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Walk the Line is an Academy Award, Golden Globe, and Grammy Award-winning film chronicling the life of the American country singer Johnny Cash. The title is taken from one of Cash's best known songs, "I Walk the Line".
The film focuses on Cash's younger life, his romance with June Carter, and his ascent to the country music scene, with material taken from his autobiographies. Walk the Line's production budget is estimated to have been $28,000,000.
The film previewed at the Telluride Film Festival on September 4, 2005, and went into wide release on November 18. This film was nominated for five Academy Awards including Best Actor (Joaquin Phoenix) and Best Actress (Reese Witherspoon). Witherspoon won the Oscar for Best Actress, the film's sole Oscar winner.
As of August 22, 2006, the film had grossed a total of US $186,438,883 worldwide. On February 28, 2006, a single-disc DVD and a two-discs collector's edition DVD were released; these sold three million copies on their first day of release.
Critics generally responded with positive reviews, garnering an 83% on Rotten Tomatoes , almost exactly the same score received by Ray , a biopic on Ray Charles to which the film is often compared.
Baltimore Sun reviewer Michael Sragow wrote, "What Phoenix and Witherspoon accomplish in this movie is transcendent. They act with every bone and inch of flesh and facial plane, and each tone and waver of their voice. They do their own singing with a startling mastery of country music's narrative musicianship."
Some, including Las Vegas Weekly reviewer Jeffrey M. Anderson, believed the film suffered from having important events distilled into meaningless and unrealistic circumstances. Anderson also accused director Mangold of "stretch[ing] and dilut[ing] the core story until it resembles less a great man's life than a TV movie of the week."Wikipedia |
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