Word: wizarded
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...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...
Russell's tone is expansive and abrasive. His maniacal invention comes to full flower like an orchid in a hothouse. When Tommy (The Who's Roger Daitrey) meets the Pinball Wizard (Elton John) in a championship match, Russell mounts it on a gilded stage before thousands of fans. The Wizard looks like a character from the other side of an electronic looking glass. Shirt full of glitter, several pairs of suspenders holding up his pants, he perches in front of his pinball machine on seven-story platform shoes, singing Pinball Wizard ("That deaf, dumb and blind kid/ Sure...
While music drowned out the rumbling of subway trains below, Tommy first-nighters celebrated the film's premiere by partying on the mezzanine level of Manhattan's 57th Street subway station. "I've never been so frightened in my life," said Pinball Wizard Elton John, as more than 700 guests jostled for 600 seats. The celebrators, many making their first trip into the tubes, were treated to something more than usual subway fare: 50 Ibs. of octopus flown in from the Bahamas, 50 dozen oysters from Virginia, five 30-lb. lobsters from Nova Scotia...
Purists and adulators of Judy Garland may carp, and one can understand why, but this all-black musical version of The Wizard of Oz is a carnival of fun. It grins from the soul, sizzles with vitality, and flaunts the gaudy hues of an exploding rainbow...
...Giscard d'Estaing, the honeymoon was over. Actually, some observers were surprised that a confrontation between the center-right President and the leftist French unions had been delayed so long. As Finance Minister in the government of the late Georges Pompidou, Giscard was widely famed as an economic wizard-a reputation that was largely responsible for his narrow victory over Socialist François Mitterrand in last May's elections. Since then, despite Giscard's imposition of a classically conservative program of tightening credit, raising some taxes and holding down budget expenditures, the French economy has gradually...