The Beach Boys (2024)
 

Re: The Beach Boys (2024)
 

Good stuff. Will definitely be watching. :)

Re: The Beach Boys (2024)
 

I'm a huge Beach Boys fan.
But haven't there already been multiple documentaries and biopics about the band and / or its memebers?

Re: The Beach Boys (2024)
 

I might have to see that one. Given the subsequent revelations about how much of a completely fabricated fiction that family/band was, living some sort of fantasized Southern California summer dream, I'm curious to see what they do with the story. Somehow, fun-in-the-sun, surfing and rock and roll music just doesn't mesh with the subsequent revelations of abuse, addiction, exploitation, family dysfunction and schizophrenia. The later stuff I read and heard about the "Boys" was horrifying.

I guess so, but I don’t care.

Hopefully, they will keep it light and musical. I prefer the illusion of the Beach Boys to the reality.

Brian Wilson: Long Promised Road was pretty good imho. Not sure this one could be half as good, but we'll see

I think most of their fans are well aware of the real stories behind the band.

I want to see long, drawn-out scenes of ridicule, emotional torture and physical abuse by Dad Wilson. ;)

Re: The Beach Boys (2024)
 

The trailer looks like more of a documentary + video footage than a dramatization. I guess you can take the good images and video for the light side and save words for the bad stuff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xXoqBz8cZM

Re: The Beach Boys (2024)
 

On a more serious note, I'd like to see a bio-pic about the Cowsills.

I've seen the documentary "Family Band" and it's emotionally devastating.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIXDcngRwE8

They more than rival any other singer or group when it comes to meteoric ascension to fame & becoming American icons, while behind the scenes there was physical & sexual abuse, intimidation, shunning, alcohol, economic mishandling by the father, followed by poverty, disease and deaths all surrounding an incredibly talented group of siblings.

If they did ever make a movie, I'd like to see a portion dedicated to how the Partridge Family came out of what was supposed to be a weekly show featuring the Cowsill family.

Re: The Beach Boys (2024)
 

This doc's right up my alley. IMO, Beach Boys are the greatest pop act in the world, even above Beatles who can take pop rock instead.

Yikes, wouldn’t go that far.

Not to derail too much, but I might as well post my top ten (based on album ratings)


1. Led Zeppelin
2. Miles Davis
3. Pink Floyd
4. Vangelis
5. Beach Boys
6. Beatles
7. Frank Zappa
8. Jay-Z
9. Herbert Von Karajan
10. Simon and Garfunkel

As a kid, I bought it, hook, line and sinker. It was later when I found out the family drama.

Attended the IMAX showing, which was preceded by a live 15-minute Q&A with the directors and some band members.

Watching this in IMAX was definitely the way to go - absolutely nobody could have a home theater system that could rival a humongous IMAX auditorium with state-of-the-art sound systems.

Cross-posting my review from the other thread:



For most of my life, it would have seemed unfathomable that there would have been intense rivalry between The Beach Boys and The Beatles. I had come to know about these bands long after their heyday, when their reputations were quite firm and the difference in their styles cemented for posterity.

But, as it turns out, not only was there a bitter rivalry between the two boy bands, they also inarguably influenced each other significantly, and this documentary lays out the case of how this happened.

It's a shame that the documentary wasn't directed by someone with more, well, experience as a documentarian, because the end result, for all of the immense access it evidently enjoyed, is a mixed bag.

There is noticeably a lack of balance between the "inner view" of what was going on inside the band and the "outside view", best represented by Janelle Monáe, who explains how The Beach Boys influenced her musically. The documentary could have benefitted from more interviews like that one.

Also, there is a palpable desire to get quickly past all of the "uncomfortable" stuff - the family disputes, the sale of their catalog behind their backs by the Wilson brothers' father, and also the tangential connection with the Charles Manson murders. The stuff is not ignored, but it certainly isn't something that is explored extensively.

By the time "Kokomo" came out in the 80s, I barely knew a thing about who The Beach Boys were, or that they were making a comeback after a rather long time.

Now that I know more about them, the giddy cheerfulness of most of their better-known songs seems a lot more ironic.