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Post by Kapitan on Apr 14, 2020 15:48:49 GMT
As seems to be the case with All Things Beach Boys, this is a tremendously flawed but wonderful product.
The performance of Smile that came with the DVD is the highlight. As with TLOS a few years later, I thought these were fabulous documents of that fantastic band playing great music.
The part that had its good and bad were the parts dealing with the modern resurrection of the project. The raw footage was interesting, and some of the band-member comments were good. But the staged parts really, REALLY rubbed me the wrong way. For some reason, the Foskett pep talk to the band at rehearsals, "we are not trying to recreate the mystique of Smile, we're trying to perform it live as best we can" or whatever. I hate that with a passion. It's clearly staged. He's clearly talking to the viewers, not the band (who all obviously would know what's going on by this time). That kind of thing annoys me to no end. It reminds me of background footage in promotional videos where some fake-employee shuffles some papers and maybe points out some fake reports to some other fake employee while the voice-over talks about synergy or innovation or something. If it is a documentary, make a documentary. Concert footage, use concert footage. Script your narration. But don't script your purported documentary footage. That's dishonest.
The part I could have done without entirely was the documentary portions that basically just rehashed what had been covered many times before. Why not just start with, say, 1965ish? Focus on the origins of Smile itself, not the history of Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys.
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Post by Kapitan on Apr 14, 2020 15:58:58 GMT
The way to make it much, much better, I should add, is unfortunately the thing that was simply never going to happen: talk to the Beach Boys about it. Old clips of the deceased, new and old ones of the living.
However, that's how one can tell when something is a serious documentary or a long-form promotional video.
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Post by kds on Apr 14, 2020 16:02:17 GMT
Two things irk me about the concert portion.
1. Why not just film a full concert from the Smile tour and release that? He was doing a 20 song set prior to the Smile portion.
2. What's with Brian mugging for the camera? Seriously, at some points, he looks downright manic.
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Post by kds on Apr 14, 2020 16:03:30 GMT
The way to make it much, much better, I should add, is unfortunately the thing that was simply never going to happen: talk to the Beach Boys about it. Old clips of the deceased, new and old ones of the living.
However, that's how one can tell when something is a serious documentary or a long-form promotional video.
If you talk to The Beach Boys, you can't spin the story to fit the narrative.
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Post by Kapitan on Apr 14, 2020 16:09:04 GMT
2. What's with Brian mugging for the camera? Seriously, at some points, he looks downright manic. Honestly, it's no different than the much-publicized off-camera Landy holding up signs saying "smile!" Just a different sign-holder. Obviously the imperfect execution of coached performance tips.
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Post by kds on Apr 14, 2020 16:20:01 GMT
2. What's with Brian mugging for the camera? Seriously, at some points, he looks downright manic. Honestly, it's no different than the much-publicized off-camera Landy holding up signs saying "smile!" Just a different sign-holder. Obviously the imperfect execution of coached performance tips. I think that's just as dishonest as the staged pep talk, as it's not an accurate representation of Brian Wilson in concert.
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Post by Kapitan on Mar 6, 2023 15:34:46 GMT
I know people have some pretty strong feelings about this music, but I rewatched the concert component of this one last night, and I still absolutely love it. In fact, I got a little emotional watching it. Yes, as we said above, some of the mugging he does for the camera feels inauthentic; but I also think he was enjoying himself (relatively speaking) by the time they'd filmed the performance. And the band! Such a great group of musicians.
It was really a bummer to think that Nick Walusko is no longer with us, that Jeff Foskett is battling health issues, and that Scott Bennett, Jim Hines, Nelson Bragg, and Taylor Mills are no longer affiliated with BW. I know I've said it before, but while it feels to me Wilson's band has been pretty stable through the years, that's the majority of the band that isn't the band anymore...
Regardless, the music. I absolutely loved rewatching it last night.
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Post by lonelysummer on Mar 25, 2023 2:18:32 GMT
The thing that bugs me about it is the spinning of the old tale of how the Beach Boys hated the Smile music. Mike, obviously, had some concerns about the lyrics. Everything I have read indicates Dennis loved it. Carl played on many of the sessions; Al, I don't know what Al thought of it. The film just pushes what I call the Rolling Stone mindset of "Brian is a genius, the Beach Boys were squares that just didn't get it".
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