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I enjoyed Walk the Line quite a bit, but can't say that I really loved it. Unfortunately it was too much in the Behind the Music groove of success, decline, redemption. It really didn't help that in the particulars so much is similar to Ray, which I think will hurt may chances with Academy voters.
Most of you know my relationship with music so it is safe to say that I knew little about him musically (and nothing about June Carter Cash). My two biggest points of intersection with Cash are his episode of Columbo (in which he sings "Burning Ring of Fire" (if that's the title) and he played our local county fair once when I was a kid. I didn't see the show but my mom did and her giddiness at recounting how he shook her hand may be the most childlike I've ever seen her (and when your mother has three kids before she's 20 you're either not going to see much childish behavior or entirely too much). So I've always had a soft spot for him just for that encounter with my mom, even though I had no interest in his music.
Then he did "Hurt" not too long before he died and that is one powerful piece of music (didn't make me want to listen to more music though).
The image of Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, and June Carter driving themselves around bumpkin backroads from show to show is an interesting one. A single car accident could have had quite an impact on the American musical landscape.
Witherspoon was great but while Phoenix did a great job putting on the Cash-suit, I never felt the performance coming out through his eyes. It felt more like mimicing than inhabiting.
Phoenix is being Johnny Cash. Hoffman simply is Truman Capote. If the Oscar doesn't go to Hoffman (my pick), then I'd give it to Ledger before Phoenix.
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