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"And how long will it last, Woody? Do you really think Andy is going to take you to college? Or on his honeymoon? Face it, Woody. Andy is growing up, and there is nothing you can do about it."

Inherent in these questions posed by Stinky Pete at the halfway mark of Toy Story 2 is an encapsulation of the beauty, the sadness, the deeper meaning and the heartache of the film. Toys are there to be loved, and to love their owners back. But children grow up. "Childish" things must be put away, we are often told, and it is a toy's existential dilemma to live each day teetering somewhere between those two extremes. With 20/20 hindsight and the knowledge that Toy Story 3 rests on the horizon next summer, there is also more than a little pointed foreshadowing in Pete's words.

But there I made the film sound as dire as a 19th century Russian tragedy. What is remarkable about Toy Story 2 is how it balances joy and silliness, punch lines, sight gags and winking humor with a deeper melancholy and an awareness and respect for the ways in which time marches on. As I was typing the first paragraph, I felt myself getting teary, much as I did during the sequence in Toy Story 2 where Jessie recounts her own story to Woody and Sarah McLachlan sings Randy Newman's "When She Loved Me" on the soundtrack. It's a terribly affecting moment and offers at least some rebuke to the notion that the talent at Pixar is weak and/or lacking in writing for female characters. It must be said, however, that those who know me well would say this is just one of many examples of me being sappy. Perhaps, but I also have a deep loathing of films that work to pluck my heartstrings like cheap material as opposed to playing them like a fine violin. I am happy to be moved when an emotional moment rings true. With equal fervor, I would love to set fire to all prints of Pay It Forward, Patch Adams and that ilk with their dime-store philosophies, cloying and cruel sentimentality, and self-congratulatory trimmings.

And now I have gotten myself distracted. I was going to post a few words about my feelings towards Pixar. I must confess, while I admire their consistent streak of quality, or at the very least, their endeavor to release quality productions, I don't have quite the reverence for them that some of my compatriots at Box Office Prophets do. I haven't even seen all of their productions yet (ixnay on Cars and Ratatouille) and out of the rest have seen most but not all in the theaters (I chose to wait for home viewing on Monsters, Inc. and Finding Nemo). This is due really to my own small quirks about animation. For a large past of my adult life, I have gone through stretches where I simply haven't wanted to see animated programming. It's odd; I will be the first to admit. It is not the same as saying, "I am tired of romantic comedies or horror films". Those are genres and animation is, well, more of a style, even if it is often simultaneously viewed as a genre to boot.

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