Walk the Line

Ok, definitely sounds worth seeing anyway.... Thanks, Holds.

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The novelist does not long to see the lion eat grass. He realizes that one and the same God created the wolf and the lamb, then smiled, "seeing that his work was good".

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They had temporarily escaped the factories, the warehouses, the slaughterhouses, the car washes - they'd be back in captivity the next day but now they were out - they were wild with freedom. They weren't thinking about the slavery of poverty. Or the slavery of welfare and food stamps. The rest of us would be all right until the poor learned how to make atom bombs in their basements.

Johnny Cash was great.

Jim Mangold is great.

Roll on February....flippin' release dates...

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"Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how the Tatty 100 is done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves." - Brendan Behan

Cash definitely knew what he was doing when he picked Joaquin… and if June really did pick Reese, well... she knew what she was doing too... and Mangold also knew what he was doing when he had Joaquin and Reese do all their own singing… they were awesome...

I'm going to give it an A...

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Cool. I'm glad you found time to see it, Caitster!

I'm giving it an A as well. Just saw it this afternoon with Gracie, and we both loved it. I wasn't ever really a Cash fan, but I did get a kick out of his comeback in recent years, especially him doing a cover of NIN's "Hurt." Frankly, although I'm a NIN fan, I never bought Trent Reznor's whiny angst routine. Cash singing "Hurt" makes so much more sense and feels so much more real.

Anyway, the flick was riveting. Although Holden saw the story as typical biopic, I have to say that I knew next to nothing of Cash's life, and so I watched every minute as if it were all new to me (because it was). Phoenix and Witherspoon's singing is not just passable, but eerily uncanny at times.

The Folsom Prison backbeat is still thundering in my ears. I truly dislike country music, but I'm seriously considering buying the soundtrack. How weird is that? I mean, I'm considering buying a whole album of Johnny Cash music sung by someone else, and someone not doing a cover but trying to be Johnny Cash?

That's just seriously wrong ... but what the hey?

I tell you, when a movie can make me root for someone who's committing adultery, that's some dang good movie.

If Phoenix doesn't get the Oscar nod, I'll be stunned.

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Biopics make me sad because there is this culture where all these things happened and people were there to experience them and I wasn't.

It makes me want to experience MY culture, but my damned elders keep telling me I have none.

It's truly an existentialist existence.

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It's not even 10 a.m. and I've allready received my surprise of the day....

And what/which culture do they tell you that you don't have?

My generation. Kids these days. Etc.

Well, hey, let's keep going then.

I've been a NIN fan since 1995, own three or four CDs (don't have any recent ones yet, though).

I saw NIN in concert here when Reznor was opening for David Bowie a handful of years ago. I admit I was one of the older ones in the crowd ... but Reznor's closer to my age than the ages of the rest of the crowd, so there.

Side Note: Other faves I discovered in the mid-'90s are Sponge, Pearl Jam, Live, Bush, Filter, and Nirvana.

Yeah, I'm not as old as I look.

I was a NIN fan until the last record, peaked at the downward spiral for me. I went to see them in 2000 and Bowie the next day, it was a great weekend!

I love the NIN version of hurt but Cash does an amazing thing with it. He seems to just own every word of the lyrics and force that 'tingle'. Watch the video and you're hooked, you may even cry.

I still can't wait to see the move. It's not at all cheesy is it? I thought Ray was a little off like that...

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instrumental rock band that I am in.

I think "cheesy" isn't a word I'd use for WALK THE LINE. Phoenix's performance was so mesmerizing I couldn't have found it cheesy.

And, I think the story moves along at a good clip. There are parts of Cash's early life that could have been played up for the sappy moments (good and bad), but I don't feel the movie did that. I really don't like when movies start that over-tugging of the heartstrings, and usually I'm the first to notice it or get all sniffly. But I didn't get like that with this movie. I was fascinated through the whole thing.

And yes, Cash does seem to "own" that song -- well put. Yes, the video is chilling. And it will probably be more so for me now that I've seen the movie and know a little more of Cash's history.

I've been listening to the San Quentin album all day, only two months to wait!

Ah well, I wonder if they're already planning a Stevie Wonder movie?

It's not the age... I was just surprised that a christian lady like you is listening to NIN. It's kind of cool...

Speaking of cheesy, what the hell was Dennis Quaid drinking when he did Jerry Lee Lewis? That was so over the top it could have been a comedy.

I used to confuse Dennis Quaid with Jeff Bridges...about the same age, both with acting brothers. Quaid has done a few good things but I prefer Bridges. Maybe Bridges can do a Waylan Jennings biopic.

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My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius, commander of the Armies of the North, General of the Felix Legions, loyal servant to the true emperor, Marcus Aurelius. Father to a murdered son, husband to a murdered wife. And I will have my vengeance, in this life or the next.

Piddy, "Christian" doesn't mean "stick in the mud." You should listen to some good Christian alternative music. It's out there. Like all genres, some of it is bad, but some of it is amazingly good. And, when I discovered alternative, angsty music was during a period when I could really relate to it, so it really stuck with me, no matter who was playing it.

I admit, with Reznor, it was "Head Like a Hole" that did me in.

Twain ... I used to get Jeff Bridges and Jeff Daniels mixed up, until I married a man who used to look eerily like Jeff Daniels. Now I never get them mixed up.

And yeah, Quaid doing JLL was horrible, wasn't it? The guy playing him in WALK THE LINE was quite good, I thought, without going overboard.

Well, I do listen to Johnny Cash a lot and he did lots of religious tunes. I love gospel.

Saw Walk the Line today and it definitely lived up to the good reviews. Phoenix was outstanding and Witherspoon was very good also. It may be the best biopic of a music legend that I've seen. But I still haven't seen Ray.

The early scenes of Cash's childhood with the tragedy and domestic problem were well done and helped explain the turmoil in his young adulthood. My one minor quibble might be that the pill popping consumed too much of the film. But I guess pill popping consumed a big part of his life.

Even I am not old enough to remember Cash's early days in rock n roll. When he hung out and toured with Presley, Orbison, JL Lewis and Waylan Jennings. My memory is of the 60s and 70s when he was primarily a country artist. But I'm not sure Cash can be categorized. He wrote and performed great personal songs that happened to be marketed as country.

Not many biopics of legends that I've seen have done much to advance the legendary status of their subject. This one did. It took a legendary performer and made him even more legendary. And it didn't do it with literary license or puffed up bravado. It took a simple and sometimes tragic story of an imperfect man who struggled with his demons and then overcame them...with the love of a good woman.

Highly recommended, rating: A-