Walk the Line has an Oscar-level lead performance by Joaquin Phoenix showing the biography of Johnny Cash--who never went to prison except to play some prison concerts. But he was in many drunk tanks.

While traveling on the road, Cash slowly builds a friendship with singer June Carter, but, like Johnny, she's unhappily married.

The meat of this movie is their complicated personal relationship and how June helps pull out Johnny's downfall into drugs and make a life together in music.

What's more worthy of an encore than that?

Probably the most amazing thing about this "Man in Black" biopic is not the turbulent life of the singer on the road, it's that the actors did their own singing.

Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon turn in Oscar-worthy performances as Johnny Cash and second wife, June Carter, showcasing his early career in rockabilly and country, and highlighting the tremendous strain of on the road touring.

Walk the Line is a straightforward account of the late country music legend, Johnny Cash.

His life was a cycle of ruin & redemption, of sin & salvation.

His big gifts are surrounded by years of drug use and a long unrepaid love for June Carter, his singing costar.

The movie is labeled a musical biopic and does have some historical importance.

But, in truth, this film is structured as a touching love story, complete with prior entanglements, an awkward tour bus courtship, and an onstage proposal.