The Smiley Smile Message Board

how do you feel about the two made for tv films: Summer Dreams & An American Family?

honestly, i like AAF better, one it was the revival for me of being a BB fan again...it had the real music and more in depth...Summer Dreams kinda scared me actually...i didnt really like the actors...it wasnt a feel good movie to me

I was more convinced by Murry in Summer Dreams than AAF.

Brian was portrayed much more sympathetically (and realistically) in "Summer Dreams".  In AAF, the characterization was closer to the Ramones' Pinhead mascot.

yeah, i've heard a lot of people say they liked the way murry was portrayed in SD...why was the one in AAF not as good? i was convinced

I like Summer Dreams a lot. When you know about the band-history you can forgive the faults. That movie made me being interested in the BBs btw, that and a Jan& Dean-MC

The funny thing is that the second two-part Stamos movie seemed to have a lot more effort and money put into it, and in the end it speaks for itself that people are able to debate which of the two TV movies are better (or worse).

The 1990 movie is better in my view because of the pure camp. The fake beards, the fake Dennis song, the unitentionally funny one-liners, the fact that Al barely has any lines.

The 2000 movie started out with the first part being somewhat palatable as a  relatively serious TV movie re-enactment of what really happened. But the second part undid any good the first part did. The "Smile" era was totally screwed up. In one scene, Mike Love's actor has his beard peeling off of his face (which for some reason is just annoying rather than the hilarity of the fake beards in the 1990 movie), and despite having twice as much time to work with, the 2000 movie only covers up to 1974 (or 1976, since they garbled up this whole era). While not musically the most interesting era, some of the most dramatic and interesting moments in the group's history happened between 1976 and the present. At least the 1990 movie attempted to cover up to Dennis' death.

And yes, the 1990 Murry was much better. I don't know if he was anything like the real Murry, but he was the more entertaining Murry in terms of these movies. The scene in the 1990 movie where Brian goes of on Murry and tells him that they rigged fake mixing boards for Murry to fiddle with, that scene is highly entertaining (as largely fiction of course).

Man, that's a tough one...they're both bad, but for different reasons. And they both had problems with fake facial hair: the 1990 movie's beards' colors didn't match the colors of the top-of-head hair, and of course, we all remember Mike's mustache actually beginning to fall off in the 2000 movie.

I remember when watching the 2000 movie I thought, "Wow, that guy really does look a lot like Brian!"...only to find out it was actually supposed to be Carl.

One thing you gotta love, though, about the later movie was the isolated vocals from "Let The Wind Blow" and "Forever" (plus new piano track)...which makes me believe that a lot of the Hawthorne, California CD set was originally supposed to be for a soundtrack to the movie...it has a lot of the stuff from that movie -- "The Lord's Prayer," a live version of "Shut Down," that little vocal snip from "Can't Wait Too Long," and isolations of "Forever" and "Let The Wind Blow."

I don’t like Summer Dreams at all. An American Family is at least entertaining, and pretty good during the first half. Then it goes all to heck. And I though Kevin Dunn was a great Murray.

I like "Summer Dreams."  Mostly for Bruce Greenwood, who doesn't resemble Dennis, but a good, attractive actor who did a solid job.  He's one of those non-star actors that elevates his material.  I also enjoy "Brian," who somewhat captured the hapless, likeable Charlie Brown quality that the real Brian has at times.  And "Murry" is pretty good, too; it makes me think of the real Murry on the Rhonda tapes, albeit a bit gentler.  It also has good, campy dialogue, such as Dennis bringing Brian food for the hamburger sessions: "I've got the burger, the fries, and the coke," taking a baggie of cocaine out of his shirt pocket.

"American Dreams" works as a period piece for part one, even getting the equipment right.  But I despise it for the actor who plays Brian, who is just plain icky and unattractive, and also the way the script portrays his character in the second part.   Yeah, sure he went to bed in 1967 and never got up again.   Plus, its whole portrayal of Mike as some kind of Beach Boys wunderkind.   The thing I dislike about both movies is the amount of screentime given to Charles Manson.  It's interesting how much time Manson gets in both Beach Boys movies, yet Dennis is barely featured in the TV movie version of "Helter Skelter."

Your theory is somewhat similar to what happened. Supposedly, they were going to push the three volumes of greatest hits via TV marketing, etc. around the time the Stamos movie aired. They worked up a promotion where they were going to sell a package of all three volumes of greatest hits, and then you would receive a free "bonus disc" with some previously unreleased tracks and interviews, etc. This bonus disc idea was cancelled, probably because it was too expensive.

What they ended up doing was expanding that bonus disc to the 2-disc set that became "Hawthorne, CA." So there's a few ways to look at it: On the one hand, we got twice as much material as we would have under the "bonus disc" plan, plus not having to purchase the three GH sets to get it. On the other hand, Capitol charged a full 2-disc price (or certainly much more than a single disc price) for something that they were going to give around half of away previously.

From what I remember theres a clip of Brian playing Surfer Girl at the piano but his voice is not young Brian but 90s Brian, that was a bit weird.

That was "I get around" and "In my room". I think it was a cool idea, but of course Brian didn't sound like twenty....

yeah, thats the one.

  Re: new BB dvds
« Reply #3 on: June 02, 2006, 04:56:16 AM »   

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dennis and Brian were a lot closer to who they were in Summer Dreams. The dirt was present but never shown without sympathy. It showed them both to have good hearts. Dennis comes across a lot smarter in the earlier movie.
 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I just wish they had paid to use a real Dennis song.  I mean TV Movies are cheesy but thats why they are fun. American Family just played too loose with the facts.
 
 

I've never seen Summer Dreams, but I really like the performance of the guy who plays MIKE LOVE in AAF.

Summer Dreams out on DVD? I want to see some fake beards and bad one liners.

I'll take Summer Dreams, mainly because it's the movie that re-kindled my active interest in the BBs and showed me that there was a whole lot more to the story than the music!!

That having been said, i'll also take SD because it never pretends to be anything it isn't, and it doesn't change course halfway through.  AAF starts well - very well - deceptively well.  The first night was darned near triumphant as far as i was concerned - mostly accurate, nothing freakish, nothing grossly untrue [except maybe the portrayal of David as a total dork, but maybe he was one! ;-) ].  The second night, however, was disgusting.  It was like watching a trainwreck.  I hated it - HATED it!!! - and therefore the whole project stinks.

what scene does Mike's mustache nearly fall off in on AAF?

Does his hair fall off as well, like in real life? (to be replaced by a multitude of hats)

I haven't seen it since it aired (even though we videotaped it!), but IIRC, the time was circa 1967, and Mike was talking in bed with Suzanne, i believe, and you can see half of the mustache suddenly start to dangle, and "Mike" obviously saw it coming off because he quickly pushed it back on.

Actually they are kissing in a doorway, and Mike does go bald!

Wait a minute; i thought that was a remake. You mean to tell me it's the original they play in the film?

It's the original with the other Beach Boys' voices mixed out.