Walk the Line was really quite good! And not a bad choice for Valentines day either.

I actually thought it was a better film than most of those up for major awards, even though it comes up somewhat short of what you'd want from a Johnny Cash biopic. I agree with my man Shouter Dauter that it's more of a "tribute" film. In addition to compressing time and leaving out some of the better/wilder Cash exploits, they also radically simplified the religious and substance-abuse angles, but it's a movie. They needed to build a basic narrative, and following on the formula that Ray etched out -- great music, great actors, and a plot arc about a good man who has to kick his habbit to reach his full potential -- is a pretty logical choice.

I really have to give it up for Reece Whitherspoon, who I have an instinctual loathing of as a person (for no good reason, really), but who continually impresses me as an actress and manages to be downright attractive in character. That's talent.

The movie made me miss the South from last summer. Like, I got all excited when they showed Sun Records. It's a small place, you know; and I been there. That's always a little thrill. But it's more than that. It's the vibe of the whole thing, the South, from the bit at the beginning in Arkansas farm country through to the Carter family coming over in a pickup with Thanksgiving.

For a lot of us Northerners and urbanites, all the good essential bits of humanity that are a bound up in those cultural traditions and places are mixed up in ideas about Southern/rural racism and ignorance, which is in itself a form of ignorance, which is too bad.