Solemplex To me, this movie is perfection.

Ketrivie It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

Hadrina The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Brennan Camacho Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

davefoc-1 I agreed with all the negative reviews above, but I didn't care. I liked this documentary. It had lots of Johnny Cash music so I was probably going to like it no matter what. But there was more. I thought they did a nice job with using pictures taken from the concerts to tell the story. Sure video would have been nice, but if there wasn't video what they did was at least entertaining.I agree that some of the animation wasn't always appropriate to the story they were telling, but again, I didn't care. I enjoyed it.And they told several interesting stories in the course of the documentary. The story of Glen Sherley was very interesting to me and I looked him up and found out a bit more about him. I also enjoyed the comments from Cash's friends and family.Overall, if you can get past the imperfections that people pointed out above, you're going to enjoy this documentary.

jc-osms The problem with this documentary on Johnny Cash's famous concert at Folsom Prison of course is that there is no video footage of the event itself. Yes, there are audio tapes of rehearsals, stills photography and naturally the record itself but when the producer has to resort to fleshing out the story of the concert with a featurette on Glen Sherley, the convict whose song Cash played at the concert and to whom Cash attempted to give encouragement on his release, as well as a potted history of the man himself, you feel that there's too much padding here.Worse, it resorts to using animated sequences to illustrate some of the songs, an approach completely at odds with the seriousness of the subject matter. As far as the interviewees are concerned, these fall into two categories, the admiring but critical (Merle Haggard in particular) and the fawning and largely uncritical (almost everyone else, including his band and family), which only gets worse when they extend their comments to eulogise Cash's wife, June.Some intelligent use is made of historical, typically no bullshit voice-overs by the man himself and there's no question the music and his performance are great, but I think on the whole, this documentary doesn't serve its subject over-well and would instead recommend the "San Quentin" documentary, a snippet of which is enticingly included here, to admirers.

paul2001sw-1 I like the music of Johnny Cash, but I can't help but feel that since his death, there's been something of a tendency to over-lionise him. The story of his album recorded at Folsom prison, told in this documentary, is a case in point. Cash had started playing in prisons - he clearly sympathised with those behind bars - on one occasion he recorded his show - and that's really the whole story. It nay have been a great performance, but it's still hard to see what the narrative is really supposed to be, and this documentary doesn't help by being loaded up with talking heads who assert that (but don't illustrate how) Cash was a great but troubled man. The story of a prisoner he tried to help is a better (though more tragic) story, but feels like a side-track in the overall film. Best thing is to sit back and enjoy the music; but don't expect too much insight.

V I'm not a raging Johnny Cash fan, but I like his stuff, and I particularly like his Live @ Folsom album. I was really looking forward to a "behind the scenes" look into the making of this album, and going into it I assumed there would be a bunch of archival video from the actual event.Instead, the film makers delivered a biography of Cash with particular emphasis on his advocacy for prison reform, and how this concert played into that theme of his life. Unfortunately, even this theme wasn't very focused, and it wasn't apparent what point they were trying to get across until well into the film.It wasn't *bad,* per se, it just wasn't as good as i'd hoped. Perhaps a case of misplaced expectations.Even more unfortunate is that there were people in the audience who've never heard the album before, and though the album itself is superb, this film doesn't leave that impression with someone not familiar with Cash's work. I think die-hard Cash fans will appreciate this most, while it doesn't really have a whole lot to offer for the common viewer.