Film: The Beach Boys
A movie review of the disappointingly disingenuous new Beach Boys doco which starts out promising a lot then folds into hagiography of the most absurd kind.
The Beach Boys
Directors: Frank Marshall and Thom Zimny
Disney
A story of in-fighting, drugs, and misguided genius, with some people in the team certain they’re of more value than others, but all smoothed over to give you a shiny, happy people feel…you could be forgiven for thinking that’s a documentary about Disney itself, but nope, just the way they make docos these days.
The Beach Boys by its very title, claims to be a last word on “America’s band”. But if that wasn’t quite clear enough, it has a poster telling you.
I was so excited to see this — and for the first 40-50 minutes, it was going okay. Some nice, obvious material around the forming of the group, the timing of the Californian ‘surf culture’ vibes, and the rejection of the Boys that they were ever that Beach-y, also look deep into the songs that claim to be about surfing, girls, and cars, there’s a lot more going on in those compositions than those of their contemporaries; also that harmony work…it’s what makes the band. There was a red flag for me early on where they talked about the group being a Family Band. I mean it’s undeniable on paper, three brothers, their cousin, the tyrant father/uncle as manager for a bit then working in publishing, and some kids from the neighbourhood fleshing out the group. But it sat there like strange foreshadowing to hear it addressed in that way.
An hour into the film I started to panic. We haven’t even got to Pet Sounds yet! And of course we did, and (sorta) Smile too. But Brian’s troubles are washed away — largely — as a difficulty with touring, and with an unhappiness around not quite being able to capture what was in his head. That’s somewhat true but it’s a bit like calling egg yolk in a bowl a finished cake.
Cue: Mike Love (Utter Cunt!) suggesting there was more than one genius in the group. HUGE HINT: ME AND BRIAN!
And we limp towards 1970 — and though Dennis’ dalliance with Manson is mentioned and a bit of the counter-culture, and some lip-service to the 70s band that barely relied on the brothers at all, it’s all glossed over, and nice.
And then we wrap, ignoring Kokomo, and the comeback years where they struggled, and played county fairs and drafted Uncle Jessie into the band for a bit, and Brian called his own daughter fat, then said that was typical…
We gloss completely over the wars around Mike Love controlling a version of the band that goes out and plays the Jukebox Hits, and even if that salacious and gossipy stuff isn’t what you want, we also miss out on a hell of a lot of really great music. Albums like Surf’s Up get a sentence. Albums like Love You, worthy of their own documentary, don’t get a mention. Albums like L.A. might not be ‘great’ but they’re interesting and should be part of the story.
Instead, cut to a meeting of 80-year-olds on a beach having a hug, and a hang, for a nice tidy-up photo-up to keep it clean.
FUCK THIS SHIT. THIS CUNTINGLY BAD DOCUMENTARY NEEDS TO BE THROWN IN THE SEA, LIT ON FIRE AND PISSED ON BY DRUNK SAILORS.
On Disney now, if you wish to watch this streaming pile of shit.
