This Should Have Won Best Picture

Rating: 10/10 (19 April 2006)

I've always said that Johnny Cash Is the only Country music worth listening to. The reason why is because Cash was heavy metal before heavy metal. Allow me to explain. Johnny Cash wrote and sang songs about killing people, doing drugs, and selling his soul. The guy was Ozzy before Ozzy. That's what made Cash so great. After seeing the very disappointing Ray (The acting was great, but even that didn't stop it from feeling like a made for TV movie on VH-1) I was a little nervous when I heard about the film on Johnny Cash, starring actors and actresses that annoy me. I can't stand Joaquin Phoenix or Reese Witherspoon. I did not hold high hopes for Walk The Line. Luckily I was proved wrong. Walk The Line was great, and it's a bio-film done right. It's the life story of Johnny Cash (Joaquin Phoenix) who has a hard live growing up in poverty stricken Arkansas, during the '20's and his life didn't get Any better after his brother dies in a horrible accident. Cash spends the rest of his life doing anything he can to make his father (Robert Patrick, Terminator 2, TV's The X-Files) love him. Cash doesn't find happiness till he plays music, but when that's not good enough for his father, or his wife that does nothing to support his love for music. It's not till he's on tour with Elvis Presley (The only flaw in the film, the man who plays Elvis looks or sounds nothing like Elvis)that he meets the woman who he feels is his soul mate June Carter (Reese Witherspoon). Walk The Line is a great film, that is more than worth seeing. Witherspoon took home The Acadamy Award for Best Actress and Phoenix should have took home the award for Best Actor. The film itself should have won best picture but sadly that award went to the very over rated Crash. Walk The Line is also fun and at the same time touching and sad. The best scene in the film is the reenactment of the live performance at Folsom Prison where Cash recorded, against the advise of all management at his record label, his best selling album to date. Plus unlike most bio-flick's Walk The Line get's it right. No artsy scenes, or dumb dream sequences like in Ray. This is the story Of Johnny and June-carter Cash plain and simple. I highly recommend this as a rental, and I wish that I saw this film in the theater. It will end up in my DVD collection much, much, much sooner than later. Walk The Line joins films such as The Shawshank Redemption and Pulp Fiction. Films that got robbed in the best picture category. On a scale of 10 I give Walk The Line a 10. Yet another great film that should have took home the best picture award and lost to garbage. That's a shame.