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.

Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)

Director: James Cameron

Cast: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton, Robert Patrick, Edward Furlong

Have I Seen it Before: It’d be weird if I hadn’t by now, right?

Did I Like It: It’d be weird if I didn’t right?

The big (and likely unfair) question one must confront when critiquing this movie is how it ranks against its predecessor, The Terminator (1984). Many say that this is the superior film, putting it in that rare pantheon of sequels that out-perform the original film, The Godfather, Part II (1974), Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982), and another entry in the Cameron pantheon, Aliens (1986).

I’m not sure this one qualifies.

Don’t get me wrong, the tools Cameron brings to bear here (now with a full budget) cements his status as one of the greatest technical filmmakers. The then-embryonic use of CGI is perfectly applied, used to bring the T-1000 character to life at a time when it really couldn’t do anything other than give us strange metallic polygons. But at the same time, the use of puppetry, miniatures, and even rear-screen projection is used with just the right amount of restraint that it makes it all the more irritating when other filmmakers over the last twenty-five years have decided that even lesser quality CGI is all they needed to sell the reality of their films. Honestly, no one uses rear-screen projection anymore, even Cameron. It’s a real shame.

And yet, the restrictions make for a more interesting film. The restraint that Cameron uses here is all the more present in the initial film. There a fewer moments in the original film where I am thinking about the technology at play. I am more thoroughly immersed in the story there. Maybe the romance between Sarah (Hamilton) and Kyle Reese in the original film is a stronger engine for a story than the Shane built out of chrome on display here. No wonder Cameron got out of the cyborg game after this one, and with each new entry in the series why we wonder why they keep going.