STUDIO: Fox
RELEASE DATE: March 25, 2008
STARRING: Joaquin Phoenix, Reese Witherspoon, Robert Patrick, Cathy Konrad, Ginnifer Goodwin, and James Keach
WRITTEN BY: James Mangold and Gill Dennis
DIRECTED BY: James Mangold
FEATURES: Feature Commentary with Co-Writer and Director James Mangold
Johnny Cash Jukebox: Walk The Line Extended Musical Sequences with New Introductions
More Man In Black: Deleted Scenes
Becoming Cash/Becoming Carter Featurette
Sun Records and the Johnny Cash Sound Featurette
Folsom: Cash and the Comeback Featurette
The Cash Legacy Featurette
Ring of Fire: The Passion of Johnny and June Featurette
Cash and His Faith Featurette
Celebrating the Man in Black: The Making of Walk the Line Featurette
Walk The Line Theatrical Trailer

Anyone who has weeded through the dozens of "Extended" and "Director's" cuts can tell you that not all are created equal. A select few are essential and change the history of a film - Blade Runner, Brazil - but most feel like double-dips, trying to get a few bucks out of the hardcore fans who want to see the previously available deleted scenes reinserted into their favorite flick or forcing people who loved it in theaters to pay to rent it again. While a lot of them can be interesting alternatives, the theatrical version is almost always better. The scenes were usually cut for a reason. Walk the Line: Extended Cut is an unusual case - it's in the middle. Seventeen minutes have been added back into the Oscar-winning movie but, even though I've seen it several times, I had to do research to figure out where. For the most part, it's just a quick nip here and a tuck there. For example, a few-second shot of the funeral of Jack (Johnny's brother) is added into the first act to deepen the loss. Was it really missing from the theatrical? Not really, but it also doesn't feel as completely extraneous as the added footage in most extended cuts. Most of the re-inserted footage fits that bill - it's never really a case of anything that will make you slap your forehead in disbelief that it was ever cut but it's also never distracting from the natural flow of the piece. Walk the Line is still a very good film, extended or theatrical.

Something that is affected however is the quality presentation of this new cut by Twentieth Century Fox. The film looks as good as it ever has with the new footage re-inserted perfectly into a pristine video and audio transfer. From the very beginning, as the inmates at Folsom Prison pound their feet in anticipation of the "Man in Black," the audio on Walk the Line is perfect and sound is such a crucial part of this film's experience. If you haven't seen it, you should just for the music of Johnny Cash, one of the most important figures in the history of music. Just hearing his songs, brilliantly interpreted by Joaquin Phoenix, were enough to make most people fans of Walk the Line. Reese Witherspoon's Oscar-winning performance didn't hurt.

The special features on the Extended Cut are a combination of previously available material and some great new stuff. If you already own Walk the Line, even the previously available special edition, you may want to update just for some of the new special features. Imported extras include the feature commentary with James Mangold, a featurette on Folsom Prison, "Celebrating the Man in Black," and "Ring of Fire: The Passion of Johnny Cash and June Carter." The previous Special Edition had ten deleted scenes. Naturally, since most of them are actually included in the film now, that number is lower (down to two). The three extended musical numbers from the previous edition are included along with four more. As for new featurettes, the best one is on Sam Phillips and his legendary Sun Records, but it's closely matched by "The Cash Legacy." In both, new interviews with people involved in the career of Johnny Cash and people influenced by him are included. They're must-haves for Cash aficionados and they serve as a nice way to round out the experience of Walk the Line by focusing on the positive influences of the man instead of some of the darker issues explored by the film. On that note, another new featurette is called "Cash and His Faith."

I must admit, as I did when I praised Walk the Line in theaters, I'm biased. I'm a huge Johnny Cash fan and think his importance and influence in the world of music can't be understated. He defined cool. Just as long as they didn't completely screw up the music, I was likely to enjoy Walk the Line. The fact that I did much more than that is a testament to the accomplishments of the film, one that weathered a little bit of a backlash during its awards season run (commercially popular Oscar winners always do) but seems to have emerged as a modern classic. You'd be hard-pressed to find a film with two stronger central performances in the last few years. Like the man whose life it chronicles, Walk the Line will survive for generations to come.