Zacharek's review is lovely, but I think she mischaracterizes June Carter's "fire" when she suggests it is "shorthand for the crazy perilousness of love." I'm sure that's in there, but more important is that it's the absolutely-literally-believed-in burning hell-fire that awaits the married who stray. File this under "things that Sarah Vowell taught me". Her _This American Life_ piece on Johnny and June is peerless (google "sarah vowell johnny cash").

Stephanie Zacharek's review of Walk the Line was enjoyable and useful, but I had to guffaw out loud at the line, "Phoenix forces us to confront the notion that unhealthy, unbalanced people can sometimes make incredible art."

The canons of Rock'n'Roll and great art are strewn with the corpses of Unhealthy, Unbalanced People - Elvis, John Lennon, Jackson Pollack, Janis Joplin, Sid Vicious, Ian Curtis, just to mention some of the dead ones... Mark E Smith is still alive and kicking. Especially with Rock'n'Roll (of which Johnny Cash was one of the greats, in spirit if not always in form), it's not that the best performers have something Extra, it's that certain something Lacking that sets them apart...

Julieb, I don't quite understand what you're trying to say, expecially when you bring up Mark E. Smith. He may not be dead, but he's sure done a lot of speed (sulphates, they call it in england)! He references his drug use very often. In fact, The Wonderful and Frightening World of the Fall is the travelogue of a speed "trip" (this is how he characterizes it, not me, listen to "Pat the Trip Dispenser")..."Balanced" is not a word I'd use to describe him, even if he didn't hang himself.

I completely agree that the metaphorical landscape of rock & roll is strewn with the literal corpses of brilliant and unbalanced artists. But Sid Vicious? I realize that this is very tangential to the review of Johnny Cash, but Sid Vicious was not brilliant and he was not an artist. He was very fortunate to have been John Lydon's friend when they needed a bass player in the Sex Pistols. He was punk's Ringo Starr but with less talent. His only real ability was being in the right place at the right time. His contribution to the group was his willingness to fully embrace the sex and drugs ethos of rock music. But don't lump him in with truly brilliant musicians. The simple fact that he was a part of something huge does not bespeak his greatness. It merely says that he had excellent timing.

But Cash's brand of Christianity, the polar opposite of religious conservatism, was based on the necessity of embracing even those the Lord seems to have forgotten.

I was worried for a minute that Ms. Zacahrek would stick to the movie and its review, and not bring in a gratuitous slam on people she disagrees with. Fortunately, she came through, managing both the insult and a distortion of Christian concern for the poor in the same phrase. That concern embraces the poor, oppressed and alienated because the Lord hasn't forgotten them, and directs us not to forget them either.

I'm a fundamentalist Christian who doesn't exactly fit the mold. I was a Kerry campaign volunteer. I'm anti-death penalty. I've been against the war since day one. I was against Bush before he got 'elected' the first time.

Still, I really don't think it's fair to say that politically conservative Christians don't care about, say, people in prisons. I go to church with plenty of conservative Christians. I may disagree strongly with how they vote, but are they lacking in terms of doing things like visiting those in prison? Well, gosh, my former church choir (I moved to another state...my new church is too small to have a real choir) goes every year to sing at a prison nearby. I volunteer at a Christian crisis pregnancy center that has an entire room of donated clothes and toys that we give away to anyone who comes to ask for them.

Everyone I volunteer there with votes conservative---and they're still busy giving themselves away to help the poor!

I'll be the first to say that while I'm fiscally almost a socialist, the only reason that I am one is because the church has fallen down on the job. It is OUR job to take care of the poor, the widow, and the fatherless. If we were doing our job, we wouldn't need a welfare system. Since the church hasn't done it's job, I'm pro-welfare.

That said, when was the last time that YOU went to a prison? I'm not saying that the church is doing all it should, but perhaps if you took your own advice, and got outside of your own sphere, you'd know enough conservative Christians to know that they, just like Johnny Cash, are visiting and helping those who are in need.

I was hesistant about seeing this movie. I am a Cash fan. The previews gave me the impression that Phoenix was doing a caricature of Johnny Cash.

I couldn't have been more wrong.

This was an amazing movie.

It begins slow. The music of Johnny Cash is fed to us in bits, but as the movie progresses we get more and more.

Just one of those movies that grab you and hold you throughout.

I saw the movie opening day and have been enumerating the great scenes in my mind ever since. The latest favorite is Cash's laconic discussion of the phone being cut off with Waylon Jennings, culminating in "that was LAST month's phone bill."

To respond to mixtapes: I work with prisoners on a regular basis. In the volunteer line I sometimes encounter people who are, no doubt, conservative Christians. Their work at the prison doesn't change the fact, however, that they vote for people like George W. Bush whose policies not only display an utter lack of compassion for prisoners, but revel in throwing as many people behind bars as possible. How do they reconcile their own compassion with the "lock 'em up/let 'em fry/if they don't like being raped and beaten they shouldn't have been smoking pot in the first place" attitude of those they elect? You'll have to ask them.