The Beach Boys: An American Family

Being an avid Brian Wilson enthusiast, I bought an emmy judge's copy of this movie from someone on Ebay, and it was a real treat, to say the least.

Of course, you may think that because I'm somewhat partial to the founding member of the beach boys, I'd like this movie whether it was a dog or not. Not true; I happen to be more into film than I am into music.

The most notable aspect of The Beach Boys: An American Family is it's quality being made for TV. I originally saw this in 2000, and I didn't expect much, but I remember being impressed even back then. The performances are top notch. The guy who played Mike Love is a dead ringer for the real life guy and SPEAKS with the exact same inflections and -isms as the REAL Mike Love from the 60s. Fred Weller did an extraordinary job playing Brian; he got the character nailed right down to the funny way the Real Brian Wilson speaks and sings out of the corner of his mouth. In terms of performances, however, Kevin Dunn (who played the Boys' abusive father, murry) stands out as easily the best. It would have been easy to make Murry over-the-top, but Kevin makes sure that the audience sees the conflict in Murry's character and that, deep down, he really does love his sons. The movie is quite long, and even so some parts did feel a little clipped, but the only person who'd notice the difference between the pace of the movie and how things occurred in real life are the beach boys/ Brian Wilson fans who already know the story by heart. This is, after all, a movie, and some events are dramatized and others downplayed to make it more "hollywood", which sounds quite evil but actually works quite nicely on-screen.

All in all, I have but two complaints. The first is the singing, and I know that I'm perhaps asking for too much, but it would've been nice to hear some actual music recreation rather than lip synching (although how could you recreate something so magical, accurately?) This problem gets exceptionally bad during certain scenes where Fred Weller "sings" and it's obviously 56-year-old Brian Wilson doing the vocals. Secondly, the movie simply ends too soon. It ceases during the mid 70s when Brian was sort of doing better, but soon after the end of the movie's timeline, he slips back even worse and almost dies. He's rescued again, however, in a highly dramatic effort by his doctor, Gene Landy, and lives to tour again. Dennis drowns, and Carl eventually succumbs to cancer. But then again, the movie is 2 hours long already. At any rate, it's a great movie to watch. Perhaps one day they'll make a sequel that highlights the latest events in the Beach Boys' tumultuous career. God only knows if that'll ever happen, but then, Wouldn't it be nice?

This movie just happened to be on when i came back home on a Sunday afternoon, and initially I thought it was going to be awful. But I was so wrong, I really enjoyed it, they could have shortened it a bit, it lasted nearly 3 hours with ad breaks, but in the main I found the performances very good, the writing credible, and I discovered stuff about the beach boys that I hadn't known before.

It doesn't just focus on the music but also the somewhat strained relationship between brian Wilson and his father, his relationship with the rest of the band, and the various screw ups that seemed to afflict most of the members.

This was a very good movie, whether you are a big Beach Boys fan or not. However, if your not a big fan, you will be after seeing this movie. The movie was a lot easier to put together and understand if you happen to have read the book Heroes and Villains. You can see where a few things were switched around here and there, but nothing that really takes away from the truthfulness of these great musicians life as The Beach Boys. Absolutely worth the time to watch. The movie was 3.5 hours and it didn't really cover anything past about 1969. Thats the problem when you have a band that entertained America and Europe for 38 years. There isn't enough film to show it all. I would like to see a movie do the years from 1970 to about 1990, covering both Carl and Dennis' death. A very sad and tragic thing;however, remember, we still have Brian, Mike, Bruce, Al and even co-founder David ,that only appeared on the first 5 albums covering 61-63. Their talking about touring again, lets make it happen. Send comments to Brians web site. Think about it, the Beach Boys live in 2006. Wouldn't it be nice!

This mini-series seemed a bit defanged, especially compared to the 1990 telefilm (which is unfortunately unavailable and all but forgotten). This is largely due to John Stamos' involvement, a close friend of the boys as well as the touring drummer. This creates a slightly biased point of view. The favor leaning towards no-one. No-one is presented as a protagonist or antagonist, even the villainous Murray Wilson is redeemed (an infuriating touch). Mike Love is generally considered the idiot Beach Boy, deterring from Brian's genius. But, personally I liked his character best (Matt Lescher's performance oughtta garner an Emmy nom). Brian Wilson is far too neutral and less tragic here than he was. And finally the series ends during the mid-seventies come-back, which no-one remembers!!! The series takes no chances and tries to be all happy, which it is far from. However, the earnest performances make it worth while. It's the best treatment of the legend to date. So it will have to do.

I like music biopics, Fred Weller makes Brian appear like a silly teenager, yes Brian had mental problems fueled by drugs but he was a musical genius and this does not show through. Matt Letscher stood out as Mike Love. Nick Stabile was well cast as Dennis but the movie stops before his drowning which was a tragic event in the Beach boys history. Where I think the movie failed is that it lacked any joy. The Beach boys music oozes joy and this was not put across. For those reasons I actually prefer 'Summer dreams'