June 03, 2004
tommy & pieces of april
Tommy
All right, I finally made myself sit down and watch The Who's Tommy. Previously, I had seen bits and pieces of it and always thought it was ridiculous. I started watching it, with an extreme dislike of the music, but the storyline was drawing me in. As the plot progressed, I hated the storyline and liked the music more. Nice reversal. Watching Tommy is definitely a psychedelic experience. It doesn't really make any sense, and you basically have to let go and just accept that a blind guy is a pinball wiz who is worshiped by many adoring fans.
For those who haven't seen it, basically a woman whose husband is supposedly MIA in the war has a baby, Tommy. When she remarries and the father shows up, Tommy witnesses the couple murdering his father. He then becomes psychologically blind, deaf, and mute. He grows up, and after a bunch of junk happens, he discovers a pinball machine in a junkyard and becomes "the pinball king" or something to that effect.
I basically followed up to that point, and then just watched to see what happened. The acid queen was crazy but entertaining. The crap having to do with mirrors must have meant something, but I didn't look into it too deeply. The mother rolling aroud in.. mud or chocolate.. was INSANE.
Anyhoo, seeing Tommy go through so much crap and seeing the mom always be so tormented just got me more and more upset. I just wanted to smack them both. And the movie itself just because it was crazy.
Pieces of April
This is a nice little IFC movie about a) a long lost daughter (Katie Holmes in a somewhat non-believable getup) of the family who is trying to fix up a nice Thanksgiving dinner for her family and b) the family's drive to her place in New York - the entire family is skeptical that a former rebel will produce anything good, the grandma doesn't recognize anyone in the family, and the mother is dying of cancer.
Very pleasant movie. The neighbors April meets in her quest to find an oven to bake her turkey are all interesting and offer a lot of humor. I have a hard time believing that a character played by Katie Holmes has ever done anything REALLY bad, but I got over that and enjoyed it for what it was. Oliver Platt is wonderful as always, and Patricia Clarkson was a special treat as the mom.
Good movie.
Posted by wendytime at June 3, 2004 11:29 AM | TrackBack