It was a good arts & entertainment weekend 'round these parts. Friday brought the premiere of "Walk the Line," a surprisingly good biopic about Johnny Cash, while Sunday brought a great performance by John Wesley Harding.

The Cash film followed the same template as last year's "Ray": poor Southerner with family troubles and a dead brother fuses a love of music with burgeoning talent to stumble onto a new sound, rides that quick success to great heights that bring marital discord, drug problems and creative flameout. Thanks to the love of a good woman and God, the star straightens out and flies right to become a national treasure. Along the way, "Walk the Line" fudges a few facts, compresses and slices up the timeline for the sake of the story and glosses over inconsistencies. Still, what results is a compelling story that ought to help put the grandfatherly Cash of recent times into better perspective. You gotta sin to get saved, as they say, and Cash definitely put in his time before salvation came calling. That he created his best music at the beginning and end of his career -- two tremendously creative periods that bookend a sagging, inspiration-bereft middle -- is known to fans. Perhaps casual attendees will be turned on to the chick-a-boom as well.

Joaquin Phoenix was surprisingly good as Cash, balancing gravitas and vulnerability, all while turning in serviceable vocals throughout. Reese Witherspoon as June Carter was the revelation. She clearly can act, but she also could have a life in the Opry if she chose, her effervesent personality and pleasant voice more than enough to find success there. Overall, the film was well acted, had good, accurate music and remained faithful to its source material. Let's see what it does for Cash's popularity.

John Wesley Harding, meanwhile, put on a fantastic show as usual. Dag Juhlin of the mighty Slugs opened the show. No mention of that Chicago garage-pop band was made, sadly, but he did play a short set of agreeable acoustic pop. Harding, on the other hand, captivated. Nothing against Juhlin, but it was clear why Harding is a headliner. His songs are great, his stage presence is masterful and he's a surprisingly talented guitarist. Why he has never been able to reach the next rung of the stardom ladder is a mystery. He talked a bit about his novel, Misfortune, played a couple of tracks from the accompanying disc, and performed a set drawn from nearly all of his albums. He mixed the serious with the silly, the ridiculous with the sublime. Juhlin joined him for some nice harmony singing and guitar soloing for about half of the set, but (to contradict the point made in my last post about Matthew Ryan) Harding needs no accompaniment to put on a great show. I'm not one who expects chart-topping hits from Wes, but fame on the order of Steve Earle, John Hiatt or any other theater-filling performers would be nice.