Landy era I ('75-'76) is much less documented when compare to Landy era II (which is featured in the film), right?

-What type of Landy scumbaggery went on during the 1st era?

-Was Landy fired solely over increasing his rates?

-Was the band and Brian's family otherwise happy with his era I actions?

-Were the band and Brian's family ever seriously afraid Brian would relapse, or did they think that the appropriate work had been done to prevent such from happening?

-How was the firing handled?

Mike was openly against Landy back in thr day, it's hard to think he changed his mind now, after living through it.

It seems that it was the cost of Landy that most upsets him.  

I have to say, that despite the admittedly crass and dumbass comment about the cost, I don't think that this is the case.

He even says they were childhood buddies in the article, implying that they are not buddies now. Unfortunately, he blames Brian's "people" for their estrangement, and takes no personal responsibility himself for it.

Truth.

Mike doesn't care when it comes to past actions that could have hurt people or BW having hard times with mental illness.  

One would almost tend to believe this is true. Though I think he knows it deep inside, but can't bring himself to admit it.

I think the denial of his role in that part of the equation is so deeply engrained, that it's the only thing that holds him together. Only a film like this where the overbearing guilt-trip stuff is shown very clearly for the world to see (in what will eventually be a fairly widely seen film) might possibly lead to a crack or two in the denial at some point. I think at some point, he has to fess up to the fact that he may have gone too far with being overbearing. The drug use angle won't work forever, and some interviewer will at some point ask for further explanation of what Mike terms as "stuff".

Mike was openly against Landy back in thr day, it's hard to think he changed his mind now, after living through it.

It seems that it was the cost of Landy that most upsets him.  

I have to say, that despite the admittedly crass and dumbass comment about the cost, I don't think that this is the case.

Amazing that a man who practices Transcendental Meditation can so stunningly lack in self-awareness.

Truer words never spoken.

"The interesting thing to read is on Evan Landy. He is Landy’s son and spent years with Brian in a very intimate way. He has a whole different perspective of Landy and his motivation. Was he [Dr. Landy] overreaching? Probably. Did he cost a lot of money? Hell yeah. Did he want to be producer and the writer and stuff with Brian? Yes, he did. Did he go beyond the bounds of therapy? Probably. But, guess what? He also saved his life. So to read Evan Landy’s dissertation on it is very, very interesting because you get an intimate look at someone who was with Brian everyday for a few years. So it’s a whole different story that came out on Love and Mercy."

He is actually sympathetic to Landy, and only seems upset that he cost a lot of money. If anyone doubts that Mike Love is a scumbag, just show them this quote.

I have been very critical of Mike on many occasions, though I'm not sure he is being sympathetic to Gene Landy here, but that he agrees that he saved Brian's life at one point (as Brian himself agrees).

I'm not sure what Mike's getting at with the Evan Landy thing though. I agree that it's interesting to read another person's perspective (even if it's a warped one) just out of curiosity, but I'm uncertain as to why Mike is bringing up Evan's interview; is Mike implying there is a valid point/stance or two in Evan's interview? If so, what would that possibly be? It's bizarre for Mike to mention it, that's for sure.

Considering that I've read that 1980s Mike wanted to punch out Landy because he was so furious at what Landy was doing to Brian, I am baffled, unless he solely wants to point out here that Landy should be recognized for having saved Brian's life (a point of view I can understand to a point), but he seems to be going unusually soft on Landy otherwise in the article.

Agreed CD, but it seems Mike is getting really nasty and slandering BW at this point. If he only watched it with an open mind, he could see that he wasn't demonized in the movie. Impatient and surly, yes. Without sympathy, no.

The way that Mike could get the most possible amount of sympathy at this stage of the game? Say in an interview or his book something to the effect of recognizing that he may have gone a bit far with the guilt trip stuff, or that maybe his interactions with Brian weren't always handled the best in hindsight. Saying those things would not hurt. It would be a healing, selfless thing to say, and it would gain him a brownie point or two.

So I guess the 50th Anniversary of Pet Sounds is going to be conspicuously absent from the celebrations? And he's just gonna go straight to celebrating 50 years of Good Vibrations?

Mike co-wrote WIBN as well as IWFTD, so I don't know why he wouldn't want to celebrate such a masterpiece in the band's catalog with an anniversary celebration. Gonna be really weird if the band's best album is just jumped over.

Nice of him to mention drugs again.... and to stick up for Evan Landy. The poor guy needs all the support he can get.

Mike's quote is "certain drugs and stuff", and I wonder what the "stuff" part is referring to. I think the film drove home the point that in addition to drugs, there were people in Brian's life, however well-meaning, who perhaps may have exacerbated some of the hard times that Brian faced, for example with guilt trips and such. Mike was shown to be one of those people in the film at least to an extent, as far as my interpretation was of what I saw onscreen.

As anyone who has been on the receiving end of guilt trips by family members can attest, it can mess people up, some more than others. I can relate from first-hand experience, so I don't want to hear people refuting this as being impossible or hogwash; it's a "thing" that happens... and an intelligent person with the ability to self-reflect should be able to realize (and own up to the fact) that maybe it wasn't done in the best of ways, as opposed to saying "and stuff".

Anyway, I hope Mike does see the film, and hope he does feel it's a fair portrayal. If he addresses his thoughts on the film after having seen it, I think he'll have to choose his words carefully to be sensitive, and I think he is trying with this article, though not totally succeeding.  I hope for (yet don't whatsoever expect) a little bit of self-reflection and possible regret for past actions in his book, if he chooses to address other factors besides Murry, Landy, and drugs  (hint hint: a well-meaning, but sometimes overbearing and hurtful cousin!) that could have not been the best thing for a person with the onset of mental illness to have to deal with.

I would bet that Tomorrow Never Knows and the orchestral climax of A Day in the Life would have freaked Brian out. They're such noisy, intense pieces--especially the latter, which, if you've ever had the misfortune of enduring a panic attack, is an aural version of what that feels like. (The silverware scene in the movie felt like this too--a hard scene to watch.)

Did anyone else watch the silverware scene, where the sounds of forks/knives became increasingly rhythmic and percussive-sounding, and think that this was possibly a reference to a time where Brian got some of the ideas during the Smile and Smiley Smile era unusual scraping-sounding percussion sounds? Like on Vegetables for example?

Van Dyke just re-tweeted this:

Nicky Smith ‏@MUGGER1992  53m53 minutes ago
Brian Wilson biopic LOVE & MERCY bores & inexplicably snubs @thevandykeparks. Watch BEAUTIFUL DREAMER doc instead  http://www.splicetoday.com/moving-pictures/mercy-me-mr-wilson …

I guess we know how VDP feels about the movie. (I really don't think he was "snubbed," though. The movie isn't about the Smile process.)

I feel bad for VDP that he feels that way, and perhaps it's understandable he does, to a point.

I think if he and Brian were currently on better terms (who knows what causes the current state of their relationship), that VDP would have possibly had a bit more representation in the film. Just a bit, like one more scene or something. 

When Hal Blaine plays a rock and roll drumbeat in the session tapes for the Grand Coulee Dam, it sounds a bit like Tomorrow Never Knows.

Totally. I have noticed that myself too (although according to Wikipedia, t's Jim Gordon on drums, not Hal).

I wonder if Jim had heard Tomorrow Never Knows before doing that session.

Finally,to my son Evan, who for months heard nothing but how Daddy couldn't play because he had to work on the book, "Thank you for your understanding; now we can go out on the boat."

I wish that boat had sank.

Really, sir. That's uncharitable, even for Landy.

Fantastic find, petsite. I've linked this topic at "my" MB.

I don't know, but even putting aside what he did to Brian...this is the same guy who regularly drugged and raped another one of his patients.  The man (and I used that term very loosely ) was a horrible abomination of a human being (using that term loosely as well).  I normally don't feel that strongly about someone, but in this case, well...

I'm almost surprised Landy and Bill Cosby didn't team up. Two of the biggest entertainment industry-related scumbags of the 80s.

Weren't some of Brian's vocals from the early 70s sped up too to try and make him sound more like his early 60s self?

ie.  Coda of Surf's Up ("A children's song, have you listened?")

That's Al, not Brian.

Til I Die ("I've lost my way, hey hey hey")

Recorded in '69. Brian still sounded like his old self.

BTW, I have a theory that what we hear on Pet Sounds is the backing track of "Caroline, No" sped up, with Brian singing to the sped-up track. Brian's vocal on the original-speed version that's on The Pet Sounds Sessions actually sounds like a slowed-down record; his voice does not sound natural on that...

I think that may possibly be your mind playing tricks with you, maybe because as fans we all went into hearing the PSS original speed version knowing it was slowed down from the sped up LP version we had heard for decades... I think it sounds normal.

Did Landy treat any other regular patients, celebs or otherwise, during his 1980s time with Brian?

It's been dusted off since Lost and Found.

Is the original speed Surfin' on there? If so, I must have totally forgotten.

Side note: I always felt like I heard some unknown instrumentation on Surfin', something that almost sounds like an organ (though I'm sure it can't be)... right around the "only way for me" chorus bit.  I can never figure out if that's a vocal or something else that seems to be doubling the vocal line melody. Has anyone heard what I'm referring to?

I'm not sure if this is the appropriate place to  discuss minor quibbles with the historical timelines, but here goes:

1. Murry didn't sell the rights to the Beach Boys' music until 1969, if I recall correctly, not in 1967 during the implosion of SMiLE.

2. Brian didn't make the decision to quit touring just prior to the Japan Tour and after Rubber Soul came out.

3. Brian had completed a track of Good Vibrations in February 1966 and an early version with Tony Asher's lyrics long before the "Tent in the Living Room/Piano in the Sandbox" timeframe of the SMiLE sessions.  The film makes it seems that during this latter SMiLE timeframe, after Pet Sounds was released, that Brian was just beginning to sketch out the song on piano in front of Mike.

These are only minor issues in my opinion that the vast majority of viewers would not notice, and I'm sure there are other ones I didn't catch.

I loved the film VERY much, but my only quibble with this kind of stuff in the film was the scene where Melinda was driving a Cadillac Allante, circa 1992 (?) and almost runs Brian over, and they then go to Hawthorne. The fake license plate on the car in this scene is really bad! They got a bunch of other cars in the scene to have actual period California plates, not sure why they resorted to a fake plate with incorrect "California" font for the main car; but this is a minor quibble. Just had to share my (very) slight annoyance

 Did Landy wear a hairpiece?

 Did Eugene Landy wear a toupee? Never thought about it before now I'm curious.

I doubt it, doesn't look like a rug to me. Just a hairdo which involved into incredible Landymullet. I wonder if there were some rock stars of the time who inspired his awful mullet creation. At least Brian miraculously made it out of the 1980s and early 90s without any known photographed signs of having had a mullet. Even Carl almost had a quasi one for a while. I wonder if Dennis would have rocked one.

The thing is, Landy's whole camp wore mullets, at least as attested in all those Youtube videos of Brian out and about with them.  When Giamatti as Landy did that "unprecedented access" scene in L&M I halfway expected him to say to Elizabeth Banks as Melinda, "Now, how about a compromise? I'll go ahead and let you just report to me after every second date instead of each one...if you get a mullet. Wouldn't you say that's reasonable?"

Speaking of Landy's Camp, that reminds me of the early 90s animated show, Camp Candy (as in John Candy), which I guess could have had a Landy-ized version as Camp Landy (shudder).

I wonder if '80s Melinda ever rocked a mullet, Markie Post (3rd season Night Court era) style... Mullets were yet to be a source of mockery.

Where's that creepy video from, the one with Brian sitting right by Landy, with Brian doing some odd twisting motion with his hands (while Landy mentions Elvis)? Does anyone know where that brief video is sourced from? Was that from some longer 1984-ish era interview or something?  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-K-n5op9nI

"Oh, God no"...  

Regarding where this clip came from, I can somewhat answer, because I'm in this segment about a minute earlier than this shot.  (It's the only footage I have of myself with both Brian & Dennis).  I believe the show is called "Two On The Town", and it was hosted by Steve Edwards, who is still on the morning news here in L.A.  The segment was both about Brian's 'revival' under the care of Landy, and about the passing of Dennis.

The clip that I'm in, and the concert footage showing Dennis' decline, was from Jack Murphy Stadium.  I had strolled around, and found a guy that was giving out San Diego Padre hats to us "Beach Boy people".  I went running through a tunnel, & grabbed Dennis & Brian.  You can see them listening in to me, as they start to follow me down this tunnel.  Suddenly Landy comes in to frame, asking Brian where he's going, as the stage is in the other direction!  As they both turn to follow Landy, it fades to this shot of them in the Malibu house.  One of my most priceless memories, & it was caught on channel 2!

That is very interesting. I know Steve Edwards' daughter, maybe I can ask her sometime if Steve has any recollections himself about the show.

I've heard very few (if any) other stories regarding the 2nd Landy period overlapping with Dennis' life, since there was just about 1 year of overlap. Did Dennis ever speak of his thoughts about Brian and Landy? And I wonder if Landy had any ideas on how to help Dennis. I guess in 1983, the Brian/Landy relationship hadn't yet gotten to the depraved level yet which it would get to in a few short years...

For that matter, I don't know if I've ever heard any other stories about Brian and Dennis hanging out during the 2nd Landy era. Did Landy try to keep Brian away from Dennis as much as possible in 1983?

Probably what you are used to hearing.     I like the slow version of Its Over Now better than the normal speed heard on the last box set.   but I do also like the original speed Caroline No

I'm surprised that the band has not released the original speed version of Surfin' (or have they at some point?)

Well, it's not really his call. The world is full of movies about living people who didn't have a say in how they're portrayed. John Lydon was pretty furious and very vocal about how his character came off in "Sid and Nancy", that the film was a lot of garbage, etc and he was even consulted about it! He couldn't do anything to stop it though.

Totally - I agree, it's not his call, not his movie. But *if* he were in a position to throw his weight around, to at least get some level of compromise (a la Daybreak Over the Ocean's inclusion on TWGMTR), which likely could only happen if he and Brian/Melinda were communicating in the context of an ongoing reunion, I have a hunch that we might have seen even just a touch of his wishes come to fruition within the film.

  Did Landy wear a hairpiece?

 Did Eugene Landy wear a toupee? Never thought about it before now I'm curious.

I doubt it, doesn't look like a rug to me. Just a hairdo which involved into incredible Landymullet. I wonder if there were some rock stars of the time who inspired his awful mullet creation. At least Brian miraculously made it out of the 1980s and early 90s without any known photographed signs of having had a mullet. Even Carl almost had a quasi one for a while. I wonder if Dennis would have rocked one.

I wonder if Brian just happily went along with Murry's idea for speeding up the song (and if Brian actually truly thought this was a good idea), or if he just did it to shut his dad up as a quick fix. I don't think Brian sounds "younger", just a bit different and unfortunately, not like his actual self.

I, for one, find it hard to listen to the sped-up album version, especially once I heard the original-speed version, which is just that much more real and heartbreaking. Brian's emotions in his voice come through more nuanced and real in the normal version.

Btw, JCM posted all the songs and score songs used for the film in one post. Definitely belongs in this thread. Thanks JCM for posting that!

You're welcome.  Actually, just a couple of days ago Soundtrack.net was updated with the info (from the Press Kit) and it's much more detailed:

http://www.soundtrack.net/movie/love-and-mercy/

they got Caroline No wrong

I'm so glad they used the original speed version of Caroline, No in the film; just shows the attention to detail.

I highly doubt the C50 tour (even if it was all smiles and roses and continued to this day) would have any effect on L&M.

As I've said elsewhere (and HeyJude agrees with me), the Mike character in the film doesn't say or do anything that comes anywhere near a hatchet job.

So you could see L&M actually coming out in its current, unaltered form, in 2015, without any effect on either the film or a continually/perpetually reunited 2015 "all smiles" BBs? That the film would come out and the band would happily continue on chuggin' without any disruptions in the force, so to speak?

I guess the thought of an "all smiles" 2012 or 2015 BBs is a stretch in and of itself, but even if such were the case, for that to happen would have (at the very least) required numerous concessions and giving in to demands for Mike to have his way in writing songs with Brian the way he saw fit... and I don't think it's reasonable to assume that a guy who would make such C50 demands (it meant so much to him that he seemingly walked away due to being unhappy with how he fit into those circumstances after going ahead with the contracted tour + a few additional dates) would just happily go along with L&M in its current form (unless he had no political leverage, and had no escape hatch, so to speak), and not make any demands regarding his portrayal. I think that would be out of character, especially considering that C50 fell apart at least in part likely due to unhappiness over Mike not feeling he got his "due" in some fashion. Do you really think he'd just grin and bear it?

Grin and bear what? There's nothing that the Mike character says or does in the movie that's not said in countless other Beach Boys/Brian Wilson profiles. Heck, the Beach Boys have said far worse about each other while they were still a going concern. If anyone should be upset about how they're portrayed in the film it would be Carl, Dennis, Bruce and Al. The movie makes them look like they're input was basically zilch and are just along for the ride. At least Mike comes across like he's a somewhat important member of the band.

Well maybe I'm wrong, and maybe Mike (if he eventually sees the film) will think it's cool, and not begrudge his portrayal, not wish certain scenes were omitted and others added in order to suit what he feels is the real story... but I simply doubt this would be the case. I guess we will find out if and when Mike ever says anything about the film. I also think it's naive to think that if Mike had any leverage/weight to throw around to modify the film (which perhaps could have been the case only in the context of a continuing musical/personal relationship that would have come with a continued reunion), that he wouldn't have at least tried; I doubt that he would have been perfectly happy with the film in its current form, especially if the film has legs as I think it will have.