Brian Wilson biopic: Love and Mercy

yes, but nowhere near as good as the 60's...IMO.

 

Well, my point is that the Beach Boys had good songs throughout their career, even including some cover versions. Some of Brian's solo stuff was very, very good, too; I'm a huge fan of "Your Imagination" from 1998.

 

point taken...

 

"Cry" is a great stand out track.

 

I think the late 60s/early 70s albums contain plenty of real gems

 

I just was reading the IMDB page again for the 20th+ time. I noticed that Robert Yeoman is the Director of Photography for LOVE & MERCY. He is de-facto DP for Wes Anderson.

That gives me great hope for the visual look of the film.

 

Brian Wilson's Sire debut album was a revelation when it came out.

 

FWIW...it appears Love & Mercy has a release date: June 5th, 2015 (limited)

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/love_and_mercy/

 

I'm not a fan of 'Your Imagination', it's brighter than an unbroken snowdrift at noon.

'Getting In Over My Head' and 'Lucky Old Sun' are both fantastic in spots, the clunky parts in the former and the narration in the latter are distracting and ruin them for me as "completely satisfying" releases.

I have gotten more mileage out of the Don Was produced soundtrack for "I Just Wasn't Made For These Times" and the remake of 'Smile'. I still consider his composition "Until I Die" to be the best, simplest thing he ever put together, with (in my mind at least) "Surf's Up" from the original 'Smile' as the pinnacle of his career.

I never, ever listen to pre-'California Girls lp' -'BB Today lp' era BB material. Never, ever.

 

The time frame when Wild Honey, Friends, 20/20, Sunflower and Surf's Up were released has some of the best material in their archives. I still like the old stuff, but there is much great music to be discovered in this more experimental period, regardless of the fact that they weren't selling like hotcakes any more.

I am looking forward to the film. I hope there will be a soundtrack.

 

There is stuff in the Landy-assisted book, like Brian sleeping with Marilyn's sister, and later getting high with his African-American maid, that I can hardly imagine would pop up in a biopic. The book paints Danny Hutton as a scumbag and little more than a low-level drug dealer.

 

Yeah, sounds interesting and Cuask would be a good choice. I love the Beach Boys.

 

Actual news on this. The film was screened at the Berlin Film Festival 2 weeks ago and a German television program played press junket clips (all with German voice overs), but in amongst the junket clips were 2 very brief moments, probably 20-30 seconds a piece of the first flickering images anyone outside of Berlin or Toronto have seen of this film.

The footage in question was available for a 7-10 days on this German site but has subsequently been removed. I have to say the moment I saw of Dano as Brian leading the group in their vocal of "You Still Believe In Me" was MF'ING AWESOME!!!

A 'teaser' to be posted on Brian Wilson's Facebook page today. Dunno if that means a trailer or what.

 

Doh, this film has been finished for over a year and is still not out! This stuff makes me crazy. Just release it direct to video and be done with it!

 

Trailer is up:

https://www.facebook.com/officialbrianwilson

 

And the trailer just hit today:



and we finally have a U.S. release date: June 5, 2015. (Almost two years after the movie was made!)

 

There were a glut of biopics in the last year or so. I'm sure the distributor was mindful of that and didn't want the film to get lost in the shuffle. Add to that Brian's autobiography is due out later this year. Probably just made sense to hold it for 2015.

I cannot see the film doing blockbuster business but if the reviews continue to be positive it should be a nice indie hit. I think it was self-financed by Bill Pohlad, something like $2-3 million range. This defintely is not going to be "Ray" or "Walk The Line", in terms of box office dollars. Although, I would be happy to be wrong.

 

I was kind of thrown by the difference between Paul Dano as "young Brian" and John Cusak as "old Brian." Not a lot of resemblance there. I assume the film works that out a little better, but it's rough seeing them juxtaposed in the same trailer.

Don't forget that one of the producers is John Wells, who did a huge slew of successful TV series (E.R., West Wing, etc.), so he's a very bright guy who knows good scripts.

I agree that it would be hard to imagine this as a huge mass-market success, but I think you can make a small indie film for under $10M and turn out a profit if it's marketed well, if the subject matter is somewhat commercial, and if you can sell it in enough territories.

If you wanna see a really bizarre indie rock & roll film that kind of went south, go check out The Identical, the story of a guy who happened to be an Elvis-like twin in the 1950s. Really odd film that nobody saw... and that thing cost a whopping $16M!

 

not like he was..he was Elvis's twin...if he had lived. I enjoyed this. Did you see it?

 

I did, but he wasn't exactly Elvis -- just a very similar character in (let's say) a parallel universe, to avoid forcing The Identical producers to pay anybody any rights or infringing on any copyrights. My problem is that the movie was just jaw-droppingly stupid and didn't make a lot of sense. The religious elements were pretty off-the-charts, too. But the production values were generally good.

 

and it had Ray Liotta! love that guy...he was a what if if Elvis's Twin had lived...

 

So now we see the infamous sandbox in the trailer. I wonder, as we have never ever actually SEEN a picture of the sandbox, if Marilyn or Brian was able to come up with a vintage photo and they recreated Brian's home in detail or if this is merely a rendering based from memory. I've have always been very interested in seeing what it really looked like. Since it's such a large piece of Brian Wilson folklore it's truly bizarre that nobody has ever come forward with a photo of the damned thing.

 

I thought his rendition of Surfs Up for CBS? Was done in the sandbox..

 

I recall the book mentioning how Danny Hutton would go jogging and trying to encourage Brian to get his body moving....to no avail. Also Danny supposedly told Miles Davis' entourage to look elsewhere for cocaine when they encountered Brian and Danny somewhere and wanted to score. He could have been painted worse....

 

I heard he burned all the Sandbox photos at the time he burned the SMiLE tapes.