Paul Giamatti

In the early 1960s, the Beach Boys made a huge splash on the American pop music scene with their distinctive California sound and catchy surfer tunes. The driving force behind the group was founder Brian Wilson (Paul Dano), who assembled the band with his brothers Dennis (Kenny Wormald) and Carl (Brett Davern), cousin Mike Love (Jake Abel), and friend Al Jardine (Graham Rogers). Within a short time, the group’s popularity exploded, quickly becoming a national, and then global, phenomenon.

Have you ever looked at something one way only to find that everyone else sees it completely differently? That might seem improbable to some, but, if we accept the notion that we each create our own reality, the idea doesn’t seem quite so far-fetched. In fact, it might even be seen as downright magical. However, if we’re unable or unwilling to recognize the existence of such personal distinctions, we set ourselves up for trouble, as illustrated by the new, fact-based docudrama, “Saving Mr. Banks,” a chronicle of the back story behind the making of the beloved children’s film, “Mary Poppins” (1964).

Tales of overcoming adversity have long been the stuff of storytellers, from the days of the ancients to the present. Their stories have enlightened legions of listeners and, more recently, in the age of cinema, viewers. Such sagas have profoundly moved audiences, filling them with inspiration, hope and the courage to carry forth under trying conditions. When well told, those stories prove incredibly effective. But, when their recounting doesn’t live up to their subject matter, the result is disappointment, as is the case with the new historical biography, “12 Years a Slave,” based on the memoir of the same name.