Summer Dreams 1990

[wgolly]

I'm talkin' aboout the 1990 made for tv movie.  They have this movie on fye for around $4, I'm thinking of buying with one of my old gift cards.  I haven't seen it since around 2001 when it was being shown on VH1( movies that rock), so I don't remember much, except for the denny scenes and the cocaine sessions.  How does it handle the smile era?    Also, did it have the rights to original music?

[the captain]

My $.02: It's garbage. It isn't worth a thing, other than the same kind of tragic-comic humor that one gets from the BW/Gold "autobiography." It is laughably bad.

You can search "Summer Dreams Beach Boys" and find it on youtube. I recommend you refresh your memory before buying it.

[wgolly]

maybe I'll skip it.

[Jonas]

Although inaccurate, I enjoyed it.

[♩♬🐸 Billy C ♯♫♩🐇]

God Bless the fake-ass beards.

Plus,Dennis looking like a child molester



although, if you consider him & Shawn...

[MBE]

It's good on one thing and that is the friendship between Brian and Dennis.

[punkinhead]

yeah, it does a better job of the denny/brian relationship than American Family....but the Smile era isnt touched....

Good Vibrations, not even in the movie....Brian just gets burnt out and grows a beard in 1967?!?!? and just "sits there in the corner listening to the sgt. pepper album" as the other guys watch Jimi Hendrix at Monterey Pop Show and are weirded out by it...

[Awesoman]

I'm talkin' aboout the 1990 made for tv movie.  They have this movie on fye for around $4, I'm thinking of buying with one of my old gift cards.  I haven't seen it since around 2001 when it was being shown on VH1( movies that rock), so I don't remember much, except for the denny scenes and the cocaine sessions.  How does it handle the smile era?    Also, did it have the rights to original music?

It's pretty bad; very shoddily handled and totally inaccurate.  Plus we're treated to "Dennis" performing a song he never wrote. 

[mikeyj]

I have this on tape and to answer one of your questions, no it doesnt have original music. So the actors sing the parts (and boy are they bad!!). But if you want a good laugh (as this movie gave me) then I recommend it, but just dont expect anything too spectacular. Just watch it knowing how much of a joke in terms of accuracy the movie really is and just approach the movie light-heartedly because if you expect it to be a great overview of the band then you'll be dissapointed. An American Family (the other TV movie) is MUCH better in my opinion.

[John]

yeah, it does a better job of the denny/brian relationship than American Family....but the Smile era isnt touched....

Good Vibrations, not even in the movie....Brian just gets burnt out and grows a beard in 1967?!?!? and just "sits there in the corner listening to the sgt. pepper album" as the other guys watch Jimi Hendrix at Monterey Pop Show and are weirded out by it...

My favourite quote ever in the whole thing is in that sequence; the incredibly badly dubbed "Hendrix" speech from the tv:

"SURF MUSIC IS DEAD!"

Never fails to make me laugh. Wrong on so many levels.

[Jonas]

Call me crazy but the Murry in Summer Dreams was much more convincing than Kevin Dunn.

[punkinhead]

i feel like so many favor the SD Murry than Kevin Dunn, why is this? I thought Kevin Dunn was really really good...he actually had real lines that Murry said...and Two Step Side Step...dont get me started 

[endofposts]

"Summer Dreams" is worth it for the camp value.  I wouldn't pay $10, but $4 is about right.  I didn't care for "American Family" at all,  particularly Part 2.  Part 1 isn't bad, but they had a vastly larger budget than SD to get those early '60s details right, and it shows ($20 million for that miniseries, versus probably a tenth or less of that to make "Summer Dreams," an average TV movie budget for that time).  Take them both with a grain of salt.  Both have Brian in bed as of 1967.  I much prefer the "Summer Dreams" Brian actor.  The guy who played him in "American Family" was totally unsympathetic and very bad in the role,even beyond the crap he was made to do by the script.  I also like Bruce Greenwood, though I'm not sure he made a good Dennis.

[Jonas]

I'm a fan of Bruce Greenwood, just because he didn't make a good Dennis. Now, whenever one of his movies is on tv, I always stop to watch. 

[SloopJohnB]

Which one contains the part where Brian goes to a Capitol meeting with a tape recorder? Is it Summer Dreams or American Family?

[c-man]

Which one contains the part where Brian goes to a Capitol meeting with a tape recorder? Is it Summer Dreams or American Family?

American Family.

[SloopJohnB]

Thanks!  I was just asking because I remember seeing a BB movie when I was about 9 or 10, and this scene stuck in my mind... At the time I didn't understand English very well, so I'm searching for this particular movie just as a "souvenir" from one of my earliest encounters with the BB world. (not the best one in retrospect!  )

[wgolly]

I was just watching this on youtube and you know what, that guy looked exactly like Mike Love. 

[pixletwin]

Did the Beach Boys really have a fake panel rigged up for Murray that didn't really work?

[MBE]

That's been said to be the case. I think Murry did real work, gettin them to sound trebley etc., but the story has gone around for years and I think Nik Venet started it. Really he was a bad source.

[mikeyj]

I'm searching for this particular movie just as a "souvenir" from one of my earliest encounters with the BB world. (not the best one in retrospect!  )

American Family is my first encounter of the Beach Boys too! By the way I always thought that Kevin Dunn was WAY more effective as Murry than the Summer Dreams Murry. But I agree I dont like the Brian in American Family. But I think Mike and Murry look pretty realistic in American Family whereas the actors in Summer Dreams look pathetic (on the whole), especially Carl... who casted him as Carl?? If I saw that Summer Dreams movie first (thankfully I didnt) I would have thought "man these guys are gay" whereas luckily I saw An American Family and thought "wow, these guys are really cool and weird". And yes it had Brian acting like a weirdo too early in the piece but that just made me want to go and learn about this weird band. And I think I am right in saying that there is much more (though still ridled with errors) historical accuracy in An American Family, would that be right (I mean, Im guessing here, but does anyone agree?) I guess you could say I have a soft spot for An American Family

[kookadams]

Yeah there's a lotta sh*t wrong with this film. The way they looked in certain years in the film isn't what they looked like in reality in those years and that fucking irritates me. Bruce Greenwood doesn't look like Dennis at all, the guy that played Brian didn't look like him, the guy that played Carl didn't look like him even slightly. And Bruce doesn't get any acknowledgment whatsoever in the movie. I went and bought it recently on dvd cuz I hadn't seen it in years and I still get irritated by a lotta the sh*t that they fowled up. And yeah Good Vibrations wasn't even mentioned; most of the film was about Dennis and his downfall. 

[Andrew G. Doe]

That's been said to be the case. I think Murry did real work, gettin them to sound trebley etc., but the story has gone around for years and I think Nik Venet started it. Really he was a bad source.

Chuck Britz confirmed it more than once.

[Awesoman]

I'm talkin' aboout the 1990 made for tv movie.  They have this movie on fye for around $4, I'm thinking of buying with one of my old gift cards.  I haven't seen it since around 2001 when it was being shown on VH1( movies that rock), so I don't remember much, except for the denny scenes and the cocaine sessions.  How does it handle the smile era?    Also, did it have the rights to original music?

It is entertaining primarily due to how awful it is.  Lots of facts are distorted and mixed up.  John Stamos produced a different Beach Boys tv-movie for ABC but that one isn't much better. 

[Awesoman]

I'm talkin' aboout the 1990 made for tv movie.  They have this movie on fye for around $4, I'm thinking of buying with one of my old gift cards.  I haven't seen it since around 2001 when it was being shown on VH1( movies that rock), so I don't remember much, except for the denny scenes and the cocaine sessions.  How does it handle the smile era?    Also, did it have the rights to original music?

It is entertaining primarily due to how awful it is.  Lots of facts are distorted and mixed up.  John Stamos produced a different Beach Boys tv-movie for ABC but that one isn't much better. 

And I have just realized that I've replied to this thread twice!