All of life's riddles are answered in the movies

In the 1991 movie "Grand Canyon" Steve Martin plays a movie producer whose best friend is immigration lawyer Kevin Kline. At one point he says to Kline: "You know what your problem is? You haven't seen enough movies. All of life's riddles are answered in the movies." I think there is substantial truth in that saying. Seventy five years ago, people read more. And not just magazines and newspapers. They read more books. In the nonfiction field, each book was a story that could teach something to the reader by showing them another world.

Even today, with the Second Great Depression underway, I think it would be rare to find a person who has read John Steinbeck's 1939 classic Grapes of Wrath. Set during the First Great Depression, the book focuses on a poor family of sharecroppers, the Joads, driven from their home by drought, economic hardship, and changes in the agriculture industry. Other than some details, there are millions of Joads across America today.

Movies, today, are the equivalent of books of 75 years ago.

Michael Moore's latest movie, "Capitalism: A love story" hasn't been released yet but for those of us who are socially aware, there won't be anything new in it. It is my hope that it will provide a much needed spark of insight in the psyches of many Americans who still believe that capitalism is basically okay, just going through a bit of a "rough patch".

Then, there's Oliver Stone's 1987 movie "Wall Street" starring Michael Douglas as Gordon Gekko, the king of greed. Shooting is now under way for this unexpected sequel, "Wall Street 2". Read about it here http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/08/movies/08stone.html?pagewanted=1.