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Blind Side, The (2009)
Planet 51 (2009) Twilight Saga: New Moon, The (2009) Red Cliff (2009) Messenger, The (2009) Oh My God (2009) 2012 (2009) Pirate Radio (2009) Box, The (2009) Fourth Kind, The (2009) Men Who Stare at Goats, The (2009) Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by S... Christmas Carol, A (2009) Michael Jackson's This Is It (2009) Amelia (2009) Antichrist (2009) Astro Boy (2009) Cirque Du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant... Saw VI (2009) Motherhood (2009)    
Fantastic Mr. Fox, The (2009)
Ninja Assassin (2009) Old Dogs (2009) Princess and the Frog, The (2009)
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Country Music has as a part of its roots, Gospel. Nowhere is that more evident than the recent insurgence of Gospel Messages in the popular music of the “working” man, and woman. Such recent hits as Trace Adkins’ Songs About Me, Tim McGraw’s Drugs or Jesus or Live Like You’re Dying, Craig Morgan’s That’s What I Love About Sunday’s, Billy Dean’s Let Them Be Little, or Randy Travis’ Three Wooden Crosses have shown that you can’t separate Gospel music from Country Music for very long. 
Few people have had the impact on contemporary society as has Johnny Cash. Johnny Cash was a man who never forgot his roots, and as a result, when allowed to be set free from everyone else’s expectations, he was able to create music that would last a lifetime. In many ways, Walk the Line is a docudrama of the life of Johnny Cash and his love affair with June Carter. It is more than that though; it is a self-reflective story that explores the horrors and nightmares of Cash coming to an acceptance of his music, his loves, and most importantly, himself.
Walk the Line frames itself around a pivotal moment in Johnny Cash’s career, a performance at Folsom Prison. When the film starts we see the powerful reaction of the prisoners to Cash’s music. Soon after director James Mangold brings us to Johnny’s early years and leads us through the events that brought him to this place. 
Joaquin Phoenix gets my vote for Best Actor, having seen the Johnny Cash biopic, Walk the Line, but my admiration for the movie goes beyond acting. Here, the fictionalized rise to fame of Cash doesn’t get much polish—Cash is no saint, no choir boy. But the beauty of the movie (call me crazy) is that there is a story of human fall and redemption involved that rises above one individual’s story, beyond the movie’s focus on Johnny Cash, rockstar. This movie works because it strives to define the roots of human failure, even as it highlights the very definition of salvation and redemption.
There's just something about Johnny Cash. Most people can't put their finger on it. After the screening of the film, a young college writer was asked what it was that people of his generation admired about Johnny Cash. He said it was probalby that famous photograph of Johnny flipping off the camera. And also that he collaborated with some edgy, alternative, non-christian musicians near the end of his life. Do you think this is how Johnny Cash would want to be remembered? I say with resounding confidence, yes.
Perhaps better than any other icon, Johnny Cash most closely carried the message of Christ to the world during his lifetime. Walk The Line, though not overtly Christian, certainly holds true to the spirit of love and acceptance that Christ lived. Johnny Cash exemplifies the message of hope to sinners, regardless of how twisted or destructive their lives have become. It is this same message that Christ carried to the people he encountered. Christ said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick…for I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” (Matt.9:12-13). Christ chose to dine with prostitutes and tax collectors and called the religious zealots of his day whitewashed tombs. This is what Johnny Cash did. 
IF I believed in reincarnation, Walk the Line would be a great movie to prove that theory. Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon (playing Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash) give tour de force performances as they recreate this pair of country western greats. Not only does Phoenix achieve every little twitch and tic that Johnny Cash was known for, he completely captures Cash’s voice down to the very basest of notes. Reese Witherspoon also does her own singing and amazingly becomes June Carter Cash, making her natural flair for humor and that deep Southern twang come to astonishing life. Even Ginnifer Goodwin (who plays Cash’s first wife, Vivian) brings tremendous credibility to her supporting role.
“You can’t help nobody if you can’t tell them the right story.” So says young J.R. Cash’s brother Jack early in this film. Well, Johnny Cash’s life is full of stories—a hard start in life, the death of a close family member, daddy issues, the hard road to fame, love, drug addiction, run-ins with the law, near suicide, faith, comeback, the achievement of legend status—and I wonder whether Walk the Line, in focusing so much on just one of the Man in Black’s tales, will help as many people as it could. Home | Movies | DVDs | Music | Books | Comix | TV | Games | Sports | HJ Live! | Terms & Conditions | Privacy | Contact Us | Subscribe | Donate |
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