SPOILER ALERT! A few things I didn't agree with

Rating: Null/10 (4 December 2004)

First I LOVED this movie and probably have watched it close to two hundred times. No really I have. AND I own the DVD.
The movie is obviously a compendium of bands from the early to mid sixties that came to be known (and are still)as one hit wonders. One Trick Ponies is the other most used description.
From the opening shots and the opening music Hanks did a superb job of making us feel like we had been transported to 1964. My jaw about hit the ground.
The stores, the settings took me back to my days in Ohio not far from Erie PA in the same year. Scary actually.
The band comes together in a very logical way. Just a very good arc from Point A to Point B to Point C. The discovery of the band? Absolutely logical. Small time managers who sell the rights to their band to the upper echelons of music companies who can sell them further upwards as well. Play-Tone is, from the looks of the place, a mid-level to lower-upper level company. Not in the same league as Capitol but just below them.
The bit with the traveling bands was straight out of
"Dick Clark's Cavalcade of Stars" It was extremely well done and the way it really was. Very few bands could do the arenas and almost none could do stadiums. So State Fairs were the way to go(and still are if you really look around)
Where I started to lose the belief in the storyline was how T.B. Player(I love that)just bugged out on the band. The Marines would have been all over themselves to get into a taping of a show on the level of The Ed Sullivan Show.
Lenny was an actually talented guitar player and I find it difficult to believe he would leave the band in a lurch on recording day. Not believable at all.
In the year they are supposed to be in, the belief that bands had to do STRICTLY other people's stuff wasn't true any longer. The Wonders had shown they were capable of writing great stuff and Mr. White should have seen that and in real life would have. Play-Tone would have wanted to be cutting edge and compromised by allowing several songs they wanted and several songs the band wanted. The material they played on tour was good and Mr. White would have had enough clout to make it work. The band would have then been sent to open for big time bands like The Beach Boys who were on Arena tours at that point. I saw them at Cincinnatti Gardens with 4 opening acts.
THEN after a few more months and maybe the album doing poorly and the band starting to crumble under the weight of touring(which was a major point of breakups back then) I could see Lenny wanting to go someplace with no pressure and Saich wanting to go to the studio and Guy lusting after Faye who was back in Erie, and the Jazz life. THEN it would have made more sense. BUT I understand the shooting schedule and the need to wrap it up.
Just felt the ending didn't work.
Other than that I gave it a TEN.