Beach Boys - An American Band / Brian Wilson - I Just Wasn't Made for These Times
cheap dvd videos, dvd movies for sale
|
 |
List Price: $14.98
Our Price:
$12.99
You Save: $1.99
Features
• Best of
• Color
• DVD-Video
• Full Screen
• NTSC
In Theaters : 27 August, 1995
DVD Release : 17 December, 2002 |
| [ + Zoom ] [ Buy Now ] |
DVD : Usually ships in 24 hours |
|
Beach Boys - An American Band / Brian Wilson - I Just Wasn't Made for These Times Customer Reviews
|
|
|
|
♥♥♥♥♥ |
Art History
|
First up on this DVD is "An American Band." Own it because it's a wonderful historical and musical record of the Beach Boys from the very beginning. But don't expect a detailed, "warts-and-all" biography of the band. The full story of the Wilson family is as rife with tribulations as a Gothic novel. "An American Band" doesn't delve into the dark stuff except superficially; primarily, it's a feel-good infomercial for the Beach Boys through 1985 (a year or so after Dennis's death). Dennis's impossible lifestyle and struggles with drugs and alcohol are addressed just barely, although his sweat-drenched, inebriated attempt to croak out what had once been his signature song, "You Are So Beautiful," at his last July 4th concert is excrutiatingly painful to watch. The band's struggles over the musical direction of the group (e.g., the SMiLE project) are similarly left unmentioned, except for Mike Love's comment that "we work best sticking with the formula." On the plus side, the video contains clips of the Boys (minus Brian) playing in Czechoslovakia -- the first Western band to do so, entertaining hundreds of thousands of people at their yearly July 4th concerts, and singing "California Girls" on t.v. while Jack Benny and Bob Hope monkey around on stage in ridiculous wigs hauling a surfboard. There's plenty of great music here, and you see the band's evolution over a 25-year period.
The real meat of this DVD is in the second video, a black & white documentary about Brian, "I Just Wasn't Made For These Times." After 45 years of fandom, I feel like I finally understand something about who Brian is and why, as well as who he has become. Brian is famously candid, and candor is a hallmark of this video. Witness his ex-wife Marilyn and daughters Wendy and Carnie, especially Carnie, whose insights and ironic humor about Life With Brian show her to be wise beyond her years (she was 26 at the time). Collaborators Van Dyke Parks and Tony Asher have fascinating insiders' comments on the creation of "SMiLE" and "Pet Sounds." Rock icons like Graham Nash, Linda Ronstadt, Lindsay Buckingham, John Cale and David Crosby speak articulately about Brian's influence on their own work and relate amazing, funny, awestruck stories about Brian's creative process. I concur with Tom Petty's remark that Brian easily ranks with Beethoven or the great composers of any era. This video also contains some good remakes, sung by Brian at the time the video was made (1995, prior to Carl's death) with an excellent band.
Even taken together, these two videos leave a lot out. For instance, Brian's highly controversial therapist, Eugene Landy, is referred to only as "my assistant in the 80's" or "that guy." It's as if he's been turned into You-Know-Who from the Harry Potter books. I find that omission weird. If the guy was a Svengali, let's name names.
Brian's mom, Audree, comes across as so guarded and cautious as to be almost catatonic. Perhaps it's too awful to discuss, but considering the appalling damage that Murry Wilson did to his sons, I kept asking myself the question: where was Audree when Brian and Dennis were being beaten to a pulp? Unknown, captain.
Similarly, contradictory explanations for the demise of SMiLE reveal that there is still a lot of dust hiding under the rug on that one. The only thing clear is the long-lasting emotional devastation that Brian suffered as a result of abandoning the project.
Perhaps it's unfair to expect pop documentaries to cover all the territory that a comprehensive biography of Brian and his brothers would require. All angst and misgivings aside, Brian speaks for himself quite a bit here, and beyond the funny and poignant stories told about him by others, hearing Brian in his own words is worth everything to me. If you're a fan of 20th century popular music and want to understand some things about one of the two most influential bands of the past 50 years (the other group being of course the Beatles), you owe it to yourself to see this DVD. Along the way, you'll hear some great music, and you'll be greatly moved.
|
|
Beach Boys - An American Band / Brian Wilson - I Just Wasn't Made for These Times dvd movie.