benjamnsnchezsblog

By Stephen Hunter

Washington Mail Staff Writer

Friday, December 21, 2007

Both Mr. Smith and Mr. Wilson went to Washington, full of high ideals, committed to progressivism and the little guy. But Mr. Smith became an icon of idealism so pure that it had to be movie-phony. Mr. Wilson dated beautiful babes, hung out in Vegas, loved his daily glasses of amber beverage on the rocks, had an all-female office staff with the biggest collective bust measurement on the Hill, and destroyed the Soviet empire.

Thus "Charlie Wilson's War," Mike Nichols's laff-a-minute chronicle of the congressman's crusade to ram funding through the House Appropriations Committee to supply arms — notably ground-to-air missiles — to the Afghani mujaheddin. He succeeded and the Russian warbirds began falling from the skies, crashing, burning and all but ending the Soviet occupation. It's also possible — opinions vary — that this development set into action internal vibrations that brought a lot of walls tumbling down. Was what came afterward better or worse? We'll never know.

This movie probably gets the Washington process better than any since Otto Preminger's underrated "Advise and Consent" back in 1962. It's not about men of virtue doing the impossible, but men of flaws doing the doable, but just barely. You don't want to look too carefully at the process, which is haphazard, greased by alcohol and a barter system of favors and flattery, big moneybags in the home state, and a lot of gumption and git-'er-done ingenuity.

Charlie, a multi-term Democrat from rural Texas who was a low-ranking grad of the Naval Academy, is played by Tom Hanks, at his unchallenged but affable best. This may be a first: I would gauge Hanks as actually much

less

attractive than Wilson, a notorious roue and ladies' man. In several of its tropes, "Charlie Wilson's War" turns on Charlie's charms with the opposite sex. Too bad they didn't make the movie when authentic Texan Sam Elliott was younger; with his drawl, his languid charm, his dark, piercing eyes, he'd have made a far more convincing Charlie than does Hanks, and you wouldn't be left with the occasional curiosity as to why she — this could be any of several shes — seems so attracted to Forrest Gump.

But the best thing about the film is the speed at which Nichols, the director, from Aaron Sorkin's snarky script, moves the thing along and keeps the cracks wise. In fact, the best relationship in the film isn't sexually driven, it's banter-driven: the weird chemistry between Charlie and CIA field agent Gust Avrakotos, an oddball Greek American with shrewd street wiles ("I've been targeted for 25 years for death by people who know what they're doing!"). Avrakotos is played in high brio by Philip Seymour Hoffman, who is terrific, as he almost always is. And the movie is calibrated to give him some big moments: his explosion at a pea-brained superior in agency headquarters is probably too cute and clever to have happened that way in real life, but it's a tour de force of comic acting.

Nichols is such an old pro that he keeps everything just flying along. In part, the film seems almost like a Howard Hawks film, with fast clever banter between antagonists and odd turns of event. It's almost like a remake of "I Was a Male War Bride," only this time under the title "I Was a Male War Midwife," for that's exactly what Charlie is.

The movie, from George Crile's bestseller of the same name, begins with Charlie in a Las Vegas hot tub among naked women, champagne, cocaine and other signals of high decadence. He's watching "60 Minutes" and catches a Dan Rather report on the struggling mujaheddin in the then-backwater of rugged, far-off Afghanistan. He is shocked to discover how little the United States is doing to help the guerrillas. The movie then follows Charlie on the road to Damascus — well, Kabul — as he is converted from go-along-to-get-along libertine to shrewd, committed political warrior, horse-trading, soothing, cajoling and brokering arms deals between sworn enemies as the CIA clandestine budget for this patch of mountain and desert in Central Asia goes from $5 million to $80 million a year. Much of this money went to Stingers, hand-held anti-aircraft missiles that cost $70,000 apiece and knocked down devil machines worth millions.

Nichols, who directed "The Graduate" 40 years ago, knows devil machines when he sees them. And rather than overdo the scenes of starving refugees with their double-amputee kids — you can't have too many scenes like that in the same movie with naked congressmen in hot tubs — he demonizes his enemy not as man but as vehicle. This is the awesome Soviet Mi-24 Hind helicopter, with its insectoid complexity, its hives of gun barrels and rocket launchers under the stubby wings, and its multi-step series of cockpits. Nichols doesn't bother to characterize the Soviet aviators or to conjure up an evil, harsh-faced Red Colonel, that staple of '50s agitprop, but he eavesdrops twice, in pre- and post-Stinger days, on the cockpit chatter. The first instance displays ho-hum pros going about the dreary business of cleansing the landscape of running peasants. The choppers are like the Death Star, awesome in the firepower they bring to bear on the virtually defenseless. They hover or leap, they chase and dart agilely, and wherever they spot life they extinguish it with fusillades of auto-cannon fire or rocket barrages.

Thus it's so nice when, chatting banally about love affairs in the bland, affectless voices of the truly disinterested, they notice the first Stinger vectoring up to resolve them into fire and ash.

Gosh, does this movie have it all or what? Smart dialogue, Julia Roberts (in a smallish role as a wealthy patroness of both Charlie and free Afghanistan) in a bikini and looking grrrrrr-eattttt, and Russian helicopters going boom! It's also short! What's not to love?

Charlie Wilson's War

(96 minutes, at area theaters) is rated R for strong language, sexual content and nudity.

Success is intoxicating, of course, and it's depressing to see what Boyle

has done with the opportunities those first two films gave him. “A Life

Less Ordinary,'' which opens today at Bay Area theaters, is a smug, bratty

road movie that feels as if it were grafted and photocopied from the films

of Joel and Ethan Coen, Oliver Stone and Quentin Tarantino.
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Cameron Diaz stars as Celine, a spoiled rich girl who can't keep a man.

Ewan McGregor, the Scottish star of “Shallow Grave'' and “Trainspotting,''

plays Robert, a janitor who after losing his job to a vacuum cleaner,

confronts Mr. Naville, Robert's boss (Ian Holm), and — in a farcical

display of incompetence — kidnaps Diaz, Naville's daughter, and holds her

for ransom.

Diaz and McGregor don't know it, but they're pawns in a celestial plan. A

pair of angels, played by Holly Hunter and Delroy Lindo, are dispatched to

bring them together, no matter what the cost, and so they manage to get

hired by Holm as bounty hunters.

What follows is an extended riff on American action-comedy cliches:

shootouts, a bungled bank robbery, a getaway car careening off a cliff, a

country-western bar, fistfights, head-butts, still more gunplay and mayhem.

Diaz is chic and manicured, and she taunts McGregor, a nerd in a Ziggy

Stardust haircut, for botching the basics of Kidnapping 101.

Boyle isn't the first British or European filmmaker to make his obligatory

zesty American road movie (apparently it's a dream for anyone raised on

American cinema), but knowing that doesn't make “A Life Less Ordinary'' any

less tiring or its numerous pilferings any less obvious or annoying.

Watching this movie made me ask: When did movies stop portraying life and

start aping other movies? There's so much that's referential,

self-referential or cannibalized in “A Life Less Ordinary'' that it feels

like snapshots from a hundred other movies, full of glib posturing and

snappy lines, with no soul or integrity.
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I liked one sequence — a musical fantasy in a country karaoke bar where

McGregor sings the Bobby Darin song “Somewhere'' and dances on a pool table

with Diaz. Both actors seem to glow with the romance of their

Fred-and-Ginger moment, and the film — all too briefly — manages to

deliver some genuine emotion free of irony.

Despite being destined at best for the sake specialist events and cultural webs, shortsmaker and storyboard artist Nichola Bruce's gold medal perform, "I Could Know the Skies," is an impressive slice of borderline avant-garde cinema, visualizing the memories, regrets and dreams of an grey Irishman dying in London. Cool tech work, mixing dusting and transferred video, is a big added to in maintaining audience concentration.

An unnamed Irish man (Dermot Healy), all sandy-white hair and straggly beard, sits rotting in a dingy, single-room apartment in London. Mostly heard in voiceover, but occasionally spoken direct to camera, his meandering, semi-poetic reminiscences of growing up on the west coast of Ireland and then moving round England as a declasse laborer are mirrored by abstract imagery and brief dialogue scenes featuring people from his past.

Though the film, based on an award-winning book, digs deep into the fatalistic melancholy at the heart of the Irish soul, it steers resolutely clear of history, politics and Anglo-Celtic differences. It's more a remembrance of things lost, an expatriate's free-form diary. Juxtaposing words and imagery, pic essentially falls into a category of Channel Four/British Film Institute–supported Brit cinema by directors like Tony Harrison ("Prometheus") and Patrick Keiller ("London"), though more dreamlike and free-flowing, and eschewing their social/political observation.

Film has no narrative, more a long emotional arc, starting with a batch of memories from which the old man summons first family and friends, dispersed by poverty, then a measure of hope and, finally, some kind of contentment ("In the morning light, I let it go"). Figure of his late wife, Maggie (Maria Doyle Kennedy), runs through the film as an emotional anchor. Stephen Rea pops up in a puzzling cameo.

Healy is first-rate as the man with only death to look forward to. Behind-camera talent includes ace d.p. Seamus McGarvey, smooth effects work that uses morphing and overlapping images, and a varied and flavorsome music soundtrack including Irish artists Sinead O'Connor and fiddle player Martin Hayes.

Ro ro, Raggy. Hanna-Barbera is giving the "Scooby-Doo" treatment to literary classics. Pressure that "gave," because these Storybook Favorites were produced in the tardy '70s, when the Riddle Gismo was in plump flower. Scooby fans will distinguish the trademark having a fondness for fire, obscurity inconspicuous music, Foley effects, and even some of the voices from the Murder story, Inc. series. And you have to tip your hat to the legendary TV impassioned filmmakers for demanding to introduce children to some of the beloved standards: Gulliver's Travels, The Form of the Mohicans, and Felonious Looker.

It's a hard order, though, transforming literary properties for a popular audience, and unbroken tougher to fully condense the novels and adapt them for younger readers or viewers. When I was growing up in the '50s, there was a jocular paperback series called Classics Illustrated, which did a much better job of staying faithful to the originals. These impassioned versions are awfully long way removed from Jonathan Swift's 1726 satirical travel novel (pictured here, courteousness of Monash University Library), James Fennimore Cooper's 1826 Leather-Stocking tale, and Anna Sewell's 1877 children's register. Deathly Attractiveness comes closest to the original, which is perhaps no madam ' because it's also the shortest book and the least complicated to adapt. Cooper's new sprawled to exactly 400 pages, while Swift's was complete to 300. Like those early Classics Illustrated comics, these 50-note films are aimed strictly at younger viewers.

"Gulliver's Travels" (1979)
This one was produced by Hanna-Barbera Australia, which also generated "The Popeye Valentine Special," "5 Weeks in a Balloon," and "The Kwicky Koala Let someone in on." Of the three classic stories included here, it's the one that offers the broadest appeal on children. In Swift's new, Lemuel Gulliver was a surgeon on a merchant ferry who was washed onto a strange land where the humans were only six inches tall. Here, he's a loving family man who chooses to to in the merchant marine in disposition to provide by reason of his brood. Expeditious intended Gulliver's adventures in Lilliput as a means of showing how small and petty politicians and the autocracy could be, supposing none of this force be on the minds of children who watch. They'll see a ominous prime assist, a illogical monarch, and a Gulliver who is mostly a benign and bemused voyager. It's all played fitted laughs.

This adaptation takes the leading two parts of Swift's unconventional and runs with it. Giving representative to Gulliver is that "Wild, Wild West" master of conceal, Ross Martin, with additional voices provided by Hanna-Barbera talents Don Messick, Janet Waldo, John Stephenson, and Julie Bennet. It's good-looking sanitized and faint-hearted, with Gulliver never in much constant danger, and outrageous events softened. In the original, for example, Gulliver urinates to put out a ardency in the Queen's bedchamber, where here it's the in one piece castle that's on fire, and the perceived behemoth sucks up a pretentiously mouthful of water and sprays it on the flames. When Gulliver is attacked by the diminutive quick relationship to Lilliput's rivals, it's as if they're using toothpicks and Lilliputian Nerf balls. When he's the little the same in a world of giants, it's all the same less terrifying than "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids." It's all played with a fey manner, rather than an ironic or perilous one.

In the novel, Gulliver visits Lilliput in part one, and in part two, Brobdingnag, where he's the Lilliputian in a world of giants. Missing in this overlay rendering are parts three and four, in which Gulliver landed on the island of Laputa, and when he encountered the Houyhnhnms (intelligent horses) and Yahoos (beasts in person turn out with fetid habits–so bamboozle that, you Network surfers!). Then again, those were the most difficult sections of the novel, and, in truth, ones that wouldn't have spoken to a young audience.

"Gulliver's Travels" is the one that my children enjoyed the most of this bunch. It's in the final analysis an appealing account, if you think about it. First a man is so large that he can drag an intact fleet in his fishing gain, then so midget that a wasp can menace him. That's hard to tip, which makes it surprising that there's never been a undoubtedly fantastic animated version of Swift's untried. This song is okay, but . . . why isn't this on Disney's radar? The success of the recent live-act TV version starring Ted Danson certainly proved that Swift's tale still holds appeal.

"The Last of the Mohicans" (1975)
The Last of the Mohicans was the second in Cooper's trilogy about Natty Bumpo, a.k.a. Hawkeye, Pathfinder, and Leather-Stocking. This suiting features a shortcut script by Draper Lewis, who previously wrote for "The Bell Telephone Hour" and "Josie and the Pussy Cats in Outer Space"–which explains a quantities. It begins with a "Scooby"-style teaser, an excerpt from the middle of the episode, and then we go backwards and start at the creation and awaken that teaser again. But with just 50 minutes for each of these adaptations, every hot counts, and that teaser idea seems a bad undivided. As it is, most of Cooper's novel was dig for all to see. This screenplay covers the first half, and sanitizes it in the process.

In the novel, while Fort William is under start by the French and Indians, the fort commander's grown daughters, Alice and Cora, are being escorted to the fort by Biggest Duncan Heyward, Alice's fiancé, and Magua, an Indian manage who is really in the service of the enemy. He's unsurpassed them farther away from the fort and into a booby-trap when Hawkeye and his two Mohican friends, Chief Chingachgook and his son, Uncas, intervene. The take a nap of the plot follows the crowd as they head for the fort. However Magua gets his, as in the work, the rest is euphonious compliant. Shots are fired, but mostly people grab their arms and cataract over. This ends not large after the girls are reunited with their father. Had the plot continued, Col. Munro would possess surrendered to the French, his daughters would give birth to been kidnapped by two uncouple Indian tribes, and both Uncas and Cora would sire been killed. This rendering makes it seem as if Alice chooses to go off with Uncas, and people just seem to reside a lot happier till the cows come home after. Twain would be chortling through that people, because the kiddie manifestation in default-romances Cooper's. Is it interesting for kids? Marginally so. But "Jonny Quest" episodes carry more tension. Too much was arranged out for this to really pack any whallop.

The Man In The Iron False face
31 december 1998, 11:06 uur

""
Leonardo di Caprio, Gerard Depardieu e.a.
Thuis op de bank

Aardig.

Koning Lodewijk de Zoveelste van Frankrijk is een echte tiran. Terwijl hij geniet van zijn rijkdom verhongert het volk.

Zijn trouwste lijfwacht is een van de 4 musketiers, de enige nog aktieve. De arrive is al gestopt met het musketierenleven. Maar de drie zien hoe de koning zijn macht misbruikt en besluiten er iets aan te gaan doen. Een van hen weet dat in een kerker al jaren een fetter met een ijzeren masker gevangen zit. Dat is de tweelingbroer van lodewijk, waarvan niemand weet dat hij bestaat. De musketiers besluiten de tweelingbroer te bevrijden en in de plaats te zetten van de foute koning. Hun belangrijkste tegenstander daarbij is echter nog steeds de lijfwacht van de koning, hun vroegere vriend en collega.

Het verhaal is niet echt bijzonder, maar wel boeiend genoeg om naar te kijken. Mooie muziek erbij, die zorgt voor een avontuurlijk sfeertje.

Het is wel leuk om de musketiers eens na hun gloriedagen te zien.

Een minpunt vind ik het soapgehalte van de film. De koningin blijkt met een van de musketiers te scharrelen, de koning blijkt niet van zijn vader af te stammen, en nog wat van die soaperige intriges.

Maar verder is de cover toch wel de moeite waard.

Commitment – what a funny, baffling scintilla. On the people hand, it can intermediate unswerving dedication, a desire to remain loyal no puzzle what the consequences or conditions. When individuals are entangled with in a deep and abiding relationship, we consider them as having entered into a commitment. When women bitch about the bastards they admiration, they view on how commitment-phobic they are. The pages of the resident lonely hearts are filled to bursting with individuals looking for that elusive engage while others scour the scene for that pledge that will guarantee them everlasting joyfulness and direct, undeniable devotion.

But flip the facets, and suddenly commitment means something completely different. Insanity requires it, the fear for one's safety or that of others actually mandates it, and when someone voluntarily signs a set of said papers, they loose their freedom and infallibility. Indeed, commitment is what happens to the deranged and the disabled, people who find it impossible to cope with society – and/or visa versa. These committed creatures don't get the praise and the respect of the trustworthy husband, or the caring and faithful wife. Instead, they are condemned and confined. So free are they with their feelings, unable to focus them into productive, polite ideals, that the world sees no alternative but to lock them up. They can't commit to the rest of the populace, so the rest of the populace will just have to commit them.

In the character of Catherine, the unforgettable female at the center of François Truffaut's New Wave masterpiece, Jules et Jim, we see both levels of obligation. On the one hand, this devious vixen wants any and all men to bow to her every whim, to love her deeply and completely, without question and in total blind constancy. She, on the other hand, can do what she wants, free to make up her mind and change it within the blink of an eye - or a single misplaced sentiment. For her, the conventions of society are crazy. As for the world around her, they view Catherine and her companions as equally unhinged, rebels against the standards of sumptuous Belle Époque France. Commitment comes in many sizes in Jules et Jim – and it's Catherine whose holding all the interpersonal definitions, for both good and bad.

The Film:

Spain, present days…

Amidst the lonely hills of Obaba, a mythical village set in the far Northern hills of the Basque Provinces, a beautiful outsider (Barbara Lennie) is planning to film how the locals live their lives. Upon arrival however Lourdes is told about an old mystery involving a man with an unusual obsession for lizards. As the young filmmaker begins her project she is introduced into a world of strange memories, some still haunting their owners.

Spain's official Oscar entry Obaba (2005), a film based on Bernardo Axtaga's work Obabakoak and directed by Montxo Armendariz, is undoubtedly one of the most complex stories I have seen in a very long time. Structured as a collage of flashbacks, each with its own main protagonists and a beautiful story to tell, Obaba is not only ambitious it is one enormously demanding film as well. Fortunately enough Montxo Armendariz and his team have done an outstanding job of linking the scattered bits in this ambitious tale.

It is difficult for me to explain precisely what takes place in Obaba. The story, as summated above, evolves around a beautiful filmmaker whose world collides into the strange reality of Obaba-a place where colorful myths come to life. And when Lourdes begins to read between the lines of what she is told by the locals something most unusual happens.

Without giving up the plot of Obaba I would like to provide you with two pointers so you could understand how brilliant this film is:

First, keep in mind that each story Montxo Armendariz has chosen to tell us (only a few of Bernardo Axtaga's short stories are adapted for this film) has a special place in the final string of events-the way the camera moves, the objects that become the focus of attention, even the love affair between Lourdes and the handsome dark Spaniard (Juan Diego Botto), everything in Obaba has a special meaning.

Second, do not attempt to link all of the stories prematurely. It would be sufficient if you simply kept track of why they were told in the order they appear in Obaba. The film brings everything to a closure in a perfect fashion delivering a much broader explanation as to what precisely takes place here. In fact, I would go out on a limb and state that if you disliked what Michael Haneke did in Cache then you won't appreciate how Montxo Armendariz closes its story-the heavy symbolism and the philosophical overtones are crucial for this film.

To sum it all up I thought that from all the Spanish productions I've seen lately Obaba is indeed the best and most meaningful one. The Spanish Film Academy did what they should have and nominated this film as the country's official Oscar entry. I am enormously impressed with Obaba and for what it matters will definitely include it in my Top 10 picks at the end of the year. Outstanding!!

How Does the DVD Look?

Spot on!!

Presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.85:1 and enhanced for widescreen TV's this DVD comes courtesy of Spanish distribs Manga Films and as far as I am concerned has very few issues that we need to discuss here. The image is beautifully reproduced and the print Manga Films have delivered simply shines-excellent contrast (very delicate in each of the stories-sometimes soft where the story shifts back in time sometimes sharp and edgy when the director takes its audience back to present days), very good color gradation, not a single speck or dirt-spot that I could detect, and finally a tight progressive conversion. I did notice a smidge of edge enhancement during one of the winter scenes (some of the snow was a bit too heavy for my taste) but to be honest I am perfectly satisfied with the video presentation. PAL-encoded, Region-2.

How Does the DVD Sound?

This DVD comes with two different audio options: there is a 5.1 Basque track (Euskera) and a Castellan-Spanish 5.1 track. I am not fluent in the Basque dialect spoken here so I can not comment whether or not anything has been omitted in the English translation. I can comment however on the syntax (English subtitles) and there is absolutely nothing here a native English-speaker would be unhappy with. As far as the technical presentation goes the beautiful soundtrack has been mixed to perfection and there is plenty of movement that you will notice from your rear speakers. To sum it all up Manga have done an excellent job in the audio department as well. Finally, Obaba comes with optional Castellan, Basque, French, and English subtitles (all in proper white font).

Extras:

Unfortunately none of the extras on this Spanish DVD appear with optional English subtitles. So, I have decided to only list them for you without commenting as to avoid providing you with improper comments (it is worth mentioning however that the "special effects" section is outstanding….see how those green lizards are done!!).

Original Theatrical Trailer-

Photo Gallery-

The Secrets of Obaba-

The Making of Obaba (with multiple interviews)-

Filmographies-

Cast info-

Final Words:

This film is everything I love about cinema: thought-provoking, evocative, beautiful to watch, with a script to die for executed to perfection. But I suppose Spanish cinema proved too intellectually-demanding for some Academy members this year and they quickly sent Obaba back to where it came from (does Obaba even have a US distro-deal, I am unsure).

I rarely give non-R1 DVDs where the extras are not English-friendly the DVDTALK Collectors Series mark but it would be a crime if I awarded Obaba anything less. I watched my screener twice already and the film shows even more potential after the second viewing. If searching for a thought-provoking piece of cinema…see what the Spanish Film Academy has been raving about. They've got it right!!!

Note:
This review was made possible with the kind assistance of Xploited cinema.

20th Century-Fox has gone back to the well one more time for The Man in Black with Walk the Line: Extended Cut, the third DVD incarnation of 2005's wonderfully romantic biopic of music legends June Carter and Johnny Cash. All the extras from the two previous DVD releases are here, along with a few more for Cash fanatics who want to re-experience this Oscar-winning showstopper. As for that "extended cut," it feels more like a marketing ploy rather than a genuine artistic move on the part of the filmmakers, but more about that further down in the review in "The Extras" section.

Walk the Line follows the rise and fall - and rise again - of Johnny Cash, who started out as the son of a dirt-poor cotton sharecropper in rural Arkansas, and who, through a desperation to come to terms with the loss of a beloved older brother and a need to exorcise his own personal demons, embarked on a legendary musical career that deeply influenced the country, rock, rockabilly, R&B, and even pop music genres. After a flash-forward to Cash's celebrated 1968's Folsom Prison concert, Walk the Line opens in the sweltering cotton fields of Arkansas, where young J.R. (Ridge Canipe) learns to love the gospels and hymns sung by his beloved mother Carrie (Shelby Lynne), learns to fear his drinking, abusive father Ray (Robert Patrick), and forms an incredibly tight bond with his Bible-studying older brother Jack (Lucas Till). Jack's horrific death (he was pulled into a table saw) permanently scars young J.R.; believing that he was always the "bad" son next to "good" son Jack, J.R. gets confirmation of that perception when his father verbally abuses him after Jack's funeral, exclaiming that God took the wrong son.

Leaving behind the cotton fields of Arkansas in 1950 for the airfields of Germany, John Cash (Joaquin Phoenix) joins up with the Air Force as a Morse code decoder, while writing love letters to a girl, Vivian (Ginnifer Goodwin), he dated for only a few weeks prior to his enlistment. Composing songs in his spare time (he buys a guitar for the first time), John also keeps track of the goings-on in the music scene, particularly of June Carter (Reese Witherspoon), of the legendary Carter Family musical group - a favorite artist of John's growing up. Back in Memphis in 1954, John unsuccessfully tries to sell appliances door-to-door, while his wife Vivian wonders when he's going to get his act together and settle down as a successful provider. With one baby and another on the way - and with an eviction notice pending - desperation turns into action with John steeling his nerve and gathering his "front porch" bandmates, Luther Perkins (Dan John Miller) and Marshall Grant (Larry Bagby), to audition for Sun Records owner Sam Phillips (Dallas Roberts). It doesn't go well at first, but when pressed by Phillips to abandon the tired old gospel retread he opens with, John dredges up Folsom Prison Blues, a song he wrote in Germany, and a new musical style is born.

Hitting big with songs like Cry, Cry, Cry, Folsom Prison Blues, I Walk the Line, and Home of the Blues, Johnny embarks on a series of cross-country package tours with other soon-to-be musical legends like Elvis Presley (Tyler Hilton), Jerry Lee Lewis (Waylon Payne), Roy Orbison (Johnathan Rice), Carl Perkins (Johnny Holiday), and of course, June Carter. Johnny's immediate infatuation with lovely, talented June causes deep emotional turmoil for John, whose home life is becoming increasingly strained by Vivian's inability to understand (or perhaps more accurately, forgive) the temptations presented to a genuine rock star like Johnny Cash. Pills and groupies provide distractions and balms for Johnny's feelings of guilt, personal inadequacy and his unrequited love for June - a love that becomes maddening when Johnny senses that June indeed may have feelings for him, as well, but that she's terrified of his emotional inconsistencies and drug problem. Only when they're on stage, singing together, does Johnny feel total satisfaction with his life. Once Johnny and June finally succumb to their feelings for each other, the problems only multiply for Johnny (as June rightly calls from the start), with his pill addiction spiraling out of control. Will Johnny's concert at Folsom Prison be the start of a personal and professional comeback, and will he finally come to terms with his relationship with June?

There's a beautiful simplicity and power to Walk the Line that's a combination of Cash' own compelling life story and music, director James Mangold's insistence on keeping the film clean and uncluttered, and the sensational performances by the two lead actors. Mangold, whose earlier Cop Land was most impressive, reinvigorates the standard Hollywood musical biopic by making sure that the straight musical performance sequences operate as much like dramatic scenes as chances for the audience to hear Cash's music. Although most of the songs are set up as stage performances (except for a lovely little montage sequence Mangold sneaks in, which looks like it's straight out of a 1930s Warner Bros. meller), they operate almost like musical sequences from movie musicals like West Side Story or Oklahoma!, in that not only are the songs themselves commenting on past and future actions in the storyline, but the sequences themselves frequently involve Johnny and June working out their relationship while they sing.

Mangold is also careful to keep his visual field simple and his camerawork restrained (yet with no loss of directed information), letting the force of the actors do the trick in keeping the audience's attention. Mangold has a real feel for the places and atmospheres he captures here. From the relentless tracking shots at Folsom that open the picture (again, providing a feeling not unlike the Warner Bros.' 1951 programmer, Inside the Walls of Folsom Prison, which inspired Cash to write his famous blues single), to the primal, almost Biblical severity of the Arkansas sequences, Mangold is attentive to the sounds (the boots stomping in the prison, the incessant chirping of the insects in the crushing Arkansas heat, the rain coming down in Memphis when Johnny cuts his first record) and images (the darkening sky behind the Cash boys as they walk along a dusty road, the shimmering loveliness of Reese Witherspoon's anguished face, as shot through her car windshield) that firmly root Walk the Line in a recognizable time and place.

As for the performances in Walk the Line, again, it's a credit to Mangold that he keeps the leads silent (or often times low-key) in so many passages, allowing us the chance to explore their faces, looking for clues to their feelings and motivations, rather than having all of it spelt out for us in crude exposition. One of the best scenes in the film is when Johnny escorts June back to her hotel room, right after her first divorce. She's obviously attracted to him, as he clearly is to her (he tries to kiss her, but she demurs); it's the first scene where we see a real possibility of a physical and romantic connection between these two characters. And Mangold, knowingly, keeps us riveted in tight, tight close-ups, to the actors' faces, while they deliver their dialogue in whispery hushes (Witherspoon is particularly appealing here). Mangold displays an extraordinary perception as to how the actors work within his simple frame (and his subtly intricate editing scheme), particularly when the more melodramatic moments of Cash's life could have been broadly over-indulged.

It's difficult to find fault with the two leads here (as well as the superb supporting cast). Joaquin Phoenix, wisely avoiding an imitation of Johnny Cash (who could possibly do that?) isn't as physically big or imposing as Cash was on the stage and screen (I saw him once in concert back in the mid-70s, and he seemed immense), and his sometimes soft, hesitant voice at first doesn't seem to jibe with our later impressions of Cash on TV and in concert, with that rambling, rough baritone. But critically, Mangold was looking for an actor to portray the Johnny Cash that most people weren't familiar with: the young, deeply in love, messed-up Cash who was struggling to find some kind of peace and balance in his early tumultuous life. And to this end, Phoenix is perfect. Vulnerable under the growling and the strutting on stage, Phoenix's Cash displays none of the "legendary," "iconic" trappings that a lesser actor might have felt was necessary to "match up" with Cash. As for his singing, it's terrific: evocative of Cash, but again, all his own.

For me, Walk the Line really comes alive whenever Reese Witherspoon is onscreen. I'm not sure I had much of a feeling one way or the other about her as an actress prior to Walk the Line. She was good in Election, but all that Legally Blonde stuff left me cold. But here, as the equally iconic June Carter Cash, Witherspoon pulls off one of the most accomplished, layered performances in a romantic film that I've ever seen. Her range here is really most astounding, particularly when you factor in that she must sing her own songs, as well, representing one of the most important voices in the country music pantheon (as indeed, did Phoenix). In no way trying to diminish Phoenix's role, his Cash is the "easier" of the two in terms of being potentially showy or "dramatic." He gets to become addicted to pills, to fall apart for the audience, with big, dramatic scenes that we appreciate for their skill. Witherspoon's June, however, has to be there for him, but not simply as a crutch, but as an independent, wary, yet loving friend first - and then as an equally leery, conflicted lover. Watching Witherspoon in this role, it's amazing how versatile she is in conveying those conflicted emotions of friendship, love, concern, and sometimes, contempt - all within a few short sequences or shots. Watch her when the two are singing Jackson at the end of the film. Witherspoon's skill is such that she keeps smiling out to the crowd (June the performer), while dogging Johnny with veiled insults (June the fighter), while hesitating to deal with this crazy man anymore (June the fed-up, would-be lover and wife), until ultimately she breaks down, her eyes searching Phoenix's, nakedly and totally vulnerable, before finally agreeing to marry him. It's a breathtaking, tour de force moment, the equal of any similar moment from the screen's past great actresses, and most certainly worthy of the Oscar she so deservedly won.

And with the amazing chemistry that Witherspoon and Phoenix generate, particularly during their luminous stage performances, Walk the Line ultimately becomes less a factual, biographical examination of Johnny Cash the singer, and much more a beautifully tender, hopeful romance between two soul mates. Yes, the film does gloss over and abbreviate events in Cash's life that, had they been depicted by Mangold as realistically as his romance with June, might have put people off the film (Cash repeatedly cheating on his wife with groupies is reduced to one chaste kiss; other arrests and abuses - no doubt hurtful to those around him - due to his severe drug addiction are somewhat "prettily" portrayed, with Cash's other eccentricities nowhere to be found). But ultimately, the "facts" of Johnny's and June's life (the director states that the film is quite accurate) become secondary to the emotion that's palpable on the screen. In cinematic terms of getting that heartbreaking, bittersweet feeling of loving someone you're not supposed to, and then finding in that same person a chance, a hope of redemption through their love - despite seemingly insurmountable circumstances - Walk the Line has few equals.

The DVD:

The Video:
The anamorphically enhanced, 2.35:1 video transfer for Walk the Line: Extended Cut looks amazingly clean and clear, with a perfectly balanced color range, and no compression issues to speak of (it looks to be the same transfer used for the previous DVD releases).

The Audio:
The same audio options from the previous 2-disc release are here, including a massive Dolby Digital 5.1 DTS mix, a 5.1 Surround, a perfectly acceptable 2.0, as well as French and Spanish 3.0 Surround mixes. English and Spanish subtitles are available, as well as close-captions.

The Extras:
Okay, here we go on that "extended cut." Before I list what's been added to the theatrical and previous DVD editions of this film, let me just say I'm usually nonplused by post-theatrical tampering. Deleted scenes that didn't make it into the final theatrical release usually (and I stress "usually") are left out for a good reason, and their inclusion does little to benefit the film - except in DVD sales. The original theatrical version of Walk the Line for my money worked beautifully at 135 minutes. This new extended version runs 153 minutes, and while I wouldn't say it's padded, the additional scenes don't make any clearer the points director Mangold wanted to make in the first version. Almost all of the new material is lifted from the "Deleted Scenes" that were already included in the first two DVD releases of the film, so they won't be a big surprise here to owners of those discs. The only genuinely "new" sequence I detected in this new "Extended Cut" were two scenes showing Johnny in Germany. One is a brief shot of him carrying his newly purchased guitar back to base (and seeing a newspaper that says Hank Williams had died), and a following sequence, showing Johnny writing a love letter to Viv while working as a Morse code decoder. A couple of soldiers make fun of him; his commanding officer glares at him, and that's about it. Everything else "new" in this "extended cut" are deleted scenes already released on DVD, reinserted into the film. Here are the changes in this new "extended cut" version:

Jack's Funeral has been reinserted following his death.
Cry, Cry, Plead for, where Johnny composes his first collide, is placed right before his audition by reason of Miscellany.
Cracked Gramophone record, featuring John Carter Cash, has been put distant, showing Cash's naivete concerning the recording process.
Ezra & Maybelle Carter, a short introduction of June's parents to Johnny, has been consign back.
I Still Miss Someone, where Johnny tries to compose a heartbreaking flap take June, has been put past due, but the certainly rear end end of the sequence, where Johnny dreams he sees Viv transformed into June (available in its entirety on the previous two DVDs) has been clipped off here.
On the Phone, where Johnny is seen agreeing to go to a music awards show, has been brush off c dismay back.
The Sermon, where Johnny goes to church with June after his retaking, is included here and extended in compensation a only one seconds (from the previous in detail included in the other DVDs' extras), with a brief shot of a neighboring parishioner, clasping Johnny's management during a hymn.
Memphis Streets, where Johnny interacts with a associate appliance salesman, and At the Bank, an extended story of the check-cashing sequence already in the coat, have not been reinserted into the film, and in the present climate head up the paltry Deleted Scenes option.

Returning extras for this "extended cut" of Walk the Line include the original theatrical trailer, and the same director's commentary that was included in the first two DVD releases (interesting and well-spoken, particularly when he's focused on the film, but some of his comments about completely different film acting and singing styles - comparing, negatively, Cary Grant to James Dean, and Doris Day and Bing Crosby to Johnny Cash - were a little loopy). Celebrating the Man in Black: The Making of Walk the Line, which runs (21:26), is back and features the cast and crew (and other performers such as Kris Kristofferson) discussing the production of the film, and Ring of Fire: The Passion of Johnny & June, running 11:27, with writers and artists Steve Pond, Alanna Nash, Bill Miller, John Carter Cash, Marty Stuart, Don and Harold Reid, Patrick Carr, Jason Fine, Jay Orr, Joaquin Phoenix, and Kris Kristofferson discussing the relationship between these two iconic music figures. The Johnny Cash Jukebox: Walk the Line Extended Musical Sequences with New Introductions features eight performances from the film, some longer than what appears in the film, and all with optional intros by various writers and performers who give a quick background on the song. Included songs are:

Lewis Boogie - Waylon Payne as Jerry Lee Lewis (commentators include Mikal Gilmore, Rolling Stone contributing editor; Jack "Cowboy" Clement, Johnny Cash record producer; actor Waylon Payne, Jason Fine, Managing Editor Rolling Stone; actor Johnny Holiday, and John Carter Cash).

Get Rhythm - Joaquin Phoenix as Johnny Cash (commentators include John Doyle, Curator, Rock 'N' Soul Museum; Steve Pond, contributing editor, Rolling Stone; Jason Fine).

You're My Baby - Johnathan Rice as Roy Orbison (commentators include Mikal Gilmore, John Doyle, Johnathan Rice).

Jukebox Blues - Reese Witherspoon as June Carter (commentators include James Keach, Producer; Arianne Phillips, costume designer; Mikal Gilmore, John Carter Cash, Reese Witherspoon).

Rock and Roll Ruby - Joaquin Phoenix as Johnny Cash (commentators include James Mangold, Director; Jay Orr, Historian, Country Music Hall of Fame; Jack "Cowboy" Clement).

That's Alright Mama - Tyler Hilton as Elvis Presley (commentators include John Doyle; Scotty Moore, Elvis' guitarist; Mikal Gilmore; Jack "Cowboy" Clement).

Jackson - Joaquin Phoenix as Johnny Cash, Reese Witherspoon as June Carter (commentators include Steve Pond, Jay Orr, Patrick Carr, Cash biographer).

Cocaine Blues - Joaquin Phoenix as Johnny Cash (commentators include Jack "Cowboy" Clement, John Doyle, Steve Pond).

Stylish featurettes included in this "extended cut are:

Becoming Cash/Becoming Carter (11:02), which looks further at the two lead performances, includes commentary from Cathy Konrad, Manufacturer; James Mangold; Gill Dennis, Co-Screenwriter; John Carter Cash, actors Robert Patrick, Reese Witherspoon, and Joaquin Phoenix; T Bone Burnett, Music Director; and Phedon Papamichael, Cinematographer.

Sun Records & the Johnny Cash Sound (11:53) gives an engaging look at the fabulous Memphis studio, with commentary by artists Kris Kristofferson, Chris Isaak, Robert Earl Keen, and Marty Stuart; Brenda Colladay, curator, Grand Ole Opry; Jack "Cowboy" Clement; Steve Pond; James Lott, Chief Plan, Sun Studio; John Doyle; John Schorr, General Manager, Ra Studio; Jay Orr; Patrick Carr, biographer; actors Joaquin Phoenix, Larry Bagby and Dan John Miller; Jason Fine Scotty Moore, Waylon Payne, Henry Rollins, and David Brookings, Sun Studio Tours.

The Bread Legacy (15:20) looks at the business striking of Cash's music and soul, with commentators Kris Kristofferson, Willie Nelson, John "Cougar" Mellencamp, Steve Pond, Jason Fine, Kid Rock (?), Trent Reznor, Alanna Nash Historian, Mike Ness, Don Reid, Robert Earl Keen, Chris Isaak, Henry Rollins, Steve Earle, Beak Miller, author; Jay Orr, Merle Haggard, Patrick Carr, Marty Stuart, Ozzy Osbourne (?), and John Carter Cash.

Folsom: Scratch and the Comeback (11:45) looks at the famous concert Cash gave at the California prison in 1968, with comments by Marty Stuart, Steve Pond, Kris Kristofferson, Patrick Carr, Jason Well-made, Jay Orr, Don Reid, "Coach" Lloyd Kelly, Recreation Director, Folsom Prison; Lt. Robert Trujillo, Public Facts Officer, Folsom Penal institution; Harold Reid, and Pecker Miller.

Liquidate and Faith (11:12) looks at Johnny's complex relationship with God, and the in person struggles he had as a result, with commentary by Joanne Exchange Yate, Johnny's sister; Pastor Harry Yates and Paster Jimmy Snow, spiritual guides to Gelt; Tabulation Miller, John Carter Cash, Marty Stuart, and Patrick Carr.

Final Thoughts:
Owners of either previous DVD releases of Walk the Line: Extended Cut may have a tough time justifying this double (or even triple!) dip. The so-called "extended cut" contains only one truly new sequence, and it's very brief (and though interesting, not revelatory). The new extras are great, but again, unless you're a Cash fanatic, you might be satisfied with the previous DVD releases, which had a few of the same extras (the new extras are pretty cool). A rental would do for you, to see if you must have this version. Newcomers, though, might want to check this out; I still prefer the shorter theatrical version of the film (and by rights, it should have been included here), but I'm not going to knock any chance for new viewers to catch this wonderfully tender, moving love story. Joaquin Phoenix is electrifying as the troubled Cash, and Reese Witherspoon joins the ranks - with this performance alone - of the screen's great actresses with her stunning, heartbreaking portrayal of June Carter Cash. Their chemistry together on screen is palpable, making for one of the most memorable love stories I've seen in films. I recommend Walk the Line: Extended Cut.

Paul Mavis is an internationally published film and video receiver historian, a member of the Online Film Critics Society, and the author of The Espionage Filmography.