Sunday, November 20, 2005

Burn Burn Burn

Burning Ring of Fire...

That should have been the name of the Johnny Cash bio-pic (as one review suggested).

Short review: Double-plus good.

Longer review: I loved it. I will admit to becoming a fan of Mr. Cash late in the game. I started with his American series from the 1990s and 2000s. If you don't own those CDs, you should. They are very good - raw, emotional, and authentic.

Reese Witherspoon should be nominated for an Oscar for her performance. She stole the movie. Joaquin Phoenix was good, but there was something missing...but I'm not sure what. His voice was spot on to Johnny's, and Joaquin did all of the singing. Bonus points for that.

Elena pointed out the way that a lot of Cash's songs' rhythms sound like a train moving. She also loved that the record producer at the beginning said, "If you were about to die and you had a chance to sing just one more song, what would it be? What do you want to be remembered for? Something mediocre that everyone's done before? Or are you going to step out, take a risk, and do what you are passionate about?"

It's a hard question that I definitely want to consider for myself: How do I want to live?

How do you want to live?