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Finally getting here to update

Well, some of you probably thought I'd abandoned this blog. Am I right? It hasn't been abandoned, life just got in the way of our movie watching. The next movie on our list was Grapes of Wrath and with our busy days at work, Brian and I just hadn't felt up to watching such a...dramatic, shall we say, movie. So, there sat the videotape, next to our t.v. for three weeks before we finally got around to watching it.

This was the 1940's version with Henry Fonda. Now, in all fairness, I didn't pay as close attention as I should have. I was doing some net surfing while watching and so missed out on most of the movie. Here are my comments on what I did see though (and yes, I will sit down and watch the movie again some day).

1) Until they ran into the character Muley at the Joad's old home, I didn't get the sense of desperation and "dust bowl life" like I did in the opening chapters of the book. Once they met up with this character and more scenes were set on the prairie dust bowl, the book truly came to life for me.

2) Henry Fonda was great as Tom Joad

3) The musical score helped capture the feeling of the time period for me.

Ma Joad had one line in particular that stood out to me. She said, "...Never had to lose everything I had in life..." That line really touched my heart and made me stop and think about what it must have been like for my grandparents living through the depression. Then it made me think about society today. Will this country ever go through anything like the depression again? Kids today, who are used to throwing something away when it gets a little worn or slightly broken, would they and could they come out as strong as families during the Depression if they suddenly lost everything they had in life? Part of me wonders, but then I see the places some of the kids in my library come from and I think, yeah, they are definitely survivors.

I gave this movie (number 21 on the AFI list) a thumbs up for the parts I saw. Brian gave it a thumbs down simply because it is not his type of movie. Stay tuned and I'll be right back with the review of our next movie, Phildelphia Story.

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