The Beach Boys (IMAX showing)
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.