Tommy movie review

[Sroundtable@aol.com]

I've seen it a few times and have the soundtrack, so i was glad to see some 
discussion about it here.  Overall, i thought it was great.  bizarre, yet 
generally cohesive and understandable.  Yes, oliver reed's singing was awful. 
 Ann Margret was superb, however- an underrated talent pigeonholed by her 
great looks (she was a hottie, tho).  All other performances were excellent- 
especially tina turner and elton john.  i thought roger was actually very 
good also- and keith's uncle ernie was classic.  

overall strengths:  pete's amazing journey, roger and pete's dual vocals in 
sally simpson, pinball wizard scene makes my top ten movie scenes of all 
time, the preacher scene is excellent, too, with pete and john and clapton in 
the procession and the plastic, giant marilyn, and acid queen was downright 
shocking.

weaknesses- weird use of "sparks" and weird scene as tommy wanders out of the 
house into the junkyard and finds a pinball machine there and starts playing 
(didn't see the point in that- i suppose the pinball was "calling" to him, or 
something?  But if so, wouldn't that be an act of god meaning tommy WAS the 
real messiah?  it turns out he isn't, so how did the pinball machine "call" 
to him?). oliver reed.  final scene with all the mounds of giant pinballs- 
that was a bit baffling.  Where would you buy giant pinballs, anyway?  jack 
nicholson can't sing, either, but he sang better than i would have thought.  
Go to the mirror is one of the rockin-est songs in tommy- should have been 
performed by a rock star- like robert plant or peter gabriel or don henley.  
i thought christmas was a bit weak, also. annoying toy noise-maker sounds and 
lacking general rockishness.

Plot problems:  I ain't buyin that tommy goes deaf, dumb, and blind because 
he sees frank and his mother making out.  It seems clear that pete originally 
intended to have capt. walker return and maybe kill frank from the lyrics in 
the tommy album- using "lover" and "father" in 1921.  When the HS i teach at 
did tommy- they had capt w return to find frank making out w/nora and shoot 
frank in front of tommy- which caused his DD&B.  I'm assuming the stage 
version has the same.  russell glossed over the key event in the plot.  Also, 
what was with ann margret rolling around on the floor in all the goop coming 
out of the TV set?  I didn't get that at all. 

kevin mc