Movie: Johnny Cash's Walk The Line

[Soulstation1]

thinking of checking it out today

i know the manager and she said she'd get me in

not big Cash or country music fan

movie has received good reviews

[RDK]

Amazingly, it's the highest-grossing drama of the year. A very good film.

[BruceH]

I saw it a week or two ago. Surprisingly good. Of course, I was expecting it to be pretty damn bad...low expectations always help. And I am a longtime Cash fan, particularly his Sun stuff, so keep that in mind. Also, the movie has a lot of the typical bio-pic tropes. But on the other hand, it has Reese Witherspoon, who gave a solid performance as June Carter (far more believable than J. Phoenix's as Cash for my money.) But hey, if you can get in for free, it's worth two hours of your time.

[AllenLowe]

I love Cash, but I don't know if I could listen to Phoneix singing for 2+ hours -

[Guy Berger]

I dug the movie, and my familiarity with Cash is almost nil.

Guy

[Rooster_Ties]

I dug the movie, and my familiarity with Cash is almost nil.

Guy

Ditto for me, on both counts.

[jlhoots]

thinking of checking it out today

i know the manager and she said she'd get me in

not big Cash or country music fan

movie has received good reviews

I think you should pay to get in like the rest of us.

Good movie.

Go to a matinee if you need a "reduced" admission charge.

[Noj]

I hear ol' Joaquin rolled his car last night in the Hollywood Hills. He says his brakes went out.

[clifford_thornton]

I'd believe that from someone without the last name Phoenix, but considering his history...

Good movie, though.

[Stereojack]

I usually have trouble with biopics like this - too much fictionalization. I saw this, however, in spite of my reservations, and thoroughly enjoyed it. I was especially impressed with Reese Witherspoon, who in the past seems to have wasted her talents on light fare, but she really nails the June Carter character.

[AllenLowe]

I love Cash - great dignified singer, fine songwriter, really represents some of the most important things in American pop music of the 1950s and 1960s - also, he's one of the few famous musicians that I admire unreservedly as a person - he was honest, compassionate, tolerant, treated people well, paid attention to what was going on outside of his own musical orbits, and helped a lot of people -

[Adam]

Structurally it is almsot the exact same as "Ray," and I woould be interested to start both simultaneously and see if certain scenes even hit at the same time.

So it has the limitations of a Hollywood bio-pic.

That said, I think it's pretty enjoyable for what it is.

I also think the best moment of the film is the opening credit sequence.

For free? It's worth seeing. "Capote" is better though.

[JSngry]

Meditate on it.

[BruceH]

I usually have trouble with biopics like this - too much fictionalization. I saw this, however, in spite of my reservations, and thoroughly enjoyed it. I was especially impressed with Reese Witherspoon, who in the past seems to have wasted her talents on light fare, but she really nails the June Carter character.

Check out the films Election and Pleasantville. Witherspoon is top notch in both.

The more I think about Walk the Line, the more I think that Witherspoon practically stole the movie from Phoenix.

[Stereojack]

Check out the films Election and Pleasantville. Witherspoon is top notch in both.

The more I think about Walk the Line, the more I think that Witherspoon practically stole the movie from Phoenix.

Those were OK, as was one of her first films, Man In the Moon. I was thinking more of The Legally Blond films and Sweet Home Alabama. I agree that she pretty much steals Walk the Line.

[medjuck]

Structurally it is almsot the exact same as "Ray," and I woould be interested to start both simultaneously and see if certain scenes even hit at the same time.

So it has the limitations of a Hollywood bio-pic.

That said, I think it's pretty enjoyable for what it is.

I also think the best moment of the film is the opening credit sequence.

For free? It's worth seeing. "Capote" is better though.

But unlike Ray they didn't use the real singer's voice. Phoenix was ok but I wanted to hear Johnny Cash. I also think they made the songs sound a bit less C&W than the originals.

[BruceH]

Structurally it is almsot the exact same as "Ray," and I woould be interested to start both simultaneously and see if certain scenes even hit at the same time.

So it has the limitations of a Hollywood bio-pic.

That said, I think it's pretty enjoyable for what it is.

I also think the best moment of the film is the opening credit sequence.

For free? It's worth seeing. "Capote" is better though.

But unlike Ray they didn't use the real singer's voice. Phoenix was ok but I wanted to hear Johnny Cash. I also think they made the songs sound a bit less C&W than the originals.

Yes, this occured to me while watching the picture. But the only alternative would have been to have Phoenix lip-sync, in effect, to the originals. Having Cash's inimitable voice coming out of Phoenix's mouth would have been far more distracting to me.

[JohnJ]

I love Cash - great dignified singer, fine songwriter, really represents some of the most important things in American pop music of the 1950s and 1960s - also, he's one of the few famous musicians that I admire unreservedly as a person - he was honest, compassionate, tolerant, treated people well, paid attention to what was going on outside of his own musical orbits, and helped a lot of people -

Could not agree more.

Guess I will have to wait a while before it comes to Japan.

[AllenLowe]

Phoenix's decision to do the vocals was a bad one and, and, I'm willing to bet, attributable to simple actor's vanity -

[Jim Alfredson]

Structurally it is almsot the exact same as "Ray," and I woould be interested to start both simultaneously and see if certain scenes even hit at the same time.

So it has the limitations of a Hollywood bio-pic.

That said, I think it's pretty enjoyable for what it is.

I also think the best moment of the film is the opening credit sequence.

For free? It's worth seeing. "Capote" is better though.

But unlike Ray they didn't use the real singer's voice. Phoenix was ok but I wanted to hear Johnny Cash. I also think they made the songs sound a bit less C&W than the originals.

In "Ray", the singing was a combination of Charles himself and Foxx as well.

[RDK]

Phoenix's decision to do the vocals was a bad one and, and, I'm willing to bet, attributable to simple actor's vanity -

From all accounts, it wasn't Phoenix's decision, but the director/producer's. Phoenix was apparently reluctant to do them; it had nothing to do with vanity. For what it's worth, I'm glad that he did them rather than dub in Johnny.

[Stereojack]

Phoenix's decision to do the vocals was a bad one and, and, I'm willing to bet, attributable to simple actor's vanity -

From all accounts, it wasn't Phoenix's decision, but the director/producer's. Phoenix was apparently reluctant to do them; it had nothing to do with vanity. For what it's worth, I'm glad that he did them rather than dub in Johnny.

I was apprehensive about this going in, but got used to it pretty quickly, and really didn't find it to be a distraction. Phoenix does really well in mimicing Johnny's on stage moves, btw.

[Adam]

Phoenix's decision to do the vocals was a bad one and, and, I'm willing to bet, attributable to simple actor's vanity -

Most assuredly this was a choice by the director and producer, not Phoenix's. He has repeatedly expressed his trepidation about doing the singing (as did Reese Witherspoon)

In this day and age where everyone seems to know too much about how films are made, and how much money they make, it's refreshing to read such a nice innocent remark. :-)

The main reason probably has to do with money, closely followed by performance. To use Cash's voice would require licensing both the mechanical rights from Sony (the actual recordings) in addition to the synch rights (the publishing, or the written song). To have Phoenix sing... no mechanical license.

Also, even if he were lip syncing to Cash's voice, he would have actually been singing during the scenes, for performance reasons. Cash's voice would be added in post-production.

Finally, in the scenes where he "writes" "Folsom Prison Blues" while in the army, and auditions it for Sam Phillips - well, there probably would be no Cash recording from those events. (Granted that the audition tape for Phillips might exist.) So Phoenix would have had to sing those scenes (or someone could have sung them anew - see "Singin' in the Rain" for that method in action). Once you had established "his" voice as Cash's voice, might it have seemed strange to have it change a little to Cash's actual voice later in the film? That's a debatable point.

[AllenLowe]

I can't believe they couldn't afford to do the licensing - and I've heard his singing, which I find unlistenable, though I have not seen the movie yet. Either way it was a major mistake, as there is really no replacing the original, especially if you want to have the performance impact. And, honestly, I'm doubtful they could have forced him to do the singing. Sorry, I still see this as a vanity issue - trust me, I know the type -

[BruceH]

Finally, in the scenes where he "writes" "Folsom Prison Blues" while in the army, and auditions it for Sam Phillips - well, there probably would be no Cash recording from those events. (Granted that the audition tape for Phillips might exist.) So Phoenix would have had to sing those scenes (or someone could have sung them anew - see "Singin' in the Rain" for that method in action). Once you had established "his" voice as Cash's voice, might it have seemed strange to have it change a little to Cash's actual voice later in the film?

Yes indeed...for me it would have been distracting as hell.