TOMMY

Tommy is probably the best known rock opera since it has been an album, a movie, and a stage play.  The term "Rock Opera" grates on me, I think Rock is Rock and Opera is Opera and the twain should never meet. To me, trying to make rock into opera is a sign you're ashamed of rock and want to do"legitimate music". 

Tommy (as an opera should be) is entirely sung. That would have all been well and good IF the songs were good, but unfortunately "Tommy", "Pinball Wizard", and "I'm Free" are the only three songs that worked for me....and yes that includes "Acid Queen" by Tina Turner and I'm a big fan of Tina's.

Since I have an aversion to "rock operas", plus Pete Townshend grates on me (I think it's his self-importance that is off-putting), I should have steered clear of Tommy. However, I had fond memories of seeing Tommy on the big screen when it was originally released, and I even saw a stage production in Atlanta many years later. The best thing I could have done was to have left Tommy in my memory banks and went on with my life.  I found either my tastes have changed or the movie really wasn't very good to begin with. Either way, it was a slough to get through this film. The next time I want to watch something with "Tommy" in the title, I'll choose Tommy Boy.

THE COMMITTEE

 

One of the best things about The Committee is that it is mercifully short (55 minutes). One of the worst things about The Committee is that at 55 minutes it is still too long and a slough to sit through.  

The Committee stars Paul Jones (Manfred Mann's lead vocalist) as a man who commits a murder...well sort of... since after he cuts the guy's head off, he sews it back on and the victim continues to live. Paul Jones is then called to a meeting of The Committee (sort of like being called for jury duty).  It seems The Committee is actually meeting about him, in order to get him back into the norm of society and not commit murders. 

There's a long boring  sequence (actually there's a lot of long boring sequences in this film) where Paul Jones and the leader of The Committee (who looks amazingly like the door guard at our local K-Mart, who we call Moe) walk and talk and walk and talk and walk and talk....well you get the picture. After this scene, since Paul Jones has got his head right, the movie ends on a strange note (you had to read/listen to the intro to the film to understand the end). 

Maybe in 1968, when the film was made, all of the "heaviness" of the message played better. However, in 2013 The Committee plays like a poorly produced, poorly directed, self-important pile of crap. For fans of Pink Floyd, The Committee holds some interest since they did part of the soundtrack. The best part of The Committee is an appearance by Arthur Brown performing "Nightmare" (not "Fire" as the back of the DVD box states; although, he does first appear in the movie with fire on his head). Since you can see that performance on YouTube, there's really no reason to watch this film.