The Beach Boys: Doin' It Again Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.5

The Beach Boys: Doin' It Again Blu-ray Movie Review

Fifty years later, the vibrations are still most definitely good.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman September 21, 2012

Was the British Invasion held at bay by a bunch of surfer dudes? It’s certainly possible to make that argument, for after The Beatles and their United Kingdom kin took the American pop charts by storm in the early sixties, the still nascent American rock ‘n’ roll community found itself in an uproar (interestingly, one of the reasons that the folk movement suddenly became such a phenomenon). But there at the bulwarks were some unassuming California boys, combining barbershop harmonies with increasingly more complex and intriguing compositions, and as The Beach Boys Doin’ It Again reveals, almost relishing in the revelation, by the time 1966 and “Good Vibrations” rolled around, this homegrown west coast group placed Number 1 in an important British poll of popular bands, followed by The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. The Beach Boys are arguably America’s most successful band, with 56 U.S. Top 100 hits, 36 Top 10 hits, and four which climbed all the way to Number 1. If The Beatles were harbingers of a new international flavor in popular music, The Beach Boys were resolutely All American, touting the glories of surfing and T- Birds, not to mention the attractions of California Girls. But The Beach Boys managed to also react to their environment, including The Beatles themselves, and by the mid-sixties were offering some of the most lushly beautiful pop-rock on the music scene. This interesting if too brief documentary cobbles together a quick history of the group while also incorporating some also too brief footage from their 2012 Reunion Tour, a tour which celebrates the staggering 50th anniversary of the founding of the group. The band now consists of Brian Wilson, Mike Love, Al Jardine, Bruce Johnston and David Marks, along with a coterie of backup artists, and while there’s a certain nostalgia factor that can’t be denied here, it’s also pleasantly obvious that the guys, despite their advancing years, still have the musical goods to be out there performing and making new albums.

The Beach Boys aren’t just the prototypical All American Band, in a way they’re also the prototypical All American Band Story. The Wilson Brothers (Brian, Carl and Dennis) grew up in a middle class California neighborhood right on the border between Hawthorne and Inglewood. Their mother Audree was a frustrated pianist who schooled all of her children in fundamental music theory, and the three Wilson boys showed native musical talent from early childhood. Initially joining together with their cousin Mike Love and longtime family friend Al Jardine, and helped by their father, Murry Wilson, the Wilson Brothers made The Beach Boys an almost immediate success when they had their vast family call in to support their first self-produced single which had gained a foothold in Los Angeles radio. That led to a major deal with Capitol Records, which in turn made The Beach Boys a major Top 40 act. Jardine decided to leave the band to pursue his studies, and former neighbor David Marks was brought on board. (Marks has a very funny anecdote about moving across the street from the Wilsons as a kid, on the “Inglewood” side of the divide between Hawthorne and Inglewood, only to look outside to see the Wilson boys throwing garbage in his direction and decrying the “suckiness” of Inglewood.)

Probably not all that surprisingly, The Beach Boys Doin’ It Again doesn’t really touch on the many trials and tribulations the band went through, most notably with Brian Wilson’s mental instability and substance abuse issues. There are some nice moving moments toward the end of this piece which honor the memories of both Dennis and Carl Wilson, and it’s extremely moving to hear the band doing “God Only Knows” with a beautiful video of Carl singing it live playing on the huge screen in the background. This is after all a celebratory piece, one trying to highlight the band’s fiftieth anniversary, and so perhaps it’s understandable that some of the darker elements of The Beach Boys story wouldn’t be featured, though a more objective documentary feature would certainly have devoted at least a little time to some of these issues.

One of the coolest things about The Beach Boys Doin’ It Again is some recently found 16mm footage of the boys in their “Good Vibrations” recording sessions. Contemporary interview segments are intercut with this footage, and Brian reveals it was actually Carl who came up with the idea of using a theremin and cello in the song, certainly one of the most unusual pairings of instruments in pop music history. The grainy black and white footage is remarkable, showing Brian twisting dials and moving levels to achieve the mix of the background instruments, and perhaps most surprisingly showing the boys singing together in a circle in one session, rather than being tracked separately in their own individual vocal booths.

The Beach Boys started out crafting slight but immensely enjoyable tunes that celebrated the “fun, fun, fun” of the American spirit, especially the summery pursuits of cruising and surfing. Their rather unexpected depth starting in the mid-sixties may have also unfortunately come at the expense of their popularity, but looked back on now from the vantage point of some forty or so years, their late sixties and early seventies work is an amazing amalgam of gorgeous songs and incredibly complex harmonies. Their newest song “That’s Why God Created the Radio”, which is shown being recorded in this documentary, shows they’ve lost little of their luster despite increasing years. While this piece would have been better had it not flinched from some of the shadows haunting the group, and also had it provided more unedited concert footage to bolster the musical moments, The Beach Boys Doin’ It Again is still an immensely enjoyable celebration of one of the most enduring acts in the entire history of American popular music.

The Beach Boys: Doin' It Again Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Beach Boys Doin' It Again is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Fontana with an AVC encoded 1080i (mostly) in 1.78:1. The contemporary concert and interview footage here looks very nicely sharp and well detailed, to the point where the guys' weathered faces reveal every last wrinkle and sag (sorry to say it, but it's the truth). The documentary also features a wealth of archival footage, and those elements vary rather greatly. Some early television appearances seem to have been sourced from kinescopes, and those are blurry and feature pretty poor contrast. The 16mm footage of the "Good Vibrations" sessions looks surprisingly spry, with excellent contrast and an overall acceptably sharp image, albeit one with quite a bit of grain.

The Beach Boys: Doin' It Again Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Beach Boys Doin' It Again features both a Dolby TrueHD 5.1 surround mix as well as an uncompressed LPCM 2.0 stereo fold down. Both of these tracks offer sterling fidelity, and the surround mix nicely opens up the musical elements, especially in the live concert footage. That brings up the major complaint a lot of people are going to have with The Beach Boys Doin' It Again, however: there's precious little unedited musical footage here (in fact it's limited pretty much to a nice version of "Sail On, Sailor" and the closing version of "Surfin' U.S.A."). Real Beach Boys fans are probably going to be slapping their heads at hearing little snippets of so many great tunes without getting to hear more of them. That said, everything sounds great here, and the interview segments offer crystal clear dialogue.

The Beach Boys: Doin' It Again Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Some may be slightly misled by the insert on this Blu-ray disc, which touts these "features":

• Exclusive 2012 Interviews with the Beach Boys
• Live Performances from the band's 2012 World Tour
• Never before seen footage from the 1966 "Good Vibrations" recording sessions
• Behind-the-scenes footage from the 2012 recording sessions for the new Beach Boys release "That's Why God Made the Radio"
• The group's moving tributes to founding members Carl and Dennis Wilson

Be aware, therefore, that this is simply a laundry list of items included in the documentary itself, not actual supplementary features.

The Beach Boys: Doin' It Again Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

I'm ashamed to admit I kind of wrote off The Beach Boys as lightweight "surf" music until a friend introduced me to the wonders of Surf's Up, Holland and (especially) Pet Sounds and the "refurbished" Smile. That in turn led me to reevaluate their early pieces, and while it can't be denied the first few Beach Boys albums don't have the complexity of their later fare, there is still such a richness in their vocal harmonies and such joy in their approach that it's silly to even try to argue with how viscerally effective their work is. This documentary is great as far as it goes, but the truth is it probably doesn't go far enough. None of the problems the band encountered are really covered (aside from brief homages to Dennis and Carl), and too many of the band's fantastic songs are truncated here, interrupted by commentary and talking heads. All of that said, this is still a wonderful look back on one of the most iconic bands that helped to define what the American sound was all about. Recommended.