Word: townshend
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...WORRY, Be Happy, " is the message of Avatar of the Age Meher Baba, and it is in his honor that Peter Townshend wrote the "rock opera," Tommy. For us, this passivity is good advice at the movie's end, after what we've been through: a series of events so brazen and bewildering that judgement or evaluation has no place. After a horrible plane crash kills Tommy's war hero father, his mother (Ann-Margret, with much cleavage and little voice) remarries only to be walked in on late at night by the scarred figure of Husband I, thought dead...
...TROUBLE with Russell, and with this new sensationalism in general, is that values get lost and confused in the morass of enthusiasm. When Tommy becomes a pinball wizard and a fabulous star. Townshend's opera tries to make some dramatic statements about the plight of the rock personality. Riches don't mean happiness, young boppers get kicked in the face by bodyguards when they rush the stage--that sort of thing. But Russell can't resist playing these scenes for the vicarious turn-on. Tommy smashes a figurative mirror, regains his senses, sings, "I'm Free," and leads the millions...
This first attempt at a "rock opera" was composed by Peter Townshend of The Who and performed by the group on a record album released in 1969. Tommy was closer to oratorio than opera, but the most serious thing about the entire piece was the lofty label that was pinned on it. Tommy was just strong rock 'n' roll, sometimes raunchy, sometimes highfalutin. The Who even wound up performing it at Manhattan's Metropolitan Opera House, an appearance that was less an honor than a shrewd piece of promotion. Tommy has not only endured since then...
...comment upon and satirize a culture where a shaky totem like Tommy could attract such worshipful respect. Tommy shares with traditional operas a foolish libretto, this one having to do with a deaf, dumb and blind boy who becomes a pinball champion, a culture hero and a new messiah. Townshend wavered crazily between satire, science fiction and sanctimony; Russell mocks the very seriousness of the piece itself by focusing on, then extending it. The movie is entirely sung; there is no dialogue. But there are several added narrative fillips and some lavish production numbers whose very excess is their...
...Anthony Perkins and a sampling of transvestites, tuxedoed Hollywood agents and blue-jeaned rock freaks. The glitter blitz blared until 2 a.m., leaving Columbia Pictures with a bill of some $35,000 for food, flowers and guards. The whole spectacle was unsettling to Tommy Composer and Who Guitarist Pete Townshend, who stood by a turnstile surveying his new underground following. Said he apprehensively: "I just hope none of 'em turn up at any Who concerts...