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WALK THE LINE — Movie Review

Johnny Cash man! They couldn’t screw this story up. Anybody going into the theater expecting to see a documentary about the Man in Black, well…. they were mighty disappointed. Nah, this was a Hollywood love story about Johnny and his wife of 35 years, June Carter. But their love story in real life was greater than anything Hollywood could come up with.

If you are a fan of Johnny Cash, and June too, then you will love this movie. Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon’s portrayal of the couple is on the money. In some of the concert scenes, no matter how cynical you are, you’ll be about to start clapping. In the Folsom Prison scene, I jumped up clinching my fist yelling “Yeah!” as my date looked at me like I was crazy.

I was reading an article somewhere and the writer said that a whole generation of young people would grow up knowing the legend of Johnny Cash through this movie. That they would really like the drug taking, rebellious rocker portrayed in the movie. Good for them. Because that is the real Johnny Cash of the early 1960’s to 1968 period covered in the movie. I’m listening to the Live at Folsom and San Quentin records as I write this, and that is the Johnny Cash I’m listening to on these recordings. All hopped up on bennies or just the adrenaline of playing for such audiences, he’s the ultimate rebel.

Johnny Cash was tortured by demons, chemical and spiritual, and was the coolest man who ever lived. And the movie does a great job of convincing lifetime fans and people who don’t know anything about him of that fact.

Greta Garbo

An Apology from the Gazette Arts and Entertainment staff

In the last issue of the Gazette, we made a great mistake by not commemorating the 100th anniversary of the great Greta Garbo. The Turner Classic Movies channel did not overlook this big event, and they ran her movies all month long. And the US Postal service released a Garbo stamp, doing what I thought was impossible, coming out with a cooler stamp than the Audrey Hepburn stamp.

Great Garbo was born Sept 18, 1905 in Stockholm Sweden. She became a star during the silent film era with her captivating face and eyes that made the audience feel her every emotion. Bosley Crowther, NY Times film critic (1940-1967) had this to say of Ms. Garbo: “Set in the face of classic structure were large, sad, luminous eyes that expressed a limited but intense emotional range”. Another movie historian had this to say: “That face, exquisitely beautiful, yet possessed of an undeniable, haunting sadness. Languidly indifferent, yet capable of projecting immense passion. No screen actress has survived the camera’s scrutiny with such detachment or exploited it’s myth making powers so effectively. And no face save Garbo’s has communicated deep emotion with the same contradictory mix of intensity and calm.”
All of here films were in black and white which made her more mysterious and enhanced her romantic allure.
When the talkies came in, her sultry voice added a whole new dimension to her acting style and made her even more charismatic.

Anna Christrie (1930) was her first talkie. Anna Karenina (1935) may be her best performance. 1939’s Ninotchka showed her comedic side. “ Garbo laughs,” said the ads and movie posters.
Her true-life acts were the stuff of legend also. She wouldn’t attend premieres, but would days later go to some movie house early in the afternoon, sit in a cheap seat, watch the movie, and leave wearing her sunglasses.
When she filmed some scenes, she made everybody leave, even the director. She said, “During these scenes I allow only the cameraman and lighting man on the set. The director goes out for coffee or a milkshake. When people are watching, I’m just a woman making faces for the camera. It destroys the illusion. If I am by myself, my face will do things I cannot do with it otherwise”

She turned her back on Hollywood in 1941, moving to a permanent residence in New York City. There she lived a reclusive life, venturing out only a few times causing “Garbo sightings”. This added to her mystique, living out the quote from her movie, Grand Hotel, where she says her most famous line: “I want to be alone”. In a rare interview during those years, she said, “I never said ‘I want to be alone.’ I only said ‘I want to be left alone.’ There is all the difference in the world.”

In Ninotchka, that famous line is spoofed when her character is asked “Do you want to be alone comrade?” and she roars “NO!”.

A couple of other quotes by Garbo that are as famous as some of her movie lines are:
“Life would be so wonderful if we only knew what to do with it”
“There is no one who would have me-I can’t cook”