There are few people as important to the art form of recorded music as Brian Wilson, songwriter, performer and producer with The Beach Boys. He changed the sound of music, and created some of the most beautiful artworks of a medium he was constantly expanding. To date, every Brian Wilson or Beach Boys biopic has been somewhat lacklustre. I can't help but stare slack-jawed at Summer Dreams if I ever see it on TV, but it's not a credible film. Hopefully, this will all change over the summer when Love & Mercy is released. Here's the trailer, with Paul Dano playing a Pet Sounds-era Brian, and John Cusack having to pick up the pieces later. Paul Giamatti is playing Eugene Landy, the villain of the piece. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpGVVvkxjhI Well, absolute worst case scenario, there's going to be some good acting and some excellent music. But it looks like there's more this than just a couple of celebrity impersonations. The film premiered at Toronto last year and enough people gave it obviously positive reviews to get the Rotten Tomatoes score to hit 73%. The US release for the film is set for June 5th, when the weather will be perfect. Here in the UK... well, they're not going to be able to target it for a summer release because I think summers have been banned by the government. Hopefully it won't be too long until we see it, however, even if we have to dodge raindrops on the way to the cinema.
Brendon Connelly has been a film writer since the early 90s, with time on the staff of Orbit Magazine, Slashfilm, Bleeding Cool, Den of Geek and many more. He's a long time teacher of film studies and practical filmmaking classes, and has directed music videos, commercials, short films and more. His favourite film is Terry Gilliam's Brazil, his favourite food is pancakes or crepes, and he tries to live his life by the teachings of Kermit the Frog.
