Customer Reviews

Daydream Believers - The Monkees Story

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Ok...so there's a little artistic license taken to increase the drama in the movie, but all in all, this is a great, feel-good film. While some may feel the "happy ending" is rather cheesy, I like it because it's done in the style of the old Monkee episodes. The actors portraying the Pre-Fab Four did a terrific job and even resemble the original Monkees, especially Jeff Geddis portraying Mike Nesmith. I loved the Monkees as a kid, but never knew the true story behind the making of the show and why it only lasted for two seasons. This movie will give you an idea.

What is worth the price of this DVD are the interviews with three of the Monkees that are included. You can still see the definite personalities of Jones, Tork, and Dolenz in these interviews and get more insight into how each viewed his Monkee experience and what each did once the series was cancelled.

The running commentaries by each of these three Monkees are priceless. I watched the film 3 times in a row, and each time the film was different because of the running commentary. Mickey Dolenz is hilarious and zany throughout the entire film; his commentary kept me in stitches. Peter is more introspective, analytical and pragmatic, pointing out inaccuracies in the film. Davy Jones has a lot to say--he comments throughout the entire film, providing insights and interesting personal revelations. Their diverse commentaries and interviews makes for an interesting movie. I highly recommend this DVD for any Monkees fan.

Contrary to what some might say, this actually has a lot of factual information in. Anyone who has seen numerous interviews with the Monkees over the years, including many biographical prime time shows, would realize that there is more fact than fiction in this movie.

The acting is excellent. All of the actors look and act very similar to their real-life counterparts. Many kudos need to be given to George Stanchev for perfecting Davy's dancing in the "Daydream Believer" video remake.

The problem with this movie, however, is that the real drama of the Monkees began when the band started to fall apart. Peter Tork's departure and the tension that caused it are what really bring the story of the Monkees to a dramatic climax.

Unfortunately, this movie stops after the release of "Head" and ends on a bright, positive note. The real truth is that the future of the Monkees was anything but bright and positive until their total disbandment in 1970.

It's still a good movie, and there is more fact than fiction. But if you're looking for a truly representative movie about the Monkees, this isn't it.

As a Monkee fan, I was thrilled when I heard this biopic was going into production & incredibly disappointed when it aired. While largely accurate as to what really happened, the film seemed cheesy & awkward, with not enough Monkee music & a jaw-droppingly silly happy ending. The DVD, however, is wonderful! Not only can you skip right to the movie's best parts (i.e. the "All of Your Toys" segment), but it contains FOUR commentary tracks - three of which are by actual Monkees: Davy Jones, Peter Tork, & Micky Dolenz. Tork's is an interesting factual account of how the movie compares to reality; Micky's is a silly track that gives the movie the razzing it deserves; and, best of all, is Davy's rambling & sometimes crazy commentary track which gives great insight into his life, his mindset, & his relationship with the reclusive Mike Nesmith. If you're interested in The Monkees, skip this film when it airs on cable & pick up the DVD instead!

You've seen from the other reviews and from the interviews that this film did not exactly hold true to what really happened.

It took a while to get used to the actors - despite each of them doing a great job at being the originals. They even walked and moved like the originals which was brilliant. Mike's clone didnt have enough of a Texas accent for me - and didnt quite capture the original Mike's cool, mardy, mysteriousness. It showed him as a family man but forgot to mention how rocky the relationship he had with Phyllis was - which im lead to believe was volatile in the extreme because of Mike's gittishness. He also had an affair and a child with someone else in 1968 as far as I know and that was conveniently omitted. Would'ave been nice if the other's relationships had been covered too.

And yes it was weird that Micky had curly hair when that wasnt the case in the first series!

Would'ave been fantastic to hear Mike's commentary - you get the distinct impression that Peter and Davy didnt like him - the more I hear the worse he sounds unfortunately.

The screen tests are brilliant - the Davy one is absolutely spot on and the Mike one is not far behind!! I want to see Peter and Micky's ones - where have they gone?

This film is not great but the version with the commentaries is good from all 3 in different ways.

Davy and Micky in particular come across really well - and Peter is kind and supportive of them which is nice.

Thats enough rambling - may give you an idea anyway!!

Buy this and give it a watch - if you liked or like the Monkees it will re-whet your appetite!!

well first off, i'm a huge monkees, fan, and know most of the history behind the group. so that being said, daydream beleievers: the monkees story, is pretty good. there are some creative liberties taken, bert and bob become one person, don kirshner being involved from the very beginning. and the really cheesy (and i really hate this word) ending. i guess if the filmakers had more money, more detail would have been given. i would like to see a miniseries on them one day. but all the actors are very good, recreating the essense of davy, micky, peter, and mike. their are some good special features, video interviews with davy, micky, and peter. but the best thing is the audio commentaries by the guys themselves. micky's is hilarious, davy's is really insightful, and peter's is a bit odd, he hardly talks, but offers some cool insights also. but any monkee fan will want this dvd edition, just for these commentaries.

I began watching the Monkees back in the mid 80's when MTV re-aired their 2 wonderfull seasons. I was hooked. I bought all their albums, books, posters you name it. Anyhow the story played well to what I learned over the years. The actors were perfect. I wish Mike though had been a little more accepting of the situation and just went about there short career as a great way to make a living. But it seemed that his anger passed on over the rest and 2 seasons of The Monkees was all we got. I understand the music issues of wanting to play and to get Kirshner out of there but I really think they could have finished out the decade. The movie shows the Monkees right up to the Movie "Head". What I didn't like was them on the beach laughing like "oh well what a ride but it's over" because it wasn't that way. They did their 33 and 1/3 Revolutions TV show and then Peter split. The movie really doesn't finish up anything. I was expecting to see words on the screen explaing what happens after "Head" and they didn't. Anyone watching this bio would think everything was just peachy after the show ended. I didn't get it at the end there. I did like all the actors like Nicholson and Hendrix. The Beatles were pretty accurate too.

I was always a big Mike fan but that movie really made him look like a jerk. His songs are still my favorites. Too bad "Head" wasn't advertised as a Monkees movie or it may have done better. That's pretty much what killed them. As for this movie it's a great bio of the band and well acted but the end really dissapoints.

I for one have been a HUGE fan of DVDs for awhile now anyway and was not disappointed with the effort that went into this one as far as actually getting 3 of the 4 original Monkees to comment on the project. Peter was the only one who was visibly involved with the project to the extent of actually meeting the actors portraying the group and doing commercial spots with them for VH-1 to tease the original airdate. However, up until now this has been the first time we've been given an inside look as to how he, Micky and Davy actually viewed the project and we're not left disappointed for the most part. The benefit to DVDs is that you can fit a lot more substance on it than on a video tape. DVDs generally offer extra scenes, trailors and commentary on the movie, etc by the stars or directors. The price of the DVD ... is MUCH more appealing than the current [PRICE] of the video version (though for what reason I don't know). The video version excludes the commentaries which is worth every penny and more of the DVD. Even though this DVD release doesn't offer extra scenes from the movie (which was a little disappointing but I am lead to believe since it was so low budget there probably wasn't much substance left on the cutting room floor) it made up for it with commentary from all 3 of the guys and the director and the original movie trailor. The commentaries also include a separate, more brief video interview of each Monkee which was filmed last November. The video interviews focus more on various ramblings about what they're doing now and their overall feelings about Monkeedom which run about 20 minutes each.
The full length 91 minute movie commentaries are a different story. Each Monkee speaks as if they're sitting in your living room! All commentaries were of course recorded at separate times so you have 3 different ones to choose from which take you from beginning to the end of the film. Davy, Micky and Peter all claim at the beginning that this is the first time they are viewing the movie so it's very interesting to feel as if you're watching it with them and experiencing their reactions for the first time. Micky's had to be the best in my opinion because he gave the movie a "Mystery Science Theater: 3000" feel, commenting on various accents by the Davy character or costuming which at times did in fact replicate actual things worn by the Monkees (like Mike's suit to the Emmy Awards show "Hey, you've got napkins on your cuffs!" or he claims he "would never wear THAT shirt!"). He also kept commenting on how attractive the actor who portrayed him was. Micky mentioned in the video interview that he had originally been approached to direct the film but because it was such a low budget project he had to turn it down (first time I heard about that). I was laughing through the entire thing.
Davy's commentary was also amusing but he seemed to give more insight as to what the scenes in the movie were portraying telling us the differences between fact and fiction, etc. He mentioned being very impressed with the actor's accent and portrayal of himself, laughing at some of the jokes and thoroughly enjoying the way the movie was done. He was blown away by the portrayal of Mike claiming the actor looked just like him. He even told a story about one Christmas as a Monkee which I had never heard. He said he bought all the guys small color TVs one time which was something you didn't see a lot of back then. He visited Gene Ashman awhile later and noticed he had the exact same TV he had bought Peter, Micky and Mike. He asked Gene where he got it and he said, "Mike gave that to me as a present!" Davy then went on to say, "That was Mike - never a team player," and laughed.
Peter's commentary wasn't quite as complete or colorful. Out of the 3 you could definitely hear more dialogue from the movie than from him. Micky's seemed to over-ride much of the movie, Davy's was also nicely timed but Peter's seemed kind of bored. He noted that he was very enthralled by L.B. Fisher's "Peter" and that his smile was actually formulated to look like Peter's but in fact L.B. really smiles a different way. Still, it was nice to hear from him even briefly.
The director's commentary was most informative about the actual project - giving us the behind the story take on different scenes and how the actors had to transform themselves. He had a LOT to say through the movie and it made for interesting listening (about camera pans and small mistakes, etc that I missed the first time around).
I was always a fan of this film to begin with (and was afraid I'd wear out the video copy I taped off VH-1) but had yearned to know what the Monkees thought of it. Now, I have my answers and the overwhelming response was that they were pleased. I second that notion! Don't miss out on this DVD - even if you don't have a DVD player now but eventually may purchase one, it's worth having this film since it's very possible something like this could go out of print in the future.

I saw this movie on VH-1, and I was pleasantly surprised. To be perfectly frank, I thought the movie was going to feature Davy, Davy, Davy, and more Davy (sorry folks, I'm not really a big fan of Davy). I was surprised to learn that Mike had a pretty big part in this. I'm also surprised they included a character of Mike's first wife, Phyllis.

I was very disappointed when I bought the DVD. I had taped it off VH-1 the night it premiered, and then I bought the DVD for a better quality copy. For some reason that I can not begin to figure out, some of the scenes were edited. I had read the rating for this. It was rated PG-13 for drug references, but most of them were cut out. Why they did that, I have no idea.

DAYDREAM BELIEVERS is fun to watch, but has some serious shortcomings too. To start with some of the positives, it's an enjoyable and decently produced film, and the actors playing the Monkees certainly look and act their parts well. I like too that the decision was made to use the original audio recordings of the group when the actors re-created their musical performances.

However, if you listen to the commentaries on the DVD by the director and three of the Monkees - Peter Tork, Micky Dolenz, and Davy Jones - you discover that there are a lot of inaccuracies in the film. Some are minor, such as showing all four Monkees together almost all the time, when in reality some were absent in certain situations. But some errors are unforgivable, such as taking a moment of major conflict between Jones and Tork, which actually happened, and creating a totally fictional background for it! However, the consensus among them seems to be that despite the inaccuracies, the overall gist of the Monkees' story shown here is true. Also, at 91 minutes long, there's a rather rushed feeling to DAYDREAM BELIEVERS, and maybe because of this time limitation, there's nothing in the movie about the Monkees' breakup or reunions over the years since then.

The interviews of Jones, Dolenz, and Tork on the DVD are interesting too, and give updates on what the three of them have been up to since the Sixties. The film should at least have dealt with the breakup of the group in 1970, rather than tacking on a fictional "happy ending" and stopping there. In sum, thanks to the commentaries and interviews I recommend this DVD highly, but without them I would recommend it only moderately. DAYDREAM BELIEVERS is not a CASABLANCA or a 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, but still it's a fun nostaligia trip if you care at all about the Monkees.

Movie may not be 100% true and takes a few liberties but overall "Daydream Believers" is a fine tribute to a great, talented group of guys who were misunderstood and deserved better treatment at the time of their fame & popularity.

Best thing about the DVD, as others have mentioned, are the commentary and the excellent interviews with Mickey, Davey and Peter.

I personally found the movie to be fair to all the Monkees including Mike Nesmith (despite what others have said here).

Overall, if you're as into the Monkees as I am, you're probably gonna enjoy this movie - just don't take it too serious, ignore the untruths and enjoy it for what it is and not what it isn't.

Remember: Most movies made about real people are usually 50/50 on the truthometer when it comes to facts and realism. Re: Elvis the Movie, Oliver Stone's The Doors, oh and Spice World! (Just kidding!)...