Walk The Line

The life of American country music star Johnny Cash hit the big screen in 2005 with Walk The Line. An absolute beast at the box office, this film is one of the highest grossing musical biopics in history, and won more than half of the 62 awards it was nominated for. Join co-hosts Jon and Mark as they journey alongside The Man in Black from his early beginnings cutting singles for Sun Records, to the many tours that followed, and all of those marriage proposals to June Carter.

Y'all can't walk no line!

Transcript

Jon (00:00)
Tonight in the Rock N' Roll Theatre Podcast, we got married in a fever hotter than a pepper's sprout. walk the line, Johnny Cash.

Hello everybody, welcome back to the Rock N' Roll Theatre Podcast. My name is Jon. I'm joined here by my brother Mark. Each episode here we dive into movies, music, pop culture, all sorts of different stuff. And today's our first foray into country music. Today we have Walk the Line, a biopic about Johnny Cash.

Mark (00:35)
Walk the Line was released on November eighteenth, 2005. It runs two hours sixteen minutes, rated PG thirteen. This is a biographical drama film. It was directed by James Mangold. This film had a budget of $28 million. At the box office, it pulled in $186 million. I had to double check that, triple check that, quadruple check that. That is a real number.

This was the all time highest grossing music biopic, so it made a hundred and fifty eight million dollars in profit until straight out of Compton surpassed it in twenty fifteen.

The movie is based on two autobiographies by Johnny Cash Man in Black, his own story in his own words, that's from nineteen seventy five, and Cash, the autobiography, that's from nineteen ninety seven. The story follows Cash's early life, his rise to fame in the American country music scene, his relationship with fellow country singer June Carter, and of course, his drug addiction.

Jon (01:37)
Apparently Johnny and June had been in talks to do a biopic since way back in like nineteen ninety-three, nineteen ninety-four. And by about two thousand and three, things were finally, or two thousand two, I should say, things were shaping up to finally have it be filmed. Joaquin Phoenix was finally the actor chosen to play Johnny. ⁓ there'd been a whole bunch of different other people considered. Russell Crowe was strongly mentioned. At first, Phoenix didn't think he was right for the role and had to be kind of talked into and convinced into it because he's he was gonna be doing the singing as well as all the acting for the role.

And apparently before he passed away, Johnny Cash did give Joaquin his blessing.

Mark (02:08)
The movie stars Joaquin Phoenix as Johnny Cash and Reese Witherspoon as June Carter. Both stars performed all of their songs themselves, so the vocals were not dubbed, and they learned instruments specifically for the film. The pair reportedly argued during months of preparation, but developed strong chemistry during filming.

Jon (02:27)
There's definitely tension between the two actors in this movie. But before we get into everything Walk the Lion, everything Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash, do us a quick favor here at the Rock N' Roll Theatre. If you could like, subscribe, comment, that sort of thing. It really helps out a small podcast like us. I know you get tired of hearing of it, but it really does help out. And watch out because there are spoilers ahead. If you haven't seen Walk the Line or haven't seen it in a while, hit pause and come back to us. We'll be right here. But for now, walk the line.

Mark (02:54)
Film opens at Folsom Prism in California. We hear the song I Walk the Line in the Background. We hear chanting, people clapping, stomping, getting ready for, Johnny Cash and his band to take the stage. We hear his band warming up the crowd, the Tennessee Three. And Johnny Cash isn't there yet. He's somewhere in the back. The camera pans over to him. He's in the wood shop area and he's staring at a table saw.

We're not exactly sure what he's thinking. He looks like he's having a moment to himself. He's concentrating on the blade, and he starts to get a flashback to his childhood in Arkansas in nineteen forty four.

Jon (03:38)
In 1944, we see a young Johnny Cash curled up beside the radio, listening to the Carter family on the radio. His older brother Jack is with him too as well. They're obviously very close. they share a bedroom and a bed together. And we quickly learn that Jack is studying the Bible. He wants to be a preacher someday. Meanwhile, Johnny Cash is all about music. He's memorized the hymn book, and that's all he seems to be interested in. both the brothers, who are very young, have very adult jobs. They're picking cotton, they're chopping wood.

Johnny's more interested in fishing and just doing little boy stuff. so his older brother Jack kind of tells him to run along while he's gonna cut a pile of wood for a neighbor. Unfortunately, there is an accident at the wood shop, and sadly, Jack loses his life. So this is a very rough start for Johnny. we see the character of their father, who is Ray, and he seems like a pretty stern, pretty hard man, maybe with a drinking problem too. And he definitely blames Johnny and says the devil took the wrong son.

this was actually never said in real life. but still a pretty hard, pretty dramatic line here in the movie. note here that Ray, the father, is played by Robert Patrick, who is literally the Terminator.

Mark (04:36)
Fast forward a few years now, we see our first look at Joaquin Phoenix playing Johnny Cash. He's a young adult now and he's about to leave the family farm. He's off to the United States Air Force, where he's going to be stationed in West Germany. We see him. He's in Army fatigues now, he's spending days working on planes, he's adapting to Army life. He's really missing his sweetheart from back home, Vivian Viv. She's played by Jennifer Goodwin, who is actually from Memphis.

In real life, they only dated for a month, and at this point, he hadn't actually seen her in two years. But anyway, he seems very content to be with her on the phone, even despite having his phone call cut off by his sergeant. We see him start to wander around and he's look he's eyeing guitars, and he decides he wants to get a guitar. So he buys a guitar while he's in West Germany and he starts piecing together what we hear as an early version of Folsom Prison Blues.

Jon (05:28)
And we fast forward to Memphis 1955. Now Johnny's out of the army. he's married to Viv and they have a newborn baby. He's working as a salesman, but he's actually trying to get his music together. He doesn't seem to be much of a salesman. He's not having too much success. he's wandering around Memphis and he finds Sun Records, which of course is Sam Phillips' iconic famous music label. I'm sure he must have known about Sun Records and didn't just wander into it. But okay, we'll go with that.

Also, as he's walking around, he noces the shoe shine boys have a very rhythmical technique on how they clean people's shoes, which used to be a job bat way back when.

And he so he goes over to Sun and he's kinda hanging out, looking through the back door, trying to see what's going on. we hear some Elvis music actually, and we see actor Tyler Hilton, Canadian actor, who is playing Elvis. Johnny's intrigued, but Sam, kinda shoos him away and says, You want an audition? Come in for an audition another time.

So Johnny Cash is jamming gospel with his buddies on the front porch. what I really liked here is the bass player had stickers with letters on them stuck on the neck of the bass to tell him where the notes were. pretty authentic here. I've heard of other people and other bands doing that before. so this is our real chance to see Phoenix start to sing. He's decent, he's definitely not Johnny Cash. I mean, that's a very hard voice to imitate, but so far it's okay. And but of course, he's fighting with Viv. There's no money to be made at this at all. She's broke, her family's in San Antonio. She wants

Wants to go home with them and she hits Johnny with a pretty hard line saying, You're in a band with two mechanics who can barely play.

Mark (06:50)
It's audition time. This is probably my favorite scene in the movie. Johnny Cash is getting ready to go down to Sun Records. His band is gonna audition. What color are they gonna wear? Only one color that matches, black.

So in the movie, we see that Johnny Cash shows up really early, downtown at Sun Records, to get his foot in the door. He's waiting for the owner Sam Phillips to show up. In real life, he actually got denied several times over the phone. But here we are in the movie. We're setting up early in the morning. The band sets up, they start playing. Sam Phillips is attentive. He's sitting there, he's watching. I think the actor who plays him does a really great job, by the way.

he starts shaking his head. He starts to kind of cut them off. And he's like, no, no, no, no. Okay. Do you have anything else? Do you have anything else you could play? And Johnny Cash looks like, like, what is going on? Like his eyes go wide, just like he can't believe it. And Sam Phillips goes on to tell him he can't sell gospel. He's playing that same Jimmy Davis tune that everyone has played many, many times. Give me, give me something new. Give me something I haven't heard.

So Johnny Cash he stutters for a moment. He's like, all right, I gotta pull something out here.

He starts going into a very intense version of Folsom Prison Blues. His bandmates look at him. They don't know what to do. They look really nervous. They're maybe not even going to try to start playing. But eventually they start strumming along. This scene is really, really well shot. It's got just one camera focused on Johnny Cash's vocals for the entire first half of the song. Sam Phillips, he listens intently. He respects what he hears, and he wants to cut a record with them.

So this is great. Johnny Cash is happy. Everything went well. There's actually a really great deleted scene that I watched on the DVD version of this movie where with an extended version of this, where you actually see Sun Records press the record, which is pretty cool. And then Johnny Cash goes to a local radio station with one of the test pressings. And he actually slips up when he's putting it onto the term table and he ends up breaking it. So he's really scared. He thinks this is the record.

And he runs back to Sun Records and he's like, Sam, I I I I broke the record, like it's over. And he's like, No, no, no, no, no. And he shows him a big box of records. It's a great scene. And then he also says to Sam, like, Sam, like, I go by John. And Sam Phillips tells him, You're Johnny now. So he's happy. He runs home to Viv and things are about to change in a big time way.

Jon (09:28)
So things are moving fast in Johnny Cash's world. We're now in Texas in 1955. We got Jerry Lee Lewis on stage doing the Lewis boogie. We'll be talking about the killer in a future episode with Great Balls of Fire. But for now, he's part of the entourage that Johnny's on tour with. And as as he's coming off the stage, he gives Johnny a little poke and says, Hey, nobody follows the killer, which is somewhat true. he runs into June Carter backstage, all of a sudden he's nervous and he kind of really bumps into her, and she gets her dress tangled up in his guitar strap right as she's about to run on stage. So the

Host has to joke and kill some time and she's yelling from backstage. Just a second, just a minute, I'll be there making jokes to the crowd. You can tell she's a total professional, knows exactly what she's doing, isn't, you know, riled by anything. ⁓ I'm myself. I've worked as a DJ and musician for many years in my life. And I've had equipment failures, things go wrong on stage. You have to learn how to cover and joke around and make sure everybody gets it and keep the crowd on your side.

it's a kind of a variety show type thing that these guys are doing every night. So it's probably is the same jokes and the same sort of songs. So I imagine if this was a real incident, they might have gone, okay, let's do that every night. It works pretty well actually in the crowd. Loved it.

But then we finally get to see Johnny Cash on stage. He comes out with the classic Hello, I'm Johnny Cash. The band plays Get Rhythm, which is a great song It's a great performance. Everything looks good. The playing looks decent. Even if they are miming it, it looks pretty good. this song was influenced by the Shoeshine Boys we saw earlier. They had a rhythm, so Johnny wrote Get Rhythm around kind of how the slapping of the rags and stuff would go.

then we see Reese Witherspoon as June, and she does jukebox blues. she gives a great performance. I Reese Witherspoon makes a great June Carter. She has the right look, she has the right voice, she's born in the right part of the country for it. I think it's just a really good performance from her. We'll talk more about it later, of course. he meets Elvis backstage as well, because I guess Elvis is the headliner of the tour, and he offers Johnny Cash some chili fries.

So as the tour is progressing, Johnny and June are into each other back at a diner on the road. Johnny starts to talk to her, basically tells her he has a crush on her, and she doesn't really get mad at him. She seems more intrigued by him and just who is this Johnny Cash fellow? Because he's obviously the new guy on the tour, and everyone else is quite more established. June mentions that she's heading off the tour for a bit to play at the Ryman Theatre in Nashville. Very, very famous country music venue,

a few years ago I was in Nashville, Tennessee with my wife and I was walking past the back of the Ryman and I see a lot of people with Sharpies and vinyl albums and they seem very excited.

I didn't really know what was going on. We'd literally just walk past this the back of the Ryman and all of a sudden out of a trailer, boom, there's Alan Jackson ready to sign autographs for all the fans outside. But Alan was looking quite older. This was a couple of years ago, and he kind of made his way into the night with a lot of security. And then I turned around and Morgan Wallen was in an SUV, screaming out at people on Broadway. So it was quite the Nashville country music moment for me and my wife.

Mark (12:06)
Johnny Cash has hit the big time now. We see a montage of him getting a new house. He's getting new furniture. Things are looking up. There's bags of fan mail arriving. Viv is looking over some of this mail as well. A lot of it's from his female fans. So, photos, love letters, that type of thing. Viv's not digging it too much. Viv doesn't even really want.

Johnny Cash talking about the tour when they're at home. She just wants to talk about regular things, normal home life. Don't think Johnny Cash is loving this idea. So we start to see this pressure that he's facing. There seems to be a struggle between his home life and his touring life. And he's going to pick that touring life.

Jon (12:47)
So 1956, we head back out on tour. We've got Johnny, June, Jerry Lee Lewis, and the band all traveling together in a car. they're making their way down the road to perform the George Jones show. And of course, Jerry Lee Lewis is in the passenger seat, being very weird, saying all sorts of strange things to Johnny and to June. so they get to their destination, they get to the hotel, June and Johnny kind of take off to a room for a minute. You can see the tension here is really rising, but she kind of gives them a bit of a hard time saying, You should take credit for something. you're not taking credit for hitting

on me. You're not taking credit for your success in your band. when are you actually gonna take responsibility for something that you're actually doing?

so Johnny considers this. They go outside, all the boys are hanging out. Elvis gives him speed for the first time. ⁓ Johnny, this is probably not a good idea. And the bass player seems to have a knack for building homemade bombs while they're on the road. So he puts a bomb in a tree, blows off a tree limb. The boys are just getting wild, they're partying, having some beers, having a good time. And the Tennessee two are now the Tennessee three. They've added a drummer, which is good for them. we see them in a high school gym and they're playing rock and roll Ruby. kind of a lesser-known song. I think it was just written for the soundtrack.

but it's a good version of it. Everything looks good, everything sounds good.

Many of these variety show type performances took place in high school gyms, armories, really small venues. not the big stadium shows we think of today. just imagine seeing that lineup in a small high school or any of these performers in a small high school, which has been amazing. we have a good story too, but our mother actually saw Johnny Cash in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island in 1958. And Charlottetown's a very small but very beautiful place in Canada. So you just imagine that when they say they were going everywhere, they were going everywhere.

And we also see Elvis doing that's all right. And it's a really good performance of the song as well. Tyler plays a great Elvis, but the groupies are coming in, the drugs are coming in, we are get a full-on party mode montage. And through all of this chaos and all of this, ⁓ he has to go home to Viv for Christmas, and he is not looking good.

Mark (14:35)
We're in nineteen fifty eight now. June has recently gotten divorced for the second time and people are not being very nice to her around town, especially one of these ladies in convenience store, department store, she gives her a mouthful.

Johnny Cash ends up running into June at the department store and he's got sunglasses on. Most likely he's pretty high. They decide to go fishing. Okay, the tension seems to be building again between the two characters.

He agrees to go back on the road with her, and we see them performing at the House of Blues. Johnny Cash tries to get June to come out from backstage at one point, but she's barefoot. Johnny Cash, I'm not coming out there, but eventually he gets her to come out. They do times a wasting. Johnny Cash suggests this because it was actually her ex-husband's song. So that's kind of inappropriate, but that's what he was going for. Johnny Cash also leans in and kisses her.

She storms off stage furious. Now you gotta think back then, there's no social media, right? So the likelihood of stuff like this happening more often than not is probably a lot higher than maybe we're thinking.

Johnny Cash, he's not too happy about this. So he proceeds to trash his hotel room. He actually rips off the sink and bashes his guitar. There's running water everywhere. That was not actually planned in the script for Walk the Line. And Joaquin Phoenix decided to improvise on the spot and did a lot of that stuff. So it really added to the final effect that we see. June ends up quitting the tour. I mean, come on. There's a lot of things going wrong here.

She walks out on Johnny Cash by saying, You can't walk no line.

Jon (16:12)
Hmm. Interesting. So we go right into the very next scene, which is Johnny Cash recording one of his biggest songs, I Walk the Line. some time has passed. June has gotten married yet again. we see Johnny is a complete mess. We have a montage of him just going from show to show, getting high and higher and higher. He's in bad shape. he's moved the c family out to California now, and he needs to go to a music awards show. So he takes his wife. she doesn't really seem too thrilled to go with him anywhere, but she does accompany him

And of course June is there. So Johnny immediately pulls her outside, confronts her on his latest marriage, kinda pokes fun at her, saying, Well, you know, another marriage. he wants to tour with her again though. he's so desperate, he offers to pay her, pay for the entire tour, whatever she wants, whatever she needs, just to get back on the road. So they get back on the road.

We see June doing Wildflower Child, which is a really good performance from Reese Witherspoon. But then in the next scene, this one's pretty awkward. They do It Ain't Me, Babe, the Bob Dylan cover with Viv and the kids in the crowd. And just look up the lyrics to that song. That's clearly a breakup song. And this is really awkward that Johnny would do this in front of his family.

Mark (17:15)
Ouch, that's gotta be an awkward one for people to see.

Jon (17:18)
Like why would you pick that song, Johnny?

So after the show, June meets the whole family backstage. She's doing her best to be her buoyant friendly self, but Viv's not impressed. so they move on to Vegas now in 1965. And they're doing Jackson at the Mint. When the Mint Casino had just been built, I think a year before that, in downtown Las Vegas, Fremont Street, of course. The Mint is no longer there, but the the sign has been resurrected and put in front of another building. And June and Johnny after the show, Johnny's very high throughout this whole entire experience, and they

decide well they're finally gonna give in to the passion, give in to the tension, and they spend the night together in the hotel. However, the next day when they wake up, June is not happy with what's happened here, and she really doesn't want to talk to him the next day.

Mark (17:57)
Move along to that evening's performance. We see Johnny Cash. He's pretty messed up, but he's out on stage. He's doing the song I Got Stripes. He starts to become kind of erratic and he starts pacing back and forth. He starts kicking in the lights that line the stage. And then eventually he collapses. I guess we're led to believe this is a overdose, we're thinking. He never actually did collapse on stage in real life at any point.

But there was an incident where he did kick in the lights at the grand old Opry. So I guess that's at least half true.

Tour is canceled now. Everyone has to leave. We see a montage of June flushing out the pills. Johnny Cash is spiraling. He decides he's got to go to Mexico now to get pills. Meanwhile, June is writing a hit song, Ring of Fire. And that's true. She wrote that one. It wasn't actually Johnny Cash's.

Jon (18:42)
Bad idea.

Mark (18:50)
decides, well, he's got to hide these drugs as he gets over the border. Where's he gonna put them? How about in his guitar? It's a good place as any, I think.

Doesn't pass the sniff test, he gets found out and now he's in prison for real.

Jon (19:06)
So after his short little stay in prison there and all the trouble, he actually has to go home off of tour. Tour is finally over for Johnny. as soon as he gets home, of course, Viv confronts him. She is not happy. She's not happy about the vibes between Johnny and June. It's getting pretty obvious now that something's going on.

So Johnny proceeds to get drunk and high. And around seven or eight o'clock in the morning, I'm guessing, he decides to redecorate the house with photos of him and June. this does not go over well, of course. in a really good scene, this scene's very well acted. You can feel the tension. It's a very serious scene. Viv smashes the pitchers, takes the kids, and leaves. And who could blame her, really? so now Johnny's really down and out. And this started what was kind of the Nashville Outlaw Country phase of his career. that was a movement in country music, featured Johnny Cash.

Willie Nelson, Whalen Jennings, Chris Christofferson, a lot of big country names of the time were there, especially Whalen Jennings was kind of on the spearhead of this movement. And in a really good short scene here, Shooter Jennings, who's also a very good country musician now, plays his father. And it's a great scene. It's really funny. he says, you know, we don't have a phone, Johnny. Johnny keeps trying to pick up the phone to call June, but he can't because they didn't pay the bill. And Johnny's like, I gave you money, Whalen. And he's like, Well, that was last month. This is this month.

So instead he decides, well

I can't call her on the phone. I'm just gonna walk to her house, which I'm guessing was an hour or two away from where they were. but he does it. He goes trudging through the woods, through the forest, and gets to June's house. when he gets there, she is pissed. She does not want to see him. She says, I will only tour of you if you get clean. she sends him on his way. he staggers around for a little bit and he wakes up in front of a cabin and looks up and goes, Well, I guess I'm gonna buy this. This didn't really happen in real life, but he did get the nice big cabinet.

In the woods. So he's trying to do better. He seems a little more on the ball than he was in the last couple of years we've seen him. he's trying to make plans for Thanksgiving. His kids are going to come over, his parents are going to come over, but he has no idea how to make a turkey. He has no idea what to do. So he calls June and asks her for help. And she says, You know what? I'll bring my whole family too. So the whole Carter family, who I'm sure know knew Johnny very well. They all toured together, did music for years. they all come out to his new compound for a family dinner.

But immediately it goes downhill quick. the Carter family are trying to be upbeat and trying to be positive, but J Johnny's dad is just not having it. He still keeps making picking on Johnny and he's just being a real jerk.

So after Johnny's finished calling him out, Ray and the family pack up and leave. This just leaves the Carter family left with Johnny. they decide to stay to help him get him clean, which is probably a good idea at this point because things are just out of control. so we see a montage here of Johnny being sick, lying in bed, trying to kick the drugs, going through withdrawal. And there's one really good scene too, where I guess it's it's a really short scene, but a drug dealer kind of pulls up like, Hey Johnny, I haven't seen you. Where have you been? And June Carter's dad comes out with a shotgun and starts screaming, get out of here, get out of here.

Scaring him off the property. so after a few weeks, months of this, we're not really sure, Johnny's starting to come around, and June is still there by his side.

Mark (21:56)
We see Johnny Cash thumbing through some fan mail. He has letters from prisoners, and he's starting to think maybe there's something I could do for these fans. They're stuck somewhere, maybe I could play for them. So he starts to get the idea to play in a prison. He goes to meet with the record executives at Columbia Records. They're not really into this idea. Bob Dylan is electric now. Maybe Johnny Cash should update his sound, become a little bit more modern.

I don't think that's going over too well. Johnny Cash gives them an ultimatum. Listen to the tapes, either you like them or you toss them. So in real life, everyone was actually very happy to have him play the prison, but the record executives just didn't like the idea of a live album.

Now we're back into that wood shop scene where we see Johnny Cash staring at the blade. I think it's a very well done scene. It's it's really building this tension now. We've come full circle in a way.

He has a glass of water. The glass of water doesn't look too clear. It looks a little cloudy. He asks the prison warden, Warden, you ever drink this water? He says, Well, no, no. I'm a Coca-Cola man. Of course you are. So water's not too great, Folsom Prism. He brings the glass of water with him as he walks out on stage. The crowd is loving it. Everybody's cheering. The band is warmed up now. The vibes are great.

He's told he can't swear on stage. That's not going to go over too well. Of course, Johnny Cash is going to swear on stage. He cuts into the track, Cocaine Blues, and everybody's loving it. It's a great song. It's a very powerful scene.

Jon (23:31)
After the success of Folsom Prison, we're back on tour again. This time now Johnny and June are in London, Ontario in 1968. We see them doing Ring of Fire, we see them doing Jackson, and Johnny Cash proposes to her during Jackson, which is kind of not true and true at the same time. He did propose to her on stage in London, Ontario, but it was after the song, not during the song, and they didn't actually kiss. But still a great true story. And there's a ton about this online. And there's even stuff in the London Gardens today, which is now called something else. But the London Gardens still stands. It's a hockey arena.

And there's still pictures of that and all sorts of memorabilia for it. And after that, we see an epilogue. The family's back together. the dad, Ray, is doing a lot better. He's playing with the grandkids, they all seem to like him, and things seem a lot better in Johnny Cash's life. However, June passed away in 2003, and Johnny passed in September 2003. so they didn't quite ever get to see this movie be made, but they did have a big hand in it before it actually hit the screen. And we see the

Credits roll, and we hear long-legged guitar man ⁓ June's ode to Johnny Cash, done by Reese Witherspoon, and she does a great job. And that is Walk the Line.

Mark (24:37)
Let's take a look at the film soundtrack, Walk the Line, original motion picture soundtrack. This is a country rock acoustic album from the year 2005. It's important to point out that this was certified platinum. That means it sold over 1 million copies. And it also won a Grammy Award for Best Compilation Soundtrack Album. Let's take a look at what we got here. First up, we have Wawking Phoenix with Get Rhythm.

Jon (25:05)
Get Rhythm is a great example of what a Sun Records song was in the 1950s. Has the perfect tone, perfect beat for it, perfect everything. This is actually the B side to walk the line. And this is the first time I'm really listening to his entire voice just on a track, not just from a scene from a movie. Joaquin Phoenix's voice is definitely thinner than Johnny's Cash It's not bad. It's not great either. It's impossible to imitate Johnny Cash. I think we all know that.

But the playing's authentic. It sounds really good. And I noticed the cadence too is also was brought back later on by Rick Rubin when he did the Rick Rubin America recordings much, much later on in his life. I wish we had more time to talk about those, but we don't. But anyway, a lot of the cadence in the rhythm was also used in the song God's Gonna Cut You Down much later on.

Mark (25:49)
a great song to start off the album. It's upbeat, it's fast. next we're going to Walking Phoenix with the title track, I walk the line.

Jon (25:57)
And of course, this is one of Johnny Cash's best known, biggest, most iconic songs. The band's really tight on this recording, ⁓ but kind of loungy too as well. And it has a bit of a slower vocal to it. So it is a little bit of a different take on what you think of the classic song.

Mark (26:14)
Next is Reese Witherspoon, Wildwood Flower.

Jon (26:18)
I really liked it. I think Reese Witherspoon did a great, great job portraying June Carter. just in her look, the voice, everything. And her singing voice is great. I think she might be a little bit stronger than Joaquin Phoenix, actually, and does a very good job on this standard.

Mark (26:30)
Waylon Mallory Payne, Lewis Boogie.

Jon (26:33)
this is a fun song. This is a total classic Jerry Lee Lewis boogie style music he loved to play. it's a good cover of it. It's full on boogie woogie mode, and it's really central to the music of this period. there i it's it had to be included, of course. And the band recreating is perfect. And if you listen to the song and read the lyrics, there is a little cheap shot about Elvis in there.

Mark (26:53)
We're going back to Joaquin Phoenix, ring of fire.

Jon (26:57)
v maybe the most famous Johnny Cash song, one of my favorite songs. I was prepared to not like this. And I can't say I did like it. I mean I've seen a million cover bands in my life in my work do this song. I always wish they kind of wouldn't touch it in their set, because the original is just so up there that it's really hard to do a cover of it. However, I will give a mention to California punk band Social Distortion. They do a great cover of this song, but it's such a different take on it that I think it works.

Try and just imitate Johnny Cash's version of it. Mm, it's always gonna fall a bit flat.

Mark (27:29)
Jonathan Rice, you're my baby.

Jon (27:32)
this is good. It's an upbeat song. It's well done. ⁓ it has kind of a stray cats vibe to it, a rockabilly vibe, sorta to it. I really liked it. It was a fun track.

Mark (27:41)
Going back to Joaquin Phoenix, cry, cry, cry.

Jon (27:45)
I think it's a better performance from Phoenix than some of the other things on the album. I still don't love it, but I do like it. And but the original is so good. Like how are you gonna top Cry Cry Cry by Johnny Cash? It's kind of hard. But I mean I will commend him for trying.

Mark (27:59)
Walking Phoenix again, Folsom Prison Blues.

Jon (28:02)
I could cut and paste what I said about the Cry Cry Cry right into here. But I guess it must be said again though, it is it's impossible to imitate Johnny Cash. So kudos for him for trying.

Mark (28:13)
Going over to our Elvis cover now, we have Tyler Hilton. That's all right.

Jon (28:17)
this is a really good version of this song. Tyler Hilton does a great Elvis. He was great in the movie, he's great on the soundtrack. I do believe he was an Elvis impersonator for certain points of his life throughout his acting career. So he's perfect for the role. And personally, I love this song. This is one of the first songs I think I remember ever hearing. My father would play Elvis Gray's hits cassettes on while we were driving around when I was a little boy in the early 80s, and I remember That's All Right Mama coming on all the time and really liking it.

Mark (28:46)
Going to Reese Witherspoon now, Juke Box Blues.

Jon (28:50)
This is one of the Carter family traditional songs they would do. It has that variety show, like I said earlier, style of country. I really like Reese's version of this. She's got a lot of grit in her voice, and it works really well for the character, and she did a good job.

Mark (29:04)
Now we have Joaquin Phoenix teaming up with Reese Witherspoon. It ain't me, babe.

Jon (29:10)
yes, the Bob Dylan song we mentioned earlier. it's kind of questionable to play in front of your your soon-to-be ex-wife with your new girlfriend. but I think this is a good cover of this. This might be, I think, the best performance I think from the two together on the soundtrack. I I really liked it. And of course, like their original version was great too. And even the Dylan version's good too. So yeah, I think Reese and her partner Phoenix there did a really good job.

Mark (29:33)
Joaquin Phoenix, home of the blues.

Jon (29:36)
This is more of a ballad, more of a honky tonk type of song. totally passable version of it. ⁓ it didn't really stick with me too hard. I'm trying to remember it right now, even though I heard it three times in the last two days.

Mark (29:48)
We're not done with the blues. We got more coming along here. Tyler Hilton, Milk Cow Blues.

Jon (29:54)
This is better than the last track for sure. it's the Elvis cover of a blues classic. there's a lot of versions of this song out there. But I think I think they nailed it. I think they did good job. And for the first time here on the soundtrack, we were really prominent electric guitar, especially at the start of the song. which is I feel a bit refreshing.

Mark (30:11)
Shooter Jennings. I'm a long way from home.

Jon (30:15)
this is good. This is well done too. I really like Shooter Jennings. I think he's a great artist. this sounds almost more like a demo, maybe it was. I didn't really look that up. Maybe it was. but yeah, it's good. And of course, Shooter's brief scene in the movie is really well done. He plays his father perfectly.

Mark (30:31)
Joaquin Phoenix Cocaine Blues.

Jon (30:34)
Of course, it was done at Folsom. this song's been around in some form since 1947. I always think of it as the Johnny Cassius kind of song. He kind of made it his own. this might be one of Joaquin's better performances. I liked it. He did a good job. of course, it has a great line. When I was arrested, I was dressed in black.

Mark (30:52)
We're gonna close it out with Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon for the next couple. Jackson.

Jon (30:58)
This is the perfect song to end it with. It kinda it tells a story. Everybody loves the playful vocals between June and Johnny, or in this case, Joaquin and Reese. It's just such a great song. it's a strong effort overall and a great way to end the album.

Mark (31:15)
Looking at the critical reception for Walk the Line. Right now on Rotten Tomatoes, Walk the Lion is scoring 83% on its tomato meter, 90% on its popcorn meter. Those are some very high grades. 7.8 out of 10 on internet movie database. A little low, a little low. I think somewhere in the middle between, I don't know, maybe an eight, eight and a half.

Jon (31:41)
I was thinking eight point five. That's exactly what I was thinking too.

Mark (31:43)
This movie was a beast in terms of winning at the awards. Let's take a look at this. Sixty two total nominations. Thirty two wins. That's a fifty two percent winning rate. That is very, very high. Very high.

Jon (31:59)
That's insane. We have

not seen a movie yet in the theatre that has this many wins.

Mark (32:05)
Let's just call out a couple of them. There's no way we can go through all 32 wins. Academy Awards, Best Actress, Reese Witherspoon, Golden Globes, Best Motion Pitcher, Musical or Comedy, Golden Globes, Best Actor in Emotion Pitcher, that's Joaquin Phoenix. Golden Globes, Best Actress in Emotion Pitcher, that's Reese Witherspoon. Grammy Awards, as we mentioned earlier, best compilation soundtrack album.

Screen Actors Guild Awards, outstanding performance by a female actor in a leading role. That's Reese Witherspoon. We'll end it there for those.

Jon (32:39)
If we were gonna list everything that this movie won, we would need an entire separate podcast just listing all of that sort of stuff. That's a serious amount of hardware. It made a serious amount of money at the box office, and I think it earned what it got.

But for everything we might like or we may enjoy here in the Rock N' Roll Theatre, there's always a hater out there, and they're usually online. For each episode here of the Rock N' Roll Theatre, my brother Mark scours your internet to find a one star review of anything and everything that we watch. So what do you got for us this week for this amazingly award winning movie?

Mark (33:12)
We are on Amazon and we have a review here from Linda Ventassel, reviewed on March 13th, 2006.

One star out of five. The title is Best Thing. Dot dot dot. The Ending. All caps. It goes like this. I've come to the conclusion that this movie received the sympathy vote of the year because it was the second to worst movie that I have ever seen, with the Flintstones being the first. I'm only sorry that I purchased this movie before seeing it. I would be hard pressed to

Go to a dollar theatre to view this film. And if I had gone to the theatre to view it, I would have walked out within the first 30 minutes. Succinctly put, this movie is awful. The best thing about it is the ending. At first, I thought maybe you had to be a fan of Johnny Cash's music to appreciate the film. And since he was a few decades before my time, I thought it only natural that I would feel this way. After further contemplation, however,

I realize this is not the case. Loretta Lynn was before my time as well, but I love Coal Miner's Daughter. Walk the line lacks what it needs the most. Substance. No one could have saved this film, not even Reese Witherspoon, who happens to be one of my favorite actresses. On the other hand, Joaquin Phoenix has no redeeming characteristics about him whatsoever.

Succinctly stated, I hate his performance from beginning to end. There is just nothing to like about him. Do yourself a favor and don't waste your time watching this piece of puff. If you have to succumb to the in quotes hype, do yourself a favor and rent it or borrow it from a friend. I have a friend who wants to borrow it, but I feel compelled to apologize in advance before loaning it because it happens to be among the worst films ever.

Three exclamation points.

Jon (35:21)
Well, since we've already tackled Linda's second most hated movie, Walk the Line, maybe you'd like to see us do her first hated movie, The Flintstones. I'm not even sure what version of the Flintstones movie came out in two thousand and three. And I doubt there's a lot of music in it. But Linda, if you're out there and you want us to tackle it, drop us a line in the comments.

Mark (35:37)
She also likes coal miner's daughter. Maybe that's a strong pick.

Jon (35:41)
Hmm. W then you don't like Johnny Cash or June Carter? Okay.

Mark (35:45)
Looking at the lasting legacy of Walk the Line. Obviously, it's an iconic music-based biopic. It won all those awards for a reason. As we mentioned earlier, it did big time damage at the box office, mega numbers. Absolutely huge. It also helped revitalize interest in Johnny Cash's life and music for new audiences. So there were a lot of people who weren't that familiar with Johnny Cash, but when this movie came out, they were prompted to go see it and search out some of his albums and his back catalog.

I think it's an excellent example of actors performing songs for real without dubbing. The vocal performances from Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon are significant. They're very well done. And just overall, I would recommend this to anyone who likes movies, period. It's a very strong movie.

Jon (36:34)
If you like movies, you will like this. I I hadn't seen it in probably 15, 16 years. And as soon as I put it back on, 20 minutes back in, I was like, yeah, this is a great movie. I remember telling my wife, I said, we're gonna watch this together later because you'll love it too. I'm of course a little bit biased. I do love Johnny Cash's music. I'll live since I was a little boy. I learned how to play Johnny Cash songs guitar when I was teenager. I've been to the Johnny Cash Museum in Nashville, which is amazing. And if you have the time and you are there, absolutely go check it out.

It's so good. It's so well done. And I'm proud too that this movie is well done. Not every biopic we tackle, I love. Not every representation do I think is perfect. And yes, I'm sure there are things that were changed for this movie. I mean, Rosanna Cash herself said, that's exactly how I grew up, but she didn't dislike the movie either. So I think that's a pretty strong recommend. It's done so well. The costumes, the sets, the music, everything takes you right back to that time. Really a strong film, and one of the more strong ones we've looked at in the rock and roll theatre.

Well, thank you very much for joining us tonight in the rock and roll theatre. If you could do us a quick thing on the way out the door, if you could like, subscribe, comment, whatever the case may be, wherever you're at in the world, We have a TikTok page, we have a YouTube page. We have lots of little short, cool, funny videos on there you can check out as well too. We really appreciate all those little things you do for us. Thank you.

But for now the theatre is closed.