Please don't spend money on this.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

I watched an episode where John is discovering that life is moving fast, "running" as it were. His 25th High School Reunion is taking place and he is not comfortable with the reality. This is an episode about running & walking thru life and the affect that one person has on so many others. It's a stunning piece of television as in the end it is John who is amazed that it is he who was & is the "boy most likely to succeed." And it is he who is "graveled" to silence as his classmate cites him painstakingly and at length about 25 years of running and walking and of life and lives.Television can be so brilliant and here it is.

In the entertainment industry today, most casting directors want the extraordinary looks first, and then if that's present, the acting skills are then evaluated. The Walton's television series of the 1970's was an extraordinary exception. Almost none of the cast had the looks of the typical 1970's to early 1980's television stars like, Jacqueline Smith, Lee Majors, Joan Collins or Farrah Fawcett. Seeing an old woman with her granddaughter sitting at the family table and preparing beans for the family meal is something which will never be seen again on American television in the foreseeable future. They say grace at meals, and they attend the local protestant church. (Interestingly, European television shows portray more "ordinary" people.) The Waltons are middle-class people living during the Great Depression in the 1930's. Their clothes are ordinary and even drab. The women wear very little makeup, and they drive average cars from the period. They live in a humble two-story house with small bedrooms, a kitchen and eating area. Occasionally they listen to the radio dramas at night. They don't wear furs or silk, drive in Cadillacs, and reside in a large luxury manor whose entryway is larger than most people's apartments. This was probably the most honest portrayal of a middle class family ever to air on television. The characters of the show engage in regular work: preparing meals, chopping down trees, and buying goods at the local general store. Within this show were interesting stories often centered on some kind of stranger staying with the Waltons during the course of an episode. The character at the heart of the show was John-Boy Walton (played by Richard Thomas), loosely based on the series' writer-creator Earl Hamner. John-Boy is an aspiring writer, and at the beginning of each episode, the voice of Earl Hamner tells the story of the Waltons as if looking back to his past. The Waltons was loosely based on Hamner's experiences growing up in depression-ear Virginia. Other characters of note are John Walton Sr. (Ralph Waite), Olivia Walton (Michael Learned), Grandpa (Will Geer), Grandma (Ellen Corby), and John-Boy's brothers and sisters. Other supporting characters lived around the town, such as Ike Godsey and his wife at the General store, and two spinster sisters who are the wealthiest of the locals. The Waltons and their surrounding community are Protestant Christians who frown on things like alcohol, even though most likely the story is set just after Prohibition. Every once in awhile, Grandpa, my favorite character of the show, would spike lemonade with a "secret formula" and then plead innocence when it was found out. One Walton trademark which kind of entered into the American lexicon is the voice-overs which occur at the end of each episode where the characters speak about what they experienced, a bit like the ending jokes of many television westerns and even Star Trek. The voice-overs always occurred with a birds-eye view of the Waltons' house at night with a couple of the windows still lit. Then after all the good-nights were said, the light in the windows would dim. (I remember seeing a Mad Magazine spoof of Star Trek with an illustration of the hull of the ship, and the captions read: "Good night Captain. Good night Mr Spock. Good night John-Boy.")One of the few television series which portrays a family dealing with the real issues of family life in the 1930's. Not glamorous, not beautiful, but very real. If you're interested in seeing something of substance, try the Waltons. However, if you wish to see a production which takes you to fantasy-land, like Charlies's Angels, best look elsewhere.

I absolutely love this show, I highly recommend it - especially with such high-intensity stuff and the shows they have now, I find myself watching too much of them and then I watch the Waltons and it's such a breath of fresh air. It makes you long for a simple life and to be a part of their family. I'm in my mid-thirty's, I didn't really watch it when I was younger, back then I loved Little House on the Prairie. But when I became disabled and was at home all the time I started watching this wonderful show and I couldn't get enough. I'd remember a show here and there I may have seen in my past, but I wanted to watch all the shows and not miss anything. I came into it later in the series and once it hit the end I knew I had to buy all of them and now watching the reunion movies. I do have some questions though for those who have watched them all so this is a spoiler as well. In one of the Mother's Day Reunions, they have Mary Ellen get married to Jonesey, and they went camping on their honeymoon, she left in their jeep to get supplies and as she was coming down the mountain had a wreck. The DR said at the hospital that it was more than her spleen that was injured, that she also had tearing down into the uterus (not sure how to word all that) and she wouldn't be able to have kids b/c when her belly would grow out it would bust all the stitching and could kill the baby and or her. Yet in a Thanksgiving Reunion she has kids and they look a lot like Walton children and it never says they were adopted or if she was somehow able to have kids.Also in this same episode, Ben and Cindy have lost their first child Virgina a couple of years ago to some accident, they don't go into detail. BUT what happened to their boy Charlie that was born when Virginia was a toddler? They don't have him in the show and they don't mention him. Just my curiosities if anyone knows any different or it may be the show's were just made that way and past things were forgotten or just changed. I'm big on finding errors in scenes/sets/scripts etc. No matter, this show will always be at the top of my list!

This is a delightful series with wholesome values that my own family often watched together during my son's earlier growing up years. It chronicles the ongoing story of a Depression Era family living in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia...often seen though the eyes of the oldest son John Boy, a budding author, who relates his family's experiences in a journal. The series follows the Walton family through both the Depression and World War II. It also portrays the career paths, courtships, & marriages of many of the children, the births of new grandchildren, and the illnesses, aging, & deaths of some of the characters.The mother, Olivia, is a devout Baptist who must deal with an extended stay in hospital as she suffers from tuberculosis. The father, John, though perhaps a little lapsed in his own faith, runs a saw mill and is a hard working man of integrity. The couple have seven children. John Boy eventually goes off to Richmond for college, Boatwright University, and later embarks upon a journalistic career in New York. Mary Ellen, a feisty tomboy, grows up to become a nurse and marries a doctor, Curtis Willard, sent to Pearl Harbour just prior to the Japanese attack. Jason is the family's budding musician, sometimes providing lively entertainment at the local Dew Drop Inn. Ben marries at a young age the pretty Cindy, and the two are set up with charming little accommodations adjacent to the main Walton house. Erin, the pretty one with her various beaux, is employed at the local telephone switchboard and later by G.W. Haines. Jim Bob is a mechanical tinkerer, and Elizabeth the rather spoiled and generally irritating baby of the family. Also living under the same roof are John's parents, the devilish but wise old Grandpa Zebulun and the strict & proper but feisty Grandma Esther. Years ago, it became a family chuckle that if Grandma Walton wouldn't have approved of the language, then it just wasn't acceptable! The banter between these grandparents is absolutely precious. I liked the multi generational aspects of the program with eventually four generations of Waltons. An ongoing storyline involved the stroke suffered by Grandma (and actress Ellen Corby), which restricted her movement and left her with a severe speech impediment. Also, actor Will Greer passed away, so the family was forced to grieve the loss of Grandpa.The likable country store keeper, Ike Godsey, and his prim & snooty wife, Corabeth, appear regularly on the show. Other local characters are featured, including Yancy Tucker and a succession of various parsons (one was portrayed by actor John Ritter). Of course my favourites are the charming, elderly Baldwin sisters with their legendary Recipe inherited from their dearly departed father! Olivia and Grandma were strongly opposed to alcohol, but Grandpa would sometimes stop by at the Baldwins for a wee nip of the Recipe, actually moonshine whiskey. Some episodes also featured interactions with 'outsiders', including circus acrobats and gypsies.Most of the individual episodes are quite engaging, and the family's interactions even during conflict show an underlying warmth. Their famous extended calls of Good Night are of course legendary! Many plot lines revolve around their various financial struggles to live a decent life during the Great Depression. The marital relationship between John & Olivia is well captured, as well as the siblings' interactions and their relationship with their parents & grandparents.Sadly, I am not surprised that this heartwarming series is receiving a few disparaging reviews these days. Perhaps life wasn't all rosy and moral back in the 1930's with issues of poverty, racism and so forth. However, its values were generally preferable to the decaying ones of today, where materialism reigns supreme, parents & offspring alike feel entitled to their self absorbed attitude, rudeness is the norm in human interactions, the nuclear family and moral absolutes are becoming obsolete, and faith is mocked everywhere. This series represents the very antithesis of all such modern views, but thankfully, the vast majority of reviewers here still seem to appreciate it. Yes, better the Waltons than the Simpsons. My son is now a college sophomore, but admits to looking back fondly upon the series. Indeed, these Walton characters are almost like family members in many homes, including my own. My compliments to actors Ralph Waite (John), Michael Learned (Olivia), Richard Thomas (John Boy), and all the others who brought them so vividly to life. Yes, the series can be sappy at times and may not always be realistic, but it is really not overly sentimental as some claim. Rather it is a depiction of the way we should ALL treat each other and the love, closeness, concern, warmth, and often unselfish giving that should be found in ALL our homes. Pity there aren't more TV programs nowadays that give us something worthy to aspire to.