Sogni d'estate - La storia dei Beach Boys

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.

This film is currently running on cable (Nov. 2004) and I had not seen it previously. From articles I have recently read about the Wilson family, the depiction of their relationships is on target. However, trying to cram so many years of Beach Boys history into 90 minutes is too difficult. So of course, the writer focused on key conflicts which make for interesting TV, but left out a lot of the intervening story. The years go by way too fast, almost confusingly. I felt the best acting was done by the actors portraying Murray and Dennis Wilson...very believable and intense. However, as the movie progressed I became more and more distracted by the changing hair styles and some of the very poor facial hair creations (especially for Brian). My son and I started laughing whenever a new "bad hair day" began. Interesting trivia...the executive producer is "Steve Dahl" -- could this be the shock rock jock who burned disco records in Chicago back in '79 or so?

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.

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.

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.