The Movie Guru: ‘Butterfly in the Sky’ and ‘The Beach Boys’ both offer blasts into the past

Butterfly in the Sky (Netflix)

If you were a kid who loved reading, and especially if you loved “Reading Rainbow,” this documentary will take you right back to your childhood.

“Butterfly in the Sky” is a charming, warm-hearted journey through the history of “Reading Rainbow,” which ran on PBS from 1983 to 2006. Though not as powerful as 2018’s “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?,” the documentary shines a gentle light on the entire chorus of hopes, dreams and dogged effort that went into the show’s creation. If you watched the show as a kid, you’ll remember all the reasons why you loved it. Even if you didn’t, you’ll be able to feel all the love that went into it and understand why people still love it today.

Though the documentary flows as smoothly as Levar Burton’s voice, there’s plenty of depth in the movie. No PBS show has ever had an easy time of it — Burton testified before a Senate Select Committee in 2003 — but there were also struggles within the show as creative and emotional goals ran into the practicalities of working in television. There are also a lot of great on-the-ground stories, the kind that always happen when a group of creative people who have no money come together to create something great.

“Butterfly in the Sky” is a wonderful celebration of what made “Reading Rainbow” so great. And if it makes you want to pick up a book, or read one to your kids, then you’ve helped its legacy live on a little bit longer.

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Grade: Three stars

The Beach Boys (Disney+)

“The Beach Boys” is more like an ad for the band than a documentary.

Granted, it’s a beautiful ad. Directed by Frank Marshall and Thom Zimny, “The Beach Boys” is a sun-soaked look back at the band’s glory days. There’s a ton of concert and tour footage, unseen archival photographs, and new interviews from almost all of the surviving Beach Boys (Brian Wilson is currently being treated for dementia). The production values are fantastic. If you like the Beach Boys, or want someone else to like the Beach Boys, this will go down as smoothly as one of their songs.

The problem is, it’s a little too smooth. The documentary does mention some of the band’s darker moments, including mistreatment from manager Murray Wilson, Dennis Wilson’s inadvertent connection to Charles Manson, and the death of the younger Wilson brothers. But some of the biggest wrinkles in the band’s collective history get short shrift, particularly Brian Wilson’s complicated history with drug use. Even the parts that are mentioned feel carefully curated, like a brief information card in a museum display. There’s a complicated, sometimes painful story here, but we only get a taste of it.

There is some good critical analysis of their music from a variety of experts, including cultural historian Josh Kun. Fleetwood Mac’s Lindsey Buckingham weighs in on the band’s relationship with the Beatles, which some saw as purely contentious but was actually considerably more complicated. Mike Love gets a fair amount of attention in this area, though this analysis doesn’t spend nearly enough time on Brian Wilson’s work.

Altogether, it’s a good start that doesn’t go nearly far enough.

Grade: Two and a half stars

Jenniffer Wardell is an award-winning movie critic and member of the Denver Film Critics Society. Find her on Twitter at @wardellwriter or drop her a line at themovieguruslc@gmail.com.