Summer Dreams: The Story of the Beach Boys

Does anyone know the name of the song being performed by the band on stage when the Beach Boys arrived for their first live performance, a band was playing a surfer instrumental on stage at the beginning of the scene. I would love to know the title of the song or the artist being portrayed. I hope all the members of the Beach Boys know that their influence and contributions were historical and will never be matched. I am glad to be a member of the 70s Generation. The movie shouldn't have focused almost entirely on the bad elements of the band. Dennis was the one spotlighted for trouble, but if you think about it, it was the actions of Dennis that inspired most of Brian's wonderful collection of landmark hits.

As others have stated, this movie definitely feels crammed. How can you accurately depict a full Beach Boys Bio in a 90 minute tv movie? You just can't. But under the circumstances, they did a pretty decent job here. I do wish they would have given the year each time they jumped around. It was confusing to keep up with where they were going, although it seems like they focused on the early 60's to maybe 1984, just after Dennis died. The movie played out more like a Dennis bio than anything else. Sure they focused on Brian too, but not nearly as in depth as Dennis. I suppose you would need several years of a tv series to fully capture everything about the Beach Boys. The music in this movie is just some imitation band, but it's not half bad. Obviously they had to gloss over quite a bit and they barely got into Brian's mental illness and years long reclusive behavior. If you're a Beach Boys fan, this is definitely worth a watch. Overall it's interesting and some good performances, especially by Bruce Greenwood.

An okay film, but not a good depiction of Mike Love. Yes he has definitely had, and still has plenty of his moments. But this film focused way too much on his negative side.

I saw this film a couple of years ago and being a Beach Boys fan, i was hoping the film would be a half decent biography. But as soon as they finish "God Only Knows" the film just becomes boring. It hardly documents on Brian's health problems and his road to recovery with the help of Dr. Eugene Landy, and it focuses on Dennis' involvement with Charlie Manson a bit too much. I just think it is too brief and it is hard to watch with interest when the songs finish. The film could have been so much better if they had gone more in depth and brightened it up with more songs. So much happened in the Beach Boys career that wasn't even shown in the film.

I thought this was a good film that captured the essence of the Beach boys. The conflict with the Father and his unreasonable behaviour was well acted out as were the many changing faces, moods and music of this great band.

Of course in a 90 minute film covering many decades there will be omisions and errors but I was amazed at how much this film did cover. Most of the great songs are included and the actor playing Dennis Wilson was particularly good, although the Mike Love character was probably the most like the man himself, his role was underplayed.

My only real criticism is I would have liked to have heard and seen more songs and maybe some of the more joyful times that this band no doubt would have had, but overall a damn good film I'd say.