I Won't Walk the Line

Much like today where you wouldn’t see me in front of the television watching rivalry week (scroll down to read why), one movie you will not be seeing me this at weekend is Walk the Line. Granted you won’t see me at the Harry Potter movie due to the fact I’ve been through puberty, but that a whole different subject. The reason why I will pass on Walk the Line is not because I don’t like Johnny Cash, I quite a few of his albums and one of the few respectable country artist in the genre because he doesn’t insult the intelligent of his audience. The reason why I will pass on the film is because, much like last year’s Ray, why would I want to watch a fabricated bio-flick when I can just spend the time listening to the music.

My ban on the bio-flick goes back a couple years when I heard Will Smith would be playing the title character in Ali. Seriously, the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air as a boxer. And why did Ali even need a bio-flick when you could just watch the documentary When We Were Kings instead? And these bio-flicks take way to many liberties just to make the movies more feel good most notably The Hurricane with Denzel Washington who made the Rubin Carter look like a much better fighter than he actually was. Walk the Line looks like it won’t be an exception. A child Cash had with his first wife complained that the film made her mom look like a villain to the point where Kathy Cash walked out of a private screening.

Another problem I have with the bio-flick is how they are almost automatically Oscar worthy for the actors with both Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon getting the buzz that always surround such film and led the dude from Booty Call to win Best Actor last year. But the thing is that portraying a real person is much easier than creating a completely new character that no one knows. So a bio-flick actor winning an Oscar is essentially like an Olympic diver winning the gold even though he did dives at the lowest difficulty. But when it comes down to it, when I look at the trailer to Walk the Line, I don’t see Johnny & June, I only see Joaquin and Reese. So instead of heading down to the multiplex this weekend, I’ll instead put on The American Recordings and wonder what it would be like to shoot a man in Reno just to watch him die.