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The film was excellent!! Starts off in medias res with lots of collapsing time. But, it was easy to follow and entertaining as hell.
Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon convicingly portrayed Johnny and June. The fact that they actually performed all the live performances in the movie is amazing. Joaquin definitely has the Cash attitude down and the mannerisms.
Does anybody smell Oscars? [img]wink.gif[/img]
I saw it tonight as well, definately worthy seeing.
I never get excited for movies but I did for this one, went opening night. The movie was very good, not great. I thought Phoenix was very convincing but I was more impressed with Witherspoon, who I thought captured June Carter very well especially in the early years.
Ring of Fire was written with her first husband but I think the movie portrays it as her writing it about Johnny and possibly for him. It's a small thing but it bugged me. And the whole detox scene was disappointing. The real story of how Cash kicked the habit is completely different and actually kind of funny in a sad way. If you read either of his two auto-biographies you can find out what happened.
I also heard that Roseanne Cash was pissed about how her mother was portrayed. It's understandable because the movie paints her as discouraging Johnny's music career, almost looking down on it. But in real life Vivian did support the music but at the same time was raising 3 daughters alone with a husband that was either on the road or out of his mind.
However, there were two points that almost made me jump out of my seat and yell in excitement.
Number 1: Cash performing "Rock & Roll Ruby" live on stage. The song was supposedly written by George Jones and sold to Cash for $40 which he in turn passed over to Warren Smith, who had a huge hit with it. Cash only recorded a rough take of the song upon which it was decided that his baritone vocal would not suit the all-out rockabilly rave-up. Whether he actually played it in concert or not I have no idea but it suprised the hell out of me that it was in there. Someone did some research.
Number 2: Wanda Jackson's "Fujiyama Mama" playing in the background as Cash destroys a dressing room and tears a sink off the wall with the phrase, "...and when I get eruptin', I'm about to blow my top..." wafting through the air. Awesome!
Overall, I thought it was very good but I wasn't blown away by it like I had expected/hoped to be. The performances were great but I didn't like the way the director shot it. But I'm a film nerd so that's my problem. [img]smile.gif[/img]
<font color="#FFFF00" size="1">[ November 20, 2005 03:33 AM: Message edited by: Wedge0chez ]</font>
Yeah, the detox scene made me shake my head, especially as someone who has personally gone through that. My wife (who also knows a thing or two about a brutal detox) looked over at me and said "Two days worth of beard stubble and everything's alright? Well, there's Hollywood for you." Which was enough to pacify me because I really figured "Hollywood" would fuck up a lot more than that.
Just got back from seeing it(currently watching the "Making of" on CMT). Amazing! I could have sworn they were going to take a lot of 'creative liberties' but it was very true to his autobiographies. I might have even left a tear or two in that theater...
yeah theres definitly stuff that is altered a bit to make into a movie. Lots of stuff on all that on the cash forums.
But any movie about cash cant really cover all the great things he accomplished. It'd just be way to long. [img]wink.gif[/img]
Wow it was super interesting to read your posts.
We don't read Cash's two auto-biographies but had some stuff from internet about June. Here is what she said about their feelings and she mentioned Ring Of Fire:
"I never talked much about how I fell in love with John," June said in an interview. "It was not a convenient time for me to fall in love with him, and it wasn't a convenient time for him to fall in love with me. One morning, about four o'clock, I was driving my car just about as fast as I could. I thought, 'Why am I out on the highway this time of night? I was miserable, and it all came to me: 'I'm falling in love with somebody I have no right to fall in love with.' I was frightened of his way of life. I thought, 'I can't fall in love with this man, but it's just like a ring of fire.'" At that point, Johnny says, "We hadn't said, 'I love you.' We were afraid to say it, because we knew what was going to happen: that eventually we were both going to be divorced, and we were going to go through hell. Which we did."
<font size="2" face="verdana, arial">Glad you put a question mark at the end of that sentence lol. He didn't quit drugs & get married, he was doing drugs the whole time he was married to his 1st wife. Apparently there is life after marriage & drugs...heck just look at Mikes life. It doesn't look to shaby now does it lolQuote:
Originally posted by AfterTodayFalls:
The movie was good.... really good.. but apparentley johnny cash didnt have a life after he quit drugs and got married?
Saw the movie...wow...great movie...of course, we can pick it apart for this or that being wrong...but I'll say this, its the best mainstream movie I've seen in several years...J-Phx did an amazing job!
I saw it the other night in a small artys movie house, other than the movie going out for about 5 mintues just as Johhny is about to get busted, I thought it was great (and so did my 16 yr old son). I don't know if we missed anything as they got the film back in the projector, but I really liked it.