Jeremy:
I get this question a lot. Dads are just like, “I’m starting to wanting to have different theme nights. One of them is a movie night, but we keep running out of movies,” so we have a cool fathers’ Facebook group. Sometimes, people will share different movies that really resonate with their kids. As much as we often try to steer kids away from screens, I think helping them get emersed in epic stories is also really valuable, especially if you’re doing it together. I know we can take pot shots at screens because we spend way too much time on them, but they do have their uses and one of them is there’s some great movies out there that tell amazing stories that we want our kids to hear and be emersed in. There’s lots of them, so I thought Jeff and I can go back and forth on some that we really loved. One that our family is totally into is Kubo and the Two Strings. This is a great little film, Japanese movie. I know Jeff wants to take a pot shot at the style aesthetic of it.

Jeff:
Not my favorite, but as long as it’s a good story.

Jeremy:
It’s beautiful and it’s a great story. That’s one that we like. There’s a bunch of these, so keep going back and forth. Jeff, what are you guys into?

Jeff:
For us, one thing that our kids are absolutely obsessed with … Just real quick thought too like you said, we’re actually a pretty hyper vigilant no screen family. We can be with toddlers, they don’t really need them at all. Even then, we have one TV in our house. It remains hidden, no cable, et cetera, but we kept it. We almost got rid of all screens, but we kept it because I feel like film is so powerful, stories are so powerful, especially collectively as a family. There’s a huge difference of a family individually being glued to screens and then families partaking together collectively in story and in film. I can’t wait until the kids are older because I think once you start getting into a little bit more serious realistic films, it’s a brilliant opportunity for conversation starters and for let’s chat about this. What did you see there? Et cetera.

Now at our age, yes. Another one that our kids are obsessed with right now is the entire Cars trilogy. It’s one of the only movies they’ve actually seen at this age because they just want to watch that one over and over again. Everyone in the family gets named based on the cars, so Kinsley’s Lightning McQueen, I think I’m Doc, Alyssa is Sally. Totally emersed in it. They bring that world out into the house. We engage with it, we love it. That’s a good one.

Jeremy:
I think this is probably obvious, but I want to say it because I think it’s really incredible. That is the Incredibles.

Jeff:
Touche.

Jeremy:
I did not mean to do that, sorry. Somebody edit that.

Jeff:
Dad joke.

Jeremy:
What’s really cool about it is that it’s like the first time that I’ve seen a movie who’s theme is a family team where you take all the individual, literally in the course of the movies, super powers and you see what happens when they work together. That story is … That is the story we’re trying to tell in family teams. One of the things I love about sometimes with films, particularly the epic animation films, is that often times they reflect the emergent longing or the longing that’s just about over the horizon, that’s just emerging right now in the culture. I think there is this emerging desire to see, what is this thing called the family four? I think that the Incredibles is a really great illustration of you all got super powers, we all need to be working together, and that’s what those movies are trying to illustrate. It’s beautiful, it’s awesome.

Jeff:
Totally, and then two for us which I actually think in this, I’m glad Disney actually started to go a different direction with not just always the princess, the damsel in distress, the romantic love story. Even though those are great and even though there’s elements of things that those are great, I do like that recently they’ve taken some turns that I actually think elevate family love over just romantic allure or something like that, right?

Jeremy:
Yes.

Jeff:
The two movies I think of that is Mauna and Frozen. Frozen clearly is a movie where she picks family love over the typical prince charming, et cetera. Now, I’m not talking about … What I like about that is I feel like it provides a really cool construct for us to then bring that back to the family and say look at this. The family seemed to have a unity, a love, and a devotion that seemed to trump, because they weren’t married so they’re not family yet, this trope of the prince charming who actually ended up being a bad guy. Then, Mauna on the same front. Each movie by the way really comes down to interpretation. I think a lot of times, Christians can nitpick certain movies of it’s teaching this or it’s teaching that. It really depends on what you bring back to the family and say let’s talk about this. Mauna has some weird spiritual themes of course, but it also has brilliant themes. One of those again is the blend or the tension between individual longing, but also wanting to be connected to your past in a multi generational family. Mauna is entirely about her rediscovering the story of her family hundreds of years ago. I love again bringing that message back to the family rather than maybe some of the more interesting weird parts. Those are two I would say.

Jeremy:
It’s crazy when you see that multi generational, it’s happening more and more probably in the movie, talk about weird themes, but one that you can really see is that movie Coco. Have you guys seen that one?

Jeff:
Yes, that one’s brilliant because again Latin America ideology is brilliant at connecting yourselves to multi generational legacies.

Jeremy:
Yes, it really goes deep into that conversation in that movie, so I definitely think that you should check that one out. By the way, I think Kelsey almost had a conniption when you said Frozen, so all of my girls have some kind of aversion to Frozen. She doesn’t have a mic, so she can’t explain this to me. I try to ask them why I’m like, “Jeff loves Frozen.”

Jeff:
Exactly, right. I went and saw it three times in theaters by myself before we had children. I love the soundtrack. Now, I think Frozen’s weird because it takes on-

Jeremy:
I think you got over awed by that music, Jeff.

Jeff:
Exactly. I got hypnotized.

Jeremy:
Let it go.

Jeff:
Frozen is weird because it does … Touche. That one does take on two roads where it’s either a hyper princess-y movie that some people don’t like or like I said, I really liked the more familial connection it makes. Yes, that’s funny.

Jeremy:
Obviously, others that are awesome, Inside Out, so fun to talk about emotions. I love the metaphor they created there. There’s a movie called Wonder. If you haven’t seen that, there’s a tension that’s so interesting between the main character and his older sister that is beautifully done in that movie. In terms of sibling relationships, I think having a conversation around that with Wonder and it’s got lots of other great themes. Then, of course if you want to have fun, there probably is no more funny movie to our family than the Emperor’s New Groove. Absolutely, has the best lines of just about any animated movie ever made. That’ll round out my list on movies. You got anything else for us?

Jeff:
That’s all I got. Some of those, Inside Out is brilliant. That was another one I was going to say because I feel like it just gives words, language, and pictures to be able to really help construct and communicate about emotions to your kids, which are so important. Don’t stuff them, you have them, they’re important, but they also are not the end all be all. There’s different ones. It’s like an undertone in that movie if you notice at the very end too when they go through all the different peoples’ brains, different emotions are on the driver’s seat in different peoples’ brains, which I think is a really interesting subtle picture or truth they allude to there. Which one are you letting drive the car per se? That’s all we got, guys. Don’t be mindlessly screen watching people, but let film and story be a beautiful tool to construct conversations and build your family culture.