Walk The Line

Synopsis: Walk The Line is the story of country-and-western singer Johnny Cash.

Y'know, it's funny. Growing up, I seem to recall my dad had the Johnny Cash Fulsom Prison album. And I seem to recall thinking it was extremely dull. And despite the recent renaissance afforded Cash, in light of him being dead and all, I still find myself thinking the same way.

In a world of Presley and Holly, Richard and Lewis, Berry and Cochran, Cash (admittedly in a slightly different genre) just doesn't cut it for me.

And you've seen one bio-pic, you've seen 'em all.

Joaquin Phoenix is one of my favourite "young" actors, though, and I will gladly give him a couple hours of my viewing time. Reese Witherspoon was good, too. But I can't help feeling that, like Cash's music, IMHO, the movie was a whole lotta hoopla about nothing, albeit well-acted and well-directed (by James Mangold, of Cop Land fame) nothing.

I award Walk The Line, story notwithstanding, 64 points out of 100.

Signs

I saw Signs for the second time a few nights ago. I didn't intend to watch it, but it started up on TV, and the missus was asleep beside me, so I figured what the hell. Plus any film starring a bigoted, anti-Semitic, billion-children-rearing Catholic zealot (allegedly) has got to be worth seeing, right?

We all know the story: smalltown family with dead mum and ex-preacher dad find massive crop circles on their land. Turns out it's a global phenomenon. Aliens are here. And "there'll be a twist, probably, cos, y'know, that whatshisname made it, the one who did The Sixth Sense." "Ah, yeah, The Sixth Sense. Loved that movie."

Well, you know what? I fucking hated The Sixth Sense. It was shit, all right. And after about five minutes it was fucking obvious that Bruce Willis was dead. Jesus, people!

Anyway, I think I digress...

Thing is, for all the spleen I vent about The Sixth Sense, one thing I took away from it was that M Night Shyamalan looked like a pretty decent director. I liked all the handheld camerawork and his choices of angles, which is why I have continued to watch his films.

Bottom line: Signs is some hokey shit, but it's kinda fun while you're in it. The aliens aren't very impressive, either, and the ending... Well, I liked the ending enough. It's not really a twist as such, but it's reasonably interesting, even if it goes slightly in a direction that I didn't want it to...

The performances are good (Joaquin is always good, and you get to see that Little Miss Sunshine girl before she was that Little Miss Sunshine girl) and the direction is solid overall. We get more locked-down camerawork this time out, but it works nicely to create a sense of tension.

So, it's not shit. But we aren't talking a major film of the 21st century here, either. I give Signs 60 points out of 100.