A BREAK FROM THE POLITICAL CRAP TO TALK ABOUT SOMETHING REALLY IMPORTANT. From WMC-TV Memphis:

A new movie based on the life of Johnny Cash will be filmed in Arkansas, Memphis and Nashville.

It stars Joaquin Phoenix as Cash and Tennessee native Reese Witherspoon as his wife, June Carter Cash.

The movie will chronicle Cash's life from 1955 to 1968, a period that includes his Sun recordings in Memphis and his battles with drugs and alcohol.

All props to Joaquin, but I think they shoulda got this guy. Some years back he and D. J. Mendel, a genius with whom I used to play in Lancaster County Prison (the band, not the facility), put together this bizarre performance, in which Cucuzza alternated between unearthly cool and blazing-eyed mania, pausing between numbers to grab fistfulls of pills out of his pocket and throw them into his mouth. I think he caught some of Johnny there, in an expressionist way.

Good as Phoenix is, I don't know if he can pull it off. There's a great stillness in the middle of Cash even at his most manic, like a big stone at the bottom of a raging river. I think they maybe oughta find some half-starved retard out in the hills and have him lip-synch. And get Hans-Jurgen Syberberg to direct.

Cash was really terrible in his own film debut, "Five Minutes to Live." Anybody see his other movies?