Now, instead of loading up your jalopy and heading for California, you take a second, badly paid job; 'The Grapes of Wrath' has turned into 'Nickel and Dimed.'
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
When you think about 'The Grapes of Wrath,' it's an American masterpiece, and a very long process goes into the making of such a book.
A nickel ain't worth a dime anymore.
The movie business has been in enormous flux. It's always changing, and you've got to scramble. The Internet came along and devoured the DVD backend of the movie business. Suddenly you're watching dollars turn into nickels, and that's interesting to me.
Soviet moviegoers gazed enviously on the jalopy that took the Joads from Oklahoma to California. The message Russians took from 'The Grapes of Wrath': even the poorest capitalists have cars!
When you look at 'Grapes of Wrath,' the weakest moments are those in which Steinbeck is spouting a political idea directly at the reader. The book's real power comes from its slower, broader movement.
I naively thought I would quit television writing, move up to Seattle, my novel would come out, and then I'd have a novel writing career, and so I found myself really stuck in this very poisonous self-pitying state and felt like I'd never write again. And I blamed Seattle for that.
Almost everything in 'A Day With Wilbur Robinson' has some basis in truth. And yes, my sister did pay me to feed her grapes while she talked to her boyfriend on the phone.
My first job out of college was six weeks of picking fruit alongside a dozen or so men from Mexico. The orchard was in Emmett, Idaho. The men spent almost nothing on themselves. Their paychecks went directly to their families back home.
I'd rather spend my time with grape growers than actors. In the film industry, all the money is focused on television and the stupidity of American cinema.
I am a grateful... grapefruit.