FORMAT: BLU-RAY
For my money, Tommy is the best musical ever made. You can have your Sound of Music and West Side Story. This is the GOAT.
Tommy is a feast for the eyes and ears, which is ironic since it’s about a deaf, dumb, and blind kid. The Who’s raucous energy is perfectly honed by director Ken Russell whose flair for cinematic excess has never been unleashed with such exuberance. The sound of The Who’s classic rock opera melded with Russell’s knack for visual extravagance? It’s a match made in rock n’ roll Heaven.
Ann-Margret gives my favorite performance by an actress of all time in Tommy. Fearless. Unbridled. Daring. She hits notes that God himself would have trouble reaching. She leans into the “opera” part of rock opera and reaches Nicolas Cage levels of jaw-dropping gonzo bravura. No one, and I mean no one, has looked hotter while rolling around on the floor in a fit of orgasmic fury while being sprayed and covered in eruptions of soap bubbles, baked beans, and chocolate while writhing on top of a phallic-shaped pillow.
Queen Shit.
I said it before, and I’ll say it again. Tommy is the best musical of all time. I mean, what other musical features Eric Clapton as a faith healing priest of a church that worships Marilyn Monroe? Or Tina Turner as the motherfucking Acid Queen, who struts her stuff to one of the trippiest scenes on record. Or Jack Nicholson as a suave doctor. And of course, Elton John as the Pinball Wizard. Not to mention The Who, who also trash their instruments as you would expect. Or Roger Daltrey, who is especially great. He spends most of the movie in a daze, and once he is finally snapped out of his stupor and breaks into “I’m Free”… well… it’s peak cinema.
As for what it all means? I’ve always thought of Tommy as a meditation of how people turn to religion, celebrities, family, drugs, women, and doctors to fill a certain void or cure their ills. Really, the answer lies with you. (“Go to the mirror, boy!”) Then, once you find the answer and try to show others what you have learned, it opens you up to the same ridicule and hypocrisy inherent in other avenues of self-care.
Or it could just be a bunch of hippie drug shit. Either way. It’s still one of the best movies of all time.
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