IFC has been showing Tommy for the last couple of weeks. I never watched the movie in its day, but I loved the album back then. I finally caught it just this week, yet even now, I didn’t watch but bits and pieces of it.
I loved this movie, and I hated it.
I love anything featuring music from The Who, and after all these years I can still be mesmerized by images of Roger Daltrey running and cartwheeling about in nothing but a pair of very tight blue jeans. A 1975 Roger Daltrey, mind you. Grrrroowl.
But God, what a messy stew of claptrap most of the rest of the movie was. I mean, Ann Margret rolling around in baked beans? Jack Nicholson doing his trademark leer for five minutes? I don’t regret not having seen it in 1975, because back then I couldn’t change channels when the going got too stupid.
It reminded me of nothing more than a prolonged, cheesey rock video, and I guess that’s what it was. Only a few years later, MTV got its start, and IIRC, their earliest videos did have some of that Tommy style or lack thereof.
Oh, well, if IFC’s still playing it, I may still tune it to try to catch Tina Turner, who I missed. I don’t think she can give a bad performance – or can she?