Brian Wilson biopic 'Love and Mercy' directed by Bill Pohlad starring Paul Dano

Excellent casting choice imo.

http://cdn.indiewire.com/dims4/INDIEWIRE/5c63b2d/2147483647/thumbnail/680x478/quality/75/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fd1oi7t5trwfj5d.cloudfront.net%2F21%2F3e%2F4f412bf240c18e56375535ff7c2f%2Flove-and-mercy.jpg

http://consequenceofsound.net/2014/07/heres-our-first-look-at-paul-dano-as-brian-wilson-in-biopic/

stop it

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_and_Mercy_%28film%29

just stop making biopics in general

I'm skeptical of nearly every one that comes out unless I have reason to not be. For instance, the Hendrix and James Brown pics coming out this year look like complete garbage. This one is intriguing, though.

Horrible feet.

There's no way it'll be as good as the Brian Wilson scene in Walk Hard

I doubt it will even be as good as the John Stamos tv movie

that pic looks good. they should just make the whole movie one 90-minute shot of him sitting there, the sound of the waves and seagulls in the background, brian looking confused. sun goes down, credits roll.

"I'm A Cork In The Ocean: The Brian Wilson Picture" COMING SOON

As long as the Barenaked Ladies song is used in every cut

good feet are a myth, like good karaoke

where is Cusack as Old Brian?

lol would watch tyler's version

"kokomo" would play as the credits roll fyi

ok that's a bridge too far

would've been ok with "Brian is Back" or even "Wrinkles" though

credits roll over the "Weirdos + Mike Love" pics

Who's Brian Wilson?

he's a bearded pitcher for the dodgers

hoping for a 4 minute scene enacting the events that inspired "a gardener was gardening/he watered the lawn/and i went to sleep"

dano looks great IMO

some group was playing a musical song

a 30 minute scene of dano playing with wind chimes

"I try not to look at them...but it's hard..."

just stop making biopics in general

OTMFM. As opposed to "based on a true story" movies (which are arguably of some merit if it's a compelling story), biopics are usually just boilerplate "and then this thing you already know about happened, and then this other thing you already know about happened" chapter books with an optional "and then he/she/they died" epilogue. They may be able to salvage a decent performance from the wreckage, but it's almost always wreckage.

Although I'd pay good money to watch a Brian Wilson biopic starring Brian Wilson playing himself at every age.

there was a super-entertaining TV movie about the beach boys maybe 15-20 years ago

xp the birth scene alone

I remember! The guy playing Dennis was a hunk

xpost

guess i missed that the dennis biopic is kaputt.
http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/news/why-dennis-wilsons-biopic-collapsed-20131212

Yeah thats what I was referring to upthread. Stamos produced it.

Xp

it was cool

stamos is cool

let's have another

I remember that made for tv movie - the exposition in the dialogue was hilarious.

Brian: "Hey Dennis, I just heard this new album called Rubber Soul and now I'm going being working on Pet Sounds"

Dennis: "Sounds good. I'm going start cruising the desert for cult leaders".

Brian: "OK, see ya"

really wish this movie was just paul giamatti and john cusack re-creating landy's therapy sessions

googled "eugene landy" to reaffirm whether he looked like giamatti at all and google's top photo for eugene landy IS giamatti

Christoph Waltz would make a good Landy

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

yeah i don't get giamatti for this at all

hoping for a 4 minute scene enacting the events that inspired "a gardener was gardening/he watered the lawn/and i went to sleep"

subtle changes between actual lyric and your memory of it basically turns this into a pretty good neil young lyric.

I'd pay good money to watch a Brian Wilson biopic starring Brian Wilson playing himself at every age.

coming soon from richard linklater, with ethan hawke as dr. eugene landy.

though based on the clip croup posted, i now want leonard nimoy to play eugene landy.

Can they start combining biopics with literary adaptations because a Brian Wilson movie would be p cool if it was also Benjamin Button.

i now want leonard nimoy to play eugene landy.

Basically his character in Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

the thumbnail image for that landy-wilson YT vid is perfect; like, I don't even need to watch that clip or read a BW biography to get their whole relationship.

are there any weird/experimental biopics? I did not like the Dylan one or Last Days but at least they both tried to do something unusual instead of putting "historical accuracy" first. I feel like the 'uncanny valley' of seeing a dude act like James Brown just lends itself to fucking around with form/nonlinear narratives or w/e rather than trying to be as accurate as possible. There are probably other more subtle ways to subvert this boring straight-ahead approach than doesn't require getting all freaky and un-mainstream. But the singular quest to make a definitive accurate film depiction of a major public figure seems like the most boring and least useful way to use film to explore a character.
Idk, tldr hollywood sux

you didn't like I'm Not There? There's always Superstar lol

tbh i went into it with super negative preconceptions, i'd be willing to see it again.

what's Superstar, is that a karen carpenter biopic or are you talking about that molly shannon movie?

OH shit! N/m just found it. My gosh it looks freaky

this movie was soooo good!!!!

i thought it was pretty decent. Cusack looked, sounded & acted nothing like BW, which would have been admissible in an "I'm Not There/ more preoccupied with the essence" kinda way if they weren't at such obvious pains to make Dano's scenes so visually & historically authentic; there was definitely an awkward opposition at play with all that. Giamatti had some pretty creepy scenes, but idk i never really did lose sight of the fact that I was watching... Paul Giamatti. he was still pretty effective i guess, but Steve Carell, for instance, did a much more focused (& chilling) transformative turn as an all-round sadistic monster in Foxcatcher.

favourite aspect of the film, like a lot of folks, was the portrayal of each song undertaking its own idiosyncratic & meticulous evolution: starting off as a flash of genius in Brian's head, being developed studiously, and then finally being realised with expert patience & discipline in the studio. that part seemed very organic in the sense that the songs weren't just Eureka! moments in themselves, but were in need of being nurtured to life; there was a kind of tension & pressure underlying the process of capturing an idea before it escaped and as a result you genuinely got the feeling that these songs could only have come about in a particular time and place. i mean, the sense that the musicians were engaged in something almost surreally groundbreaking was palpable, and that is definitely to the film's credit. Brian's genius was also convincingly portrayed.

i'd tell people to check it out.

I watched this documentary yesterday : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SriaRRcA6w
so sad the moment when the whole thing collapsed and he broke down during the creation of Smile.
It's also interesting because it's kinda common now to consider that Smile was mainly completed when he shelved it. but in the documentary he says he needed like another year to finish it !

it's also quite embarrassing all the live and interview segments from the 90s because although he seems to feel better than in the 70s, he's clearly off (reminds me when I went to the Smile tour and most of the times he was busy doin nothing on stage... like a sick old person brought on stage without a clue of what he's doing here...).
Like the moment when VDP tries to communicate with him about the creation of some of the tracks.

and by the way : this is AMAZING :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gWb6SfgBZc

and so is this (it's great to hear the arrangements and instruments that are otherwise covered by the voices) :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_a-C6CsvNo

The music, which should've been the main character, was strangely relegated to the sidelines. I can't remember if we got even one song played all the way through but I kinda doubt it.

This is always the problem with music biopics though. Not seen Love & Mercy yet, but I felt exactly the same about Walk The Line. Didn't feel as though I'd gotten to know anything about the music of Johnny Cash and that really, a better film would have been made if they'd just made up a fiction loosely-based around Cash's life.

so I have finally seen this.
I enjoyed it although, somehow, I eventually prefer the 80s part to the 60s one.
the 60s part is good and all but, like someone said upthread, it has the issue that most biopics have : a succession of famous/historical moments and scenes that feels a bit shallow (like why did they re-shoot the video for "sloop john B" ??).
Whereas the 80s part was more of a real movie.
that said, maybe it's because I know the 60s stories very well whereas I had next to no idea about what happened to him in the 80s.
also, I had initial doubts about Cusack playing BW but was eventually impressed by his performance because he succeeded in talking and behaving exactly like the "old" BW I've seen in various footage and interviews.
another problem with the 60s part is also that I didn't like Dano's face at all and so I couldn't sympathize with his BW !

Dano has the most hateable face in modern movies

Redeeming qualities: the sound design (holy shit), cusack only barely modifying his usual schtick yet still making it work (somehow), genuine plot/characterization in the 80s sequences

Failures: pretty much everything else.

Genuinely prefer the 90s stamos tv movie tbh, at least it was totally ott and funny. Seemed like a bunch of the dano scenes in this were more "serious" higher budget remakes of scenes from the stamos movie. And not in a good way. Giamatti was super hammy 1 dimensional villain but eh he served his purpose. Banks was good.

Dialogue in the 60s scenes was also just so clumsy, all unnatural exposition and/or direct quotes from interviews/clips. So stiff and dumb.

I liked this more than i expected to, Dano v good and Cusack's more fraught, disturbed moments impressed. Elizabeth Banks underrated. Didn't expect M Love to be given equal villain status with Landy.

It did have the feel of an "authorized" film, as I think it's mostly about a guy with a bad dad and doctor rather than a Beach Boys movie. A couple of the music cues were cringey, like the last one.

Haven't checked above for any snark about Wes Anderson's cinematographer's work here.

Banks was my supp. actress vote.

most tolerable Dano perf ever

Cusack recycled his Lloyd Dobler-isms

hmmm no, aside from being the same actor. More fragile, and not just from being 48 instead of 22ish.

I know ppl are upset he didn't look anything like BW, but neither did Will Smith look like Ali (in a significantly worse film)

this is ok. suffered the same problem lots of biopics do "hey I'm writing this song do you have lyrics? maybe something about the VIBRATIONS?" and then they write the song. I got used to Cusak; he didn't mimic Wilson but I thought he brought an interesting perspective on Wilson, even if he did seem a little TOO together at times. biggest drawback to me was that the ending was very abrupt; would have liked to see slightly more about how they got Landry out.

deleted scenes inevitably include reenactment of infamous Murry 'let's fight for success' tape.

also Spector dissing Brian on the sidewalk

Tell it to Johnny Rivers.

I loved this. Dano is such an effortless actor. Paul Giamatti was great as Landy too. Wasn't mad on Cusack, but you can't win em all. Great to have a biopic that actually concentrated on the music for more than 30 seconds, and also one that told the whole story but from only two specific moments in time (mid 60s and early 80s). Best music biopic I've ever seen (which isn't saying much, but still).

The LSD parts were really tastefully executed and managed to avoid any HE FUCKED HIS LIFE UP WITH CRAAAXY DRUGZ stuff.

I'm listening to the Brian Wilson solo album now for the first time in about 13 years cos of this film.

the sound design in this is phenomenal - the scene where brian's in the studio with his dad in the control room and the music in brian's head slowly turns discordant was heartbreaking

i loved this! Dano was excellent. the look on his face when he emerges from under the piano after getting it to sound just so at one point was a thing of beauty.

anyone see the Miles biopic? it seems to have died on its arse over here, barely in the cinemas.

the Miles 'biopic' is about 90% fictional

aren't they all! it was weird seeing Don Cheadle saying as much in all the interviews though.

yeah it's unabashedly made-up though. i liked Cheadle in it, and it was interesting that they made a story up around Davis's fallow period, but it's an action movie with Miles Davis as the main character, ultimately. Don't expect a serious bio.

watched this on amazon prime last night

as a film it's decent

i did feel it was more for fans so it was difficult to completely remove my fanboy urge to love it

sound design like people have mentioned is amazing

cusack is a strange choice; he kind of made it work but still retains a bit of his cusackisms

dano was pretty great

rly brought back memories of making music with friends

This was waaaaay better than I expected it was gonna be. Recommended!

I just watched it finally last night and was blown away. Gorgeous

may rewatch again today

It’s been a long time since I’ve seen it but if memory serves, I could’ve done with more Dano and less Cusack. The former I believed as Wilson, the latter I did not.

i found Cusack very believable but I get why ppl don’t really go for it
it’s a harder role to sell because there’s no definitive hairstyle or wardrobe like Dano has with younger Brian; Cusack has less trappings to hang his performance on
There’s no physical transformation, it’s all in the movements & mannerisms which are also quite small & minimal

I thought he handled the character really well & was very convincing .

I watched it last night. Best parts were obviously the scenes in the recording studio

Also: some director needs to create a worthy starring vehicle for Elizabeth Banks, she’s great in this and a criminally underutilized actress overall

elizabeth banks was in every movie that came out roughly from 2005-2015

this movie was pretty bad. the dano parts were OK, the cusack parts were awful

I haven't seen the movie yet, but I actually worked with someone who lived in L.A. for a long time, and during a long conversation that had nothing to do with Brian Wilson, she mentioned a psychotherapist friend of hers named Eugene Landy. I immediately stopped her and was like, "Wait, wait...Eugene Landy? As in the guy who treated Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys?" Same guy, and it was obvious they were good friends, but I gently reminded her that his treatment of him was "controversial." She agreed, but she did defend him, mentioning how he literally got him out of bed, etc. Then a month goes by, and by sheer coincidence, we both run into Paul Giamatti, whom she recognized but she had no idea he played Landy in the film. (That would've been a hell of an icebreaker, but I didn't want to get into that again and kept quiet about it.)

obv a long time ago, since he died in 2006

Nah, this was summer 2016. (Easy to remember because the election happened when I was finishing up on that job.) She wasn't talking about him in the present tense.

ahhh right, gotcha :)

Giamatti plays such an excellent bastard.

anyone ever read this??

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51Vu7%2Bh6KsL._SX317_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

This was on the other night, it is absolutely fucking atrocious, wtf with all those good reviews upthread?

I loved the part where Paul Dano transformed into Balthazar Getty and killed that guy in the truck

Whist talking about The Beach Boys I mentioned The Cowsills documentary Family Band and somebody thought I was talking about this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWtbhd4bFMw

Found a half hour video about why this is the best movie ever. Seems more time efficient to just watch the actual movie.

No idea where to put this but Brian’s wife Melinda passed away. Only 77.

Although she was critical for pulling Brian away from Dr. Landy, she was also responsible for the massive breakdown with Brian and Carl (they didn't resolve their differnces until Carl was dying from cancer).

She also also created major tension between Brian and Andy Paley, Don Was, Sean O'Hagan, basically anyone who wanted to work with Brian on new material in the 90s.

All that said, Melinda was a major factor in getting Darrian/The Wondermints to work with Van Dyke and Brian to finish and agree on a proper sequence for "Brian Wilson Presents SMiLE."

Hope he's getting the support he needs now to deal with his grief. I always got the impression that Brian was still pretty fragile - IIRC he still has very harrowing incidents when he's under a lot of stress.

yeah...

The death was announced on Brian Wilson’s Instagram page, where the 81-year-old singer-songwriter wrote, “My heart is broken. Melinda, my beloved wife of 28 years, passed away this morning. Our five children and I are just in tears. We are lost. Melinda was more than my wife. She was my savior. She gave me the emotional security I needed to have a career. She encouraged me to make the music that was closest to my heart. She was my anchor. She was everything for us. Please say a prayer for her.” He closed the statement with his trademark sign-off: “Love and Mercy, Brian.”

v sad

Although she was critical for pulling Brian away from Dr. Landy, she was also responsible for the massive breakdown with Brian and Carl (they didn't resolve their differnces until Carl was dying from cancer).

She also also created major tension between Brian and Andy Paley, Don Was, Sean O'Hagan, basically anyone who wanted to work with Brian on new material in the 90s.

All that said, Melinda was a major factor in getting Darrian/The Wondermints to work with Van Dyke and Brian to finish and agree on a proper sequence for "Brian Wilson Presents SMiLE."