I took my son to the theater for the second time in his life to see Inside Out 2 and during the long parade of trailers he leaned over and whispered to me, "why do we keep seeing new ones of stuff we know?" - and I realized, yeah almost every single one was a sequel. And we were there to see a sequel. And it seems pretty dire that that's seemingly all we get in the big blockbuster sphere, the family movie sphere. But then Inside Out 2 had to go and hit me right in the guts at its emotional climax in the same way its forebear did almost a decade ago, before I became a parent.

As I sat there beside my nearly-seven year old son, watching a movie about a kid growing into a young adult and all the ugly complexities that it introduces in your body, sense of self, and your relationships, I realized that I was an easy mark. I've always open to being moved by film, but since becoming a dad I've become a downright softy for certain themes. Anything that makes my mind race in fast forward through my son's imagined future adolescence and my heart ache at the thought of him moving apart from me, while knowing that it'll be an important step in him becoming his own person and that it's a good thing... goddamn. There's an easy way to shoot me in the guts and turn my eyes misty. He kept grinning and kicking his legs around (nobody in front of us) and occasionally turning to me to ask things like, "what's nostalgia, daddy?" Ideal theatrical scenario.

Like the first movie it talks about our emotional inner lives in a way that's easy for kids to grasp and also works as a nice little trippy adventure flick, everything dovetailing in a crescendo of action, character, and genuine feeling. It's awesome how my son is starting to actually want to talk about movies and recognize the different aspects that go into them, and although a lot of the puberty stuff flew over his head, he had a firm grasp on all the emotions in the story and had a lot of thoughtful questions on the way home.

We ended up talking about nostalgia almost until bedtime.