The man in black is back
No, I’m not talking about MIB, sheesh do some research! 20th Century Fox has released one of its greatest movies from the last decade on blu-ray. as of recently they’ve been transferring some of their more popular movies to HD and we’ve been reviewing them. The Last King of Scotland was the first one we got our hands on and now we’re going to have the pleasure of talking to you about Walk the Line.
If you’re not familiar with the storyline for the film, it’s based on a biography of Johnny Cash. It goes through his trials and tribulations in life, which include a broken marriage, a rough start to his career and a drug induced portion of his life he would have probably rather forgot. It’s both triumphant and tragic, while leaving you the same way it probably left the singer; happy, but still tarnished a bit.
The movie certainly is moving for many reasons. On one level it’s a love story that isn’t quite as loving as it should be. Cash (Joaquin Phoenix) marries and then proceeds to fall in love with a beautiful singer named June Carter (Reese Witherspoon). On and off again, June watches Cash self-destruct and rebuild more than once. Both Phoenix and Witherspoon do a fantastic job on creating the situations at hand. They give their all to each other and to their true-life characters. The fact that each actually sang made their performances on the stage, and their convincing the audience that ‘true love’ was blooming, even sweeter. The story of ‘them’ is one way the movie catches you, but the other is their own individual demons. For Cash it was his struggle with stress and being away from his original family. For Carter, it was going through multiple divorces, while being judged constantly and trying to maintain the ‘good girl’ image. This movie is a lot deeper than it leads on and that’s what makes it great.
The writing and acting kept everything intact. It always helps when your director, who is James Mangold, helped with the screenplay. Direction is easy when you’re imagining the project. The flow of the film and the balanced progressiveness of the multiple stories being told within a 135-minute timeframe is what impresses me the most. Everything/anything could have gone horribly wrong with this film, but it came together probably better than even Mangold expected. Again, credit good writing, direction and fantastic acting for the success of this movie.
As for its leap to HD, well it was just as good as expected. I’m not sure the prisoners of Folsom truly appreciated how nasty the water that Cash was holding up in the glass looked in high-definition, but it looked nastier than the DVD version. The lovely layout of a 50s/60s setting mixed with great lighting and fantastic locations provided a virtually perfect backdrop for the HD upgrade of this film. Little details, like Cash looking much worse when he’s on drugs, make the blu-ray version of this film more powerful. That’s one aspect of the format that people may not have expected; it enhances the visual intensity of the film. Let’s not forget about the real upgrade here, the music. Once you hear all of the music coming through your system in DTS-HD you will probably load up iTunes and buy the man’s collection. I recommend the Folsom Prison album.
For features, it’s more of the same from the DVD. Here’s what you’re getting:
– Commentary by James Mangold
– 10 Deleted Scenes with optional commentary by James Mangold
– Extended Musical Sequences
– Folsom, Cash & the Comeback Featurette
– Celebrating The Man in Black: The Making of Walk the Line Featurette
– Ring of Fire: The Passion of Johnny & June Featurette
– Theatrical Trailer
The features are great and, while most aren’t new, they are still informative and interesting if you haven’t already seen them. They’re good, but I wish they had done something cooler and more inventive for this badass blu-ray.