Love and Mercy - News and Reviews - First clip is out.

[Larry Franz]

I hate to say it but I like An American Family a little better...

You could easily win that Unpopular Beach Boys Opinions thread. 

[lostbeachboy]

I hate to say it but I like An American Family a little better...

You could easily win that Unpopular Beach Boys Opinions thread. 

haha ya prolly but C'MON the casting was horrible. The actors who were portraying Al and Bruce are obviously much taller then the actual  Al and Bruce. ALSO... the scene on the plane when Brian has his breakdown.. Bruce is in that scene. But wasn't in the band at that time. Dec 23 1964 was the breakdown. Bruce joined april 9 1965. ooh the inaccuracies!!

[Cyncie]

I hate to say it but I like An American Family a little better...

Stamos, is that you? 

[ontor pertawst]

"Bruce" had one line in the movie. Mike Love's lawyers were right, its a Brian Wilson movie, not a Beach Boys movie.

[SMiLE Brian]

Mike Love is too one dimensional for a full movie.

[lostbeachboy]

"Bruce" had one line in the movie. Mike Love's lawyers were right, its a Brian Wilson movie, not a Beach Boys movie.

ya cant have a brian movie without the beach boys.

[Shady]

A Mike Love movie would be interesting.

The scene where he decides to start wearing a turban would be oscar worthy

[lostbeachboy]

yep, filming fuller house with mike and bruce as we speak

[donald]

does anyone know a website that tells the closest theater to a given zip code where a movie is playing currently?  I am having trouble finding the nearest faraway place to see this film!!!!  HELP!   No trouble at all finding a place to see Paul Blart II III or IV at this zip code .  I   guess the theaters in the area know what  will sell here

[sea of tunes]

A Mike Love movie would be interesting.

The scene where he decides to start wearing a turban would be oscar worthy

 

[ontor pertawst]

John Stamos should abandon his Mama Mia ripoff project and do that! Imagine the consequences and cinematic delight...

[Larry Franz]

does anyone know a website that tells the closest theater to a given zip code where a movie is playing currently?  I am having trouble finding the nearest faraway place to see this film!!!!  HELP!   No trouble at all finding a place to see Paul Blart II III or IV at this zip code .  I   guess the theaters in the area know what  will sell here

Moviefone.com and Fandango.com both attempt to do that. Set your location first (or do a search based on your zip code) and then do a second search for the movie title.

[18thofMay]

http://iris.theaureview.com/2015/06/08/sydney-film-festival-review-love-mercy-usa-2015/

Fantastic review from The Sydney Film Festival.

[CenturyDeprived]

This weeks "Entertainment Weekly " magazine give the movie a C-. First half good, the Cusak half bad they say. June 12 issue.

Entertainment Weekly sucks ass!! Not just about this absurd review, but in general. This movie is tops.

[CenturyDeprived]

[

The quality of L&M obviously has a lot to do with the effect it's had. But I think another factor is that it feels like Brian Wilson has been revealed to the whole world (putting aside delayed release dates, of course). I know he's already famous and many people know his story and have heard his music, but it still feels like I've had a secret for the past 50 years and now it's been revealed. The world feels different somehow.

This is so true. I went into work today, and had convos with several coworkers who'd seen the film, but who were previously just casual BB fans. They were really shocked at learning lots of things they never knew before in the true saga of the band/Brian. I think this film went a long way at just informing people of the fascinating twists and turns of the story (or at least part of it, since this wasn't a career-spanning biopic), and it does sorta feel like the secret is out.

IMO, I've felt that Brian and The BBs have been the best-kept secret in the history of rock music for decades now (not that they were an actual secret, but to a point; the immense genius and heartwrenching stories were buried beneath layers of Full House/Stamos/Endless Summer fun-in-the-sun moldy cheese, and largely only BB/BW cultist freaks like us nerds knew about this stuff)... now the whole world can know, and dig deeper into the catalog, and gain even more respect for the immense and unlikely personal triumphs that Brian Douglas Wilson has achieved in his life.

[beatnickle]

This review calls it the best film to be released thus far this year.
http://www.underthegunreview.net/2015/06/08/movie-review-love-and-mercy-is-the-best-film-of-2015-so-far/

[HeyJude]

I hate to say it but I like An American Family a little better...

You could easily win that Unpopular Beach Boys Opinions thread. 

haha ya prolly but C'MON the casting was horrible. The actors who were portraying Al and Bruce are obviously much taller then the actual  Al and Bruce. ALSO... the scene on the plane when Brian has his breakdown.. Bruce is in that scene. But wasn't in the band at that time. Dec 23 1964 was the breakdown. Bruce joined april 9 1965. ooh the inaccuracies!!

Maybe I'm remembering incorrectly, but I don't recall Bruce being in the airplane scene. They only briefly flash on the other members, but it appeared to be Al next to Brian (which I believe is how other reports and depictions have shown it), and then Carl and Dennis sitting next to each other, with Mike behind them.

It would not only be factually incorrect, but also a continuity error within the film itself, as Bruce is "introduced" later.

As for the actors, I'm pretty sure every "Al" actor in all of these movies was taller than Al actually is.

[Joel Goldenberg]

I hate to say it but I like An American Family a little better...

You could easily win that Unpopular Beach Boys Opinions thread. 

haha ya prolly but C'MON the casting was horrible. The actors who were portraying Al and Bruce are obviously much taller then the actual  Al and Bruce. ALSO... the scene on the plane when Brian has his breakdown.. Bruce is in that scene. But wasn't in the band at that time. Dec 23 1964 was the breakdown. Bruce joined april 9 1965. ooh the inaccuracies!!

Maybe I'm remembering incorrectly, but I don't recall Bruce being in the airplane scene. They only briefly flash on the other members, but it appeared to be Al next to Brian (which I believe is how other reports and depictions have shown it), and then Carl and Dennis sitting next to each other, with Mike behind them.

It would not only be factually incorrect, but also a continuity error within the film itself, as Bruce is "introduced" later.

As for the actors, I'm pretty sure every "Al" actor in all of these movies was taller than Al actually is.

The only inaccuracy that slightly irks me is Murry selling Sea of Tunes to A & M during the Smiley Smile period — so soon after Good Vibrations? We all know it was two years later.

[WonderfulLittlePad]

I hate to say it but I like An American Family a little better...

You could easily win that Unpopular Beach Boys Opinions thread. 

haha ya prolly but C'MON the casting was horrible. The actors who were portraying Al and Bruce are obviously much taller then the actual  Al and Bruce. ALSO... the scene on the plane when Brian has his breakdown.. Bruce is in that scene. But wasn't in the band at that time. Dec 23 1964 was the breakdown. Bruce joined april 9 1965. ooh the inaccuracies!!

Maybe I'm remembering incorrectly, but I don't recall Bruce being in the airplane scene. They only briefly flash on the other members, but it appeared to be Al next to Brian (which I believe is how other reports and depictions have shown it), and then Carl and Dennis sitting next to each other, with Mike behind them.

It would not only be factually incorrect, but also a continuity error within the film itself, as Bruce is "introduced" later.

As for the actors, I'm pretty sure every "Al" actor in all of these movies was taller than Al actually is.

The only inaccuracy that slightly irks me is Murry selling Sea of Tunes to A & M during the Smiley Smile period — so soon after Good Vibrations? We all know it was two years later.

I thought they said it was 1969 during that scene, but I could be wrong.

[HeyJude]

I hate to say it but I like An American Family a little better...

You could easily win that Unpopular Beach Boys Opinions thread. 

haha ya prolly but C'MON the casting was horrible. The actors who were portraying Al and Bruce are obviously much taller then the actual  Al and Bruce. ALSO... the scene on the plane when Brian has his breakdown.. Bruce is in that scene. But wasn't in the band at that time. Dec 23 1964 was the breakdown. Bruce joined april 9 1965. ooh the inaccuracies!!

Maybe I'm remembering incorrectly, but I don't recall Bruce being in the airplane scene. They only briefly flash on the other members, but it appeared to be Al next to Brian (which I believe is how other reports and depictions have shown it), and then Carl and Dennis sitting next to each other, with Mike behind them.

It would not only be factually incorrect, but also a continuity error within the film itself, as Bruce is "introduced" later.

As for the actors, I'm pretty sure every "Al" actor in all of these movies was taller than Al actually is.

The only inaccuracy that slightly irks me is Murry selling Sea of Tunes to A & M during the Smiley Smile period — so soon after Good Vibrations? We all know it was two years later.

I thought they said it was 1969 during that scene, but I could be wrong.

The scene has Brian staring at a wall of "Smile" tapes, and talking to Murry about how the other guys were going to do "Smiley Smile." So that would put it in 1967 in the movie's timeline. Not a huge deal that they moved it forward; they clearly wanted to get that bit about selling the songs into the film but weren't going to take the "early" era much past 1967.

[the captain]

Not quite news or a review, and possibly already mentioned elsewhere (sorry), but Paul Dano (and for you west coast basketball fans, Baron Davis) was on the June 9 episode of NPR's "Bullseye with Jesse Thorn" (which I'd never even heard of ... my local public radio apparently doesn't carry this show). You can find it on iTunes. Dano starts about halfway through. There is some good stuff, including what it was like to learn and play and sing the music. Listening to Cusack and Dano do interviews about this, and hear their obvious, real enthusiasm for the roles, has been a lot of fun for me. I keep being reminded of Sean Lennon's Imagination-era quote about how if you care to get into it, Brian's music is so rewarding. Both talk about being casual fans who ended up geeking out over the sessions, etc. It's cool.

[rn57]

http://blogs.indiewire.com/thompsononhollywood/q-a-screenwriter-oren-moverman-love-mercy-is-also-ace-director-time-out-of-mind-20150610

Went up a few hours ago.  Moverman has some very interesting things to say about how the script developed and how the songs were worked in (in the three-decade, three-actor version, he drew up a list of - count 'em - 100 songs that were to be used). He also says Pohlad at first just wanted to produce the film and have him, Moverman, direct...and the latter talked Pohlad into directing.

[rn57]

Where the above interview with Moverman goes....the original plan to do the '70s as well made me wonder....mmm....who might have played Carolyn Williams in that part?

(Note for any new SS'ers in the process of catching up on BW/BBs lore - Ms Williams was a nurse whom Brian met when he was institutionalized in 1978 at a hospital where she worked.  She moved in with him after he went back home and was with him for several years, until his second period with Landy began, at which time she was barred from seeing him.)

Then I remembered - for the first time in almost three years - that Carolyn Williams, as @1mahalo, has a Twitter feed, so I looked it up just now to see if she might have seen L&M and had anything to say.  So far, no.  In another thread back in 2012, I said that she'd mentioned Brian just once on her feed - in her second Tweet in early 2011 when she congratulated him on winning one of those Mojo magazine awards.  Since then, it turns out, she's mentioned him just once more - in Jan. 2013, when she mentioned playing an IMDB quiz connected to Brian's 2001 all-star TV special and scoring 62 of a possible 100.  But I gotta wonder just how she'd view the film.

[Amy B.]

The scene has Brian staring at a wall of "Smile" tapes, and talking to Murry about how the other guys were going to do "Smiley Smile." So that would put it in 1967 in the movie's timeline. Not a huge deal that they moved it forward; they clearly wanted to get that bit about selling the songs into the film but weren't going to take the "early" era much past 1967.

Yes, they took some creative license there in order to make a point-- that this was one more thing that Murry did to Brian.

[bgas]

not sure if this has been posted; the review from the new issue of Rolling Stone: