Posts from — November 2005

most holiday traditions in my house include going to a movie, and this thanksgiving was no exception. mom, david, amy and I strolled over to the st. john’s theater on friday, where, for the overall and unbelievable price of 15 bucks for the four of us, we settled in to watch joaquin phoenix play johnny cash.
I gotta say that I walked in having medium-range expectations for this movie– I’ve never been a big joaquin fan, and johnny cash was/is so iconic that I figured seeing someone else play him would be really distracting, but…
what a damn good movie. phoenix and reese witherspoon were both better than expected as johnny and june, and as a whole, the movie was really well put together. and though it was full of every expected cliché in this type of story (multiple times I knew just what was gonna happen next), the sincerity and heart with which it was made carried it through. and unlike ray, which I felt was pretty mediocre beyond jamie foxx, the decision to have phoenix and witherspoon do their own singing was a fantastic choice– you could really tell that they were feeling these songs and both sang quite well. phoenix especially gets big ups for both his singing and speaking voice; while he’s usually pretty nasal, he nailed the deep cash signature sound here. and it had that sappy romantic angle that i nearly always fall for (if it’s done well and believably, as it was here). a pleasant surprise.

and if it doesn’t make you wanna go out and buy every single johnny cash album you don’t already have (I’m somewhat ashamed to say that I only have one), then there’s something seriously wrong with you.