Walk the Line (2005)

Director: James Mangold

Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Reese Witherspoon, Ginnifer Goodwin, Robert Patrick

Have I Seen It Before: Oh, yeah. I went into a weird spot there for about six months where I was mildly, but insistently obsessed with the Man in Black, and it all had to do with this movie. I’d go in more detail, but I worry I might lose whatever connection I have with you, dear reader, if the phrase “Johnny Cash of the Oklahoma Democratic Party” (brief though it may have been) comes into the conversation.

Did I Like It: I’m sort of glad that the film fell of regular rotation for me, if I’m being honest. The thing that put this into the class of quite-good biopics is that the main and supporting cast are not bad at what they’re trying to imitate. So many other biopics struggle to recreate the art of their subjects. When comedians are at the center, things can get very grim indeed, as even a joke told correctly isn’t all that funny the second time around. Musicians tend to fare quite a bit better, and this may be one of the better examples in that pantheon. Phoenix and Witherspoon are not pure vocal copies of Johnny Cash an June Carter Cash, but they are adept enough musicians that I spent the next six months after first seeing the film listening to the soundtrack (the liner photos of which made it seem like an honest-to-God , and I may be putting it into my regular Apple Music rotation once again.

The quality of the musical performances paper over a lot in the film, which might be weighed down a bit by the typical tropes and structure of a biopic, and one of a musician, no less. Tragedy, being downtrodden, sudden success, equally sudden self-destructiveness, followed by redemption that might strike anyone who has actually lived a human life. It’s all there. If it weren’t for Witherspoon and Phoenix’s palpably chemistry, there might not have been any thing here, other than a concept album.

Zootopia (2016)

Director: Byron Howard, Rich Moore

Cast: Ginnifer Goodwin*, Jason Bateman, Idris Elba, Jenny Slate

Have I Seen It Before?: Never. But it has been on in the background during a series of facetime calls with my niece (or as she calls it, “FOXES!”), so I figured I needed to get with the times.

Did I like it?: I may be further showing my age by still being of a mind that films produced by Disney animation and not Pixar are somehow less than. It was certainly true back in the 90s and the 00s, but ever since John Lasseter** bridged the divide between the two animation houses, maybe Pixar films have been a little less special (not bad, just less special), and regular Disney pictures have increased in quality by quantum leaps. Wreck It Ralph (2012) immediately comes to mind.

The disparity in quality is just not there anymore, even as Lasseter’s era has come to an end. And so, Zootopia presents all of the visual inventiveness and humor we have come to expect from the mouse house. Far more interestingly, the world is an interesting speculative premise. What if the various animals of the world all evolved into a humanlike society? How would creatures that were once predators and prey come to interact with one another? Would they have nudity taboos? It’s a lot to take in for a kids movie. It leaves even larger questions that I’m not sure could fuel a sequel, but I keep thinking about a day after I watched the movie. Are there humans in this world? Did they not evolve? Do the species intermarry? It sure seems like Judy (Goodwin) and Nick (Bateman) seem to be awfully nice friends at the end of the film, but they can’t possibly have children, right?

Have I gotten to the point where I’m no longer in the right mindset for a bright colorful movie about talking animals? That’s probably the most pressing question of all.

*The role felt tailor made for someone like Amy Poehler, but Inside Out (2015) probably negated that possibility. It was only after looking up the stats on the film in anticipation of this review that I realized Judy was played by the ill-fated first Mrs. Cash. It’s a testament to the performance that it wasn’t immediately recognizable as someone, unlike the performances of either Bateman, Elba, or Slate.

** I know… It’s good for the culture that he is gone now, and it’s even better that he’s only kind of been able to land his golden parachute in the safe havens of Skydance Animation. But its impossible to deny that the man had an impact on the quality of animated movies over the last twenty-five years.