Watch Family Band: The Cowsills Story For Free

One of my all time favorites.

Must See Movie...

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

We Rhode Islanders love to claim The Cowsills as our own, and I was as big a fan as any other 10-year-old in RI in 1968. This documentary reveals the truth behind the all- American, happy family image put forth in such hits as "Indian Lake" and "The Rain, The Park."At times heartbreaking to watch, The Cowsills still gave me goosebumps when they sang "The Star-Spangled Banner" a cappella at Fenway in 2004. Those harmonies!A must-watch for anyone who remembers this very talented group.

I'm over 50 but I must have just missed this group's span of popularity. I do remember seeing them mentioned in "Tiger Beat" and other fan magazines back in the day when I was looking for All Things Cassidy, and wondering who they were. The last name certainly sticks with you; it's very unusual.Interesting documentary, and also very disturbing in places. I agree with the other reviewers who would have liked to see more identifying of the various brothers each time their interview clips were shown, since I wasn't familiar with which one was which, and I had trouble telling them apart.Obviously I wasn't there when any of this was going on, but I'm always a little disturbed when families "pile on" to a deceased member and accuse him/her of various transgressions. Whether or not it's true (and I'm not saying it's not), it would have been better to have had this come out after they were all adults but when their father was still alive, so he could at least have had an opportunity to offer his side of the story. That goes for the abuse allegations (many of which were apparently witnessed) as well as what happened to all the money the group earned over their brief but successful career.Worth a look to anyone who remembers them (and isn't afraid of getting their childhood memories messed with) or anyone who's into retro pop.

The Cowsills were the mid-to-late 60's family band that the 'Partridge Family' TV show - that launched David Cassidy - was based on. They had four hits and did a lot of teen press and endorsements. The Cowsill family was ruled with an iron fist by Bud Cowsill, an alcoholic, embezzling, bipolar, sexually abusive tyrant, according to his close family. Which says it all. It's a film about damaged people doing their best to move on, not a prurient look at a pop monster, which might have been more fun.There were at one point six of the kids and their mother in the band - the seventh kid, an identical twin, was sent to the military (and Viet Nam) because Bud and he got along even worse than the rest of them.Musically, they're a bit like The Carpenters meeting the TV Osmonds and trying to do relentlessly cheerful, complicated non-rock pop. No wonder the Monkees cleaned up. Their version of 'Hair' is actually quite good, mind.I had a real problem trying to work out which grizzled muzo was which toothy, tousle-haired, pastel-polyester clad kid in the old footage; it doesn't help that their names - Bob, Billy, John, Paul, Richard, Susan, Barry, Barbara - don't give much clue either. Except that that's a clue to what a dysfunctional family they really were. All of them, including Mom Barbara, subordinated their own wishes and desires to Bud's will, which affects their personalities and lives to this day. Barry and Billy even died during the production, within a day of one another. And so we see these brothers and their sister, who grew up in fear, now scattered across the USA, happily mostly doing music and with kids of their own, still suffering confusion and shock about their Devil Dad. Except that isn't terribly interesting, unless like me you also have several brothers and a sister whose names all begin with J (not B), and whose father was a controlling, depressive tyrant who broke his wife and children's spirit, and now you all live far apart too.The late Bud is missing from the film - it would have been far more entertaining to have had him trying to defend himself against the accusations of his victims, instead of various very old aunties dropping bombshell hints. What would also have helped is more captions with the names during the interviews. I'm still not sure who played what.For a better 'dysfunctional family docu-bio', get Terry Zwigoff's 'Crumb'.

All families have a negative past. No one is perfect. The thing about the Cowsills is that they have musical genius, and made it into our pop culture. They are so cool. I liken them to the Beach Boys in many ways. genius is always subject to abuse. It is, of course, strange to defend their dads beating them, but in some ways it is familiar. Their dads loved them and tried to make them excel. Weird, but true. They did try and produce for the rest of their lives. Tough to watch. The brothers and sister held together like glue. All I know is that is loved the story. Susan is underrated in every way. A gem.Note that the brother that played the drums is playing for Brian Wilson today. Some kind of wild karma thing, or maybe just more Brian Wilson genius. Who knows. Totally cool in any case.