Music Movies Aren’t Made For Me — And I Need To Remember That. Plus, They’re Getting Dumber…

Monday is about movies, and sometimes TV. Today, a swipe at the docos and biopics that lazily parade around a subject and leave out the darkness, the facts, the (true) grit…

I was so excited about the new Beach Boys doco. To celebrate, I’ve been listening back through to the catalogue over the last few weeks, starting right at the very start. And though this is something I would have done anyway, and often do I guess, it had this particular energy about it — I was prepping for the documentary. Maintaining match fitness.

Friday night was fun. We had a lovely dinner with friends, and then a nightcap. And late in the evening, the rest of the house asleep, I decided I wanted to get to The Beach Boys — that’s what it’s called, just their name — feeling it wise to see it the night it dropped. So, it was a rare visit to the Disney+ channel (there’s really not a fucking thing on there anymore, well there’s millions of things but there’s nothing of actual worth).

The documentary started out pretty decently, and I was pumped. I mean, yeah, I knew all the anecdotes, and the music. But it was nice seeing it all again, and wondering what editing decisions would be made to cram 55 years of music into two hours, and also not repeat the arc, frame by frame, of previous Beach Boys docos…

Alas, as I said here in a review, things ran out of steam all too quickly.

I’m glad I’d already had a wonderful Friday night before I pressed play on this ‘safe’, and, um, watered down version of the Beach Boys story. I’m glad I have read the books, watched the docos and concerts, spent time with the music, and just generally been a huge fan and a giant nerd — usually all at once. Because this is one of my favourite bands, one of the most interesting stories too. But The Beach Boys on Disney doesn’t really give you any of the good stuff. It just traces around the safe, and obvious, and some of the fairly interesting. Then it makes nice-nice with all the members, and has them sitting together. Something that doesn’t really happy, beyond photo-ops. This doco is in fact a photo-op. And a cash-cow. And it’s for people that know of the band, not for people that know the band.

This is my weird, living hell.

I know these documentaries are not for me. But I swear they’re getting dumber; being made to be more obvious — avoid scandal, and in the process they are shortchanging people on both The Real Story and the strange, sometimes twisted, but very real humanity at the heart of the tale.

A couple of weeks ago the folks were in town, and I wondered what movie we might be able to go see that could cater to an age-range of 12-75. It had to be Back To Black, the Amy Winehouse biopic.

We all like Amy Winehouse on some level, maybe even love her music - or loved in my case. I don’t think about it so much now, and overkill, saturation, fair weather fans, media beat-ups, and some colossal overhype all made it had for me to care too much to keep listening, but I sure acknowledge the talent, and the sad end. Gone too soon.

My favourite Amy Winehouse album is Frank, her debut. That’s the real magic. There might be some more sophistication attached to the second record, but that’s exactly it: It’s been attached. Her debut is raw and real, and funny, and angry, and precious.

Anyway, I’m enough of a fan to want to see the film I guess. And you couldn’t convince me, at the time when we saw it, that there was a better ‘feed the whole family’ option.

I’ve also written more about my frustrations with that movie in a review. From time to time, I like to write reviews still. I’m not sure anyone reads them at all now, but they’re for me as much as they were ever for you.

I’ve read a few frustrated takes on Back To Black, people sure that Amy deserved a better film — I understand the intention there, but I’m not sure that’s even really the correct way to word it. But more baffling for me, is the one or two frustrating takes I’ve read, gushing about the film’s authenticity, and all because it copies a speech or two, and some of the live footage. But it’s how it copies those moments, still edited to suit the filmmaker’s calculated move to shift various things around in the timeline, and ignore the full, ugly truth.

I liked Back To Black more than I thought I might actually. I liked it enough. I really rated most of the performances, and in particular the two leads. I hope Marisa Abela blows up big as a result (I loved her in Industry).

I’ve written about this before. The optics of modern biopics. It’s all — largely — the fault of Bohemian Rhapsody.

I know these biopics are not for me. But I swear they’re getting dumber; being made to be more obvious — avoid scandal, and in the process they are shortchanging people on both The Real Story and the strange, sometimes twisted, but very real humanity at the heart of the tale.

Queen, Elton John, Aretha Franklin, James Brown, Nina Simone, Whitney Houston, Elvis Presley…these are just some of the recent legends of music to be ‘memorialised’ with the kid-gloves, shift-the-story-where-you-want-it approach of the modern biopic. Where’s the real story in any of these? Where’s the truth?

These biopics — along with things like Walk The Line, which seems to posit that Johnny Cash had one day away from June where he thought about doing drugs and having an affair and them stopped himself after a bit of a big night out — are not doing the story justice. And they’re not for fans. We already know the story. We need to keep our noses out of this shit. And let those with just a hint of this strangely familiar scent go down on all fours and lap that stuff right up.

POSTSCRIPT: Kinda weirdly digging the Bon Jovi documentary (series). Not quite finished. Must be liking it because I’m not really a fan of the band.