt would be truly satisfying.  I loved the structure of the Triwizard Tournament and the three tasks.  

And I was absolutely chilled at the scene in the graveyard.  I felt that Harry's choice, hiding behind that gravestone and deciding to face Voldemort even though it meant certain death, was the bravest thing I'd ever seen anyone do, equaling the moment where Sam Gamgee takes the One Ring from the (he believes) dead Frodo to carry on the quest alone.

On my re-read, I felt much the same way.  I realize that the Barty Crouch storyline is muddled and not as well plotted as it could be, and I do think that J.K. Rowling could have used a little more time to tidy things up overall.  But the power of the story, the power of what Harry faces, is so overwhelming that such piddly objections are swept aside.

This is the book where Voldemort became real to me, where I first am able to take his threat seriously.  In the first three books, all that "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named" stuff feels a little nonsensical.  Here, I start to understand why no one wants to name him.  The amount of palpable evil packed in to a very few chapters is still powerful, even (especially?) when we know where the story is going.  And I loved it, on this re-read, that so much of Voldemort's

evil is expressed through his utterly selfish ego, rather than through some kind of snarling, bloodthirsty caricature.

Rereading while already knowing the end of the story made certain sections pop for me.  The "cold open" at the Riddle House, which previously seemed maybe a slightly leisurely way to start the story, suddenly was full of portents:  It was important that we were in the hometown of Tom Riddle, because I knew we'd be coming back here to meet the Gaunts.  Nagini was suddenly more than just dangerous "color" -- she was the living container of part of Voldemort's very soul!

(And I have suddenly realized a possible reason why, on the re-read, Sorcerer's Stone and Prisoner of Azkaban didn't pop for me the way Chamber of Secrets and Goblet of Fire do:  Chamber and Goblet place two Horcruxes right in front of us.  On the re-read, I can now recognize them for what they are, and the level of threat they carry is therefore so much stronger than when I first read the books.)

Rereading, I found myself less interested in the tasks of the Triwizard Tournament, and more interested in keeping an eye on Moody, the real danger to Harry.  I also found myself deeply appreciating the invention of the Pensieve (for my money, the best-named creation in the whole HP saga), even though I knew I would come to grow a tad weary of it in Half-Blood Prince.  How I would love a Pensieve of my own!

I also enjoyed watching the various romantic relationships start to get going.  Primary, of course, is the Hermione/Ron interplay surrounding the Yule Ball, but all the hints about Harry crushing on Cho and Ginny crushing on Harry are firmly in place by now.  I always felt, from the time I finished reading the first three books one after another, that all the foreshadowing led to Harry-and-Ginny and Hermione-and-Ron (I never understood for a second where the Harry/Hermione "shippers" were coming from), and it was fun to see the clues falling in place here.  

Re-reading the graveyard scene was, if anything, more ominous this time around because I know the end of the story:  I know why Voldemort is fixated in Harry, I know how very dangerous he will prove to be, I know the sacrifices Harry will make to fight him.  It made me think about how good it is that we don't know the end of our own stories ahead of time, because if we knew what was coming, we might very well refuse to go forward.  Harry's bravery continued to take my breath away because I knew how much more he would have to face in his future, and the fact that he could do what he did at the age of 14 (the age of my own son) simply floored me.

I do have to say, my first time around, having read the news that an "important character" would die in Goblet, I sort of shrugged off Cedric's death.  He wasn't that important a character, certainly not one that we had invested in emotionally at all in previous books.  This time around, knowing that Cedric was the first of so many, knowing the impact his death would have on Harry (seeing the Thestrals, his relationship with Cho, the sheer heartlessness of "Kill the spare," etc.), it hit me so much more.

And for me, the heart of the whole HP saga is summed up in Dumbledore's speech to the students about Cedric's death:  "If the time should come when you have make a choice between what is right and what is easy..."  Not what is "right" vs. what is "wrong," as we normally think about it.  The clash of what is right vs. what is easy powers so many of Harry's choices in the books yet to come, and it powers so many of my own choices.  That contrast made me start to think about my own choices in a different way the first time I read it, and it still makes me stop to rethink my choices today.

On both reads, Goblet of Fire was where the Harry Potter story got serious, where it started to become more than a really well-told children's story.  By the first chapter of Order of the Phoenix, it was abundantly clear that we were no longer telling a children's story at all.  And that's where we'll go next time...

MOVIE THOUGHTS: NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM 2: BATTLE FOR THE SMITHSONIAN

So we were in Santa Barbara, and we'd finished our shopping on State Street, and it was too cold to go to the beach, and it was too early for dinner, and there was a movie theatre right down the block, and it was playing Night at the Museum 2 and so we thought, "Hey, why not?"

And that's about the right level of personal commitment to make to this movie.  It's not a must-see-at-any-cost movie, but if you have a free evening, or you have young kids and want to give them a treat, or it's too hot outside and you really need some air conditioning, then NATM2 is just the ticket.

I was not the extreme fan of the original as many folks I know.  (And of course, many folks here in Hollywood are fans based on its outsized box office; it seems we can't walk into a meeting without someone saying "We're looking for something with a 'Night at the Museum' tone to it.)  I thought it was an intensely great concept, with a pretty decent execution, but I did 

end up wanting more out of it.

I feel pretty much the same way about the sequel:  Still a brilliant concept (though no longer fresh to the audience, of course), and a pretty decent movie... but such a great concept could have (should have) been even better.

As you can tell from the trailers and TV ads, in NATM2, we've moved on to the Smithsonian's multi-faceted museums, where the exhibits are once again magically coming to life, and Ben Stiller (no longer the clueless museum guard he was in #1) has to fix it all.  And of course, he does, with the help of the come-to-life exhibits themselves.

Ben Stiller is fine, but stealing the scene from him are Hank Azaria as lisping pharoah Kahmunrah (who has some of the funniest moments in the film) and especially Amy Adams as Amelia Earhart.  Adams just brightens the screen every time she steps into frame, and singlehandedly grounds the movie in an emotional reality and sense of excitement it wouldn't have otherwise.  I strongly suspect that without Adams, NATM2 wouldn't have the box office legs its already beginning to show.

Special effects are fine and fairly seamless.  Most of what we see we saw in the first movie, with the only really new eye candy being the flight on the Wright Flyer and Lincoln coming alive inside his Memorial.  

It does feel as if a fair amount of negotiation was involved in this movie.  The Darth Vader and Oscar the Grouch moments (played to death in the trailers) are funny, but we have to wonder why we didn't get more with these characters.  Why do I suspect the numbers of seconds each could appear onscreen is in a contract somewhere?...  

Bottom line:  If you see it, you'll find something to enjoy.  If you miss it, you won't be kicking yourself.  If you're arguing over which movie to see, it's a good compromise.  And if you have young kids, it's a must.