Tommy in Quintophonic Sound!

[mousepod]

In other film-related events, here's a cool screening I can afford.

35th Anniversary Screening of “Tommy” Friday, May 21, 7:30 p.m. at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater The Who’s electrifying rock opera returns to the big screen for a 35th anniversary screening, featuring a new Digital Cinema presentation with the original Quintophonic soundtrack. Featuring an onstage panel discussion hosted by Murray Lerner with special guests Director Ken Russell and Editor Stuart Baird.

Still not sold out. $5 a ticket. The link. (http://sa1.seatadvisor.com/sabo/servlets/EventSearch?presenter=AMPAS&venue=OSCARS-LINWOOD,OSCARS-GOLDWYN,OSCARS-HIGHLAND)

[katiesue]

Hmm. This was my Dad's favorite movie. I've only ever seen it on TV. (we had to swear not to tell Mom he let us watch it). I need to check the calendar.

[Moonliner]

In other film-related events, here's a cool screening I can afford.



Still not sold out. $5 a ticket. The link. (http://sa1.seatadvisor.com/sabo/servlets/EventSearch?presenter=AMPAS&venue=OSCARS-LINWOOD,OSCARS-GOLDWYN,OSCARS-HIGHLAND)

I still credit/blame the Acid Queen for my total aversion to recreational drugs (and most prescriptions ones just for good measure).

[katiesue]

I still credit/blame the Acid Queen for my total aversion to recreational drugs (and most prescriptions ones just for good measure).

Dad made my sister leave the room for that part so she wouldn't get freaked out.

[innerSpaceman]

I haven't seen it in perhaps 30 years, but I recall it as being one of the worst movies ever made (from one of the greatest sources ever created). It's not without its gaudy charms. But the performances are mostly terrible, and the covers by-and-largely inferior to the original music. The visuals are seventies spectacular, though. Ken Russell, baby!

(Kinda reminds me of Alan Parker's The Wall - inferior musically, not a terribly good film, interesting visuals. Methinks making films of rock operas is a fool's errand.)


BUT - the price is right, and maybe the film has mellowed or kitched well with age.

I'm in. :)

[katiesue]

Madz and I are in - well she doesn't know it yet.

[Not Afraid]

That sounds like fun.

[Snowflake]

I remember almost nothing of this except Ann Margaret and baked beans

[BarTopDancer]

This sounds like fun, but I work until 6 and there is no way I could ever get there in time. :(

[Tref]

Is it possible to get the Quintophonic sound without having to see the movie?

[Ghoulish Delight]

This sounds like fun, but I work until 6 and there is no way I could ever get there in time. :(
Same boat. Even if we could get a babysitter, no time to settle kiddo after work and make the trek to the west side.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Is it possible to get the Quintophonic sound without having to see the movie?

http://fashionablygeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/anime-eye-mask-1.jpg

[Tref]

http://fashionablygeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/anime-eye-mask-1.jpg

Touche.

[flippyshark]

Is it possible to get the Quintophonic sound without having to see the movie?

"Put on your eyeshades,
(don't)Put in your earplugs,
You know where to put the cork."

I love Tommy, in every one of its iterations. The original album, the London Symphony Orchestra version, the movie, the Broadway show. I would attend this in a heartbeat.

There are a number of rock opera movies that get little or no critical love, but that I watch and enjoy a lot, no doubt because I met them when I was young: Jesus Christ Superstar, Tommy, Phantom of the Paradise, The Wall, but even when I was a Kid, I could tell that Xanadu and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band were a crock. Still, I wish this was a more thriving sub-genre. (guess it's time to check out Repo: the Genetic Opera.)


(Hey, I can take comfort in looking at my Tommy DVD, personally signed by Ken Russell. Okay, ducking...)

[innerSpaceman]

Um, trust me, DON'T check out Repo.



I used to hate the film version of Jesus Christ Superstar until one fantastic viewing at the Cinerama Dome. So who knows? Tommy may be redeemed.

[Cadaverous Pallor]

God damn do I LOVE this movie. Le sigh. Have fun!

[Ghoulish Delight]

(guess it's time to check out Repo: the Genetic Opera.)
I wish you could have seen it on stage. The film is a sad disappointment. If you do see it, just focus on the character of the Graverobber. He's the lone bright spot in the film, imo. He also happens to be the co-writer and an all around nice guy. Imagine a stage version where everything is as good as his role and performance are in the film and you'll have some idea of what you missed. There's also a 10 minute short they did as a pitch for the full length. I haven't seen it, myself, only bits of it, but if you happen to be able to find that, I think it retains more of the quality of the stage act than the feature film did.

[innerSpaceman]

Yep, the Graverobber rocked. All else, alas, pretty much sucked.




But hey, maybe a retrospective in 30 years will have me feeling differently!

[katiesue]

Madz "Who's Tommy?"

[innerSpaceman]

Did you say, "Yes?

Because that is the correct answer, though I imagine it would have played a bit Abbott and Costelloish.




oh, i hate to think of someone seeing this film and coming away thinking it's Tommy. Please tell her, before or afterwards, that it's a bizarre dream someone had about a fantastic rock opera.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Did you say, "Yes?

Because that is the correct answer, though I imagine it would have played a bit Abbott and Costelloish.

This link is required (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlXjIg4fH74) in response.

[Kevy Baby]

Please tell her, before or afterwards, that it's a bizarre dream someone had about a fantastic rock opera.Also tell her that The Who did not record a song called "Teenage Wasteland"

Although it probably won't come up since it is not in the movie

[innerSpaceman]

Um, just what exactly is Quintophonic sound? It would seam ironic for a group who did a piece called Quadrophenia to have a movie in Quintophonic, which I'm pretty sure was made up in the last week.

[Kevy Baby]

Um, just what exactly is Quintophonic sound?I was curious earlier and did some (very brief) research. Quintaphonic (notice that the original link spelt it rong) was something used for the movie Tommy only (or mostly only). From here (http://triggertone.com/term/Quintaphonic_Stereo):The QS matrix system was employed to create the five-channel Quintaphonic Sound system used for première engagements of the 1975 film Tommy. The left and right 35mm magnetic soundtracks were QS-encoded to create four channels around the cinema audience, while the centre mag track was assigned to the speaker behind the screen. The mag FX track was unused. This channel layout came close (5.0) to the later usage in video 5.1 surround sound.Basically, it was the quadrophonic soundtrack with a fifth track for the voices in the movie.

[€uroMeinke]

I got tickets this morning, so we'll be there

[katiesue]

Sadly we can't make it now. If anyone wants to go I'll email you our tickets. Just PM me your info.

[flippyshark]

I was going to watch my DVD tonight with the surround speakers hooked up. (The most recent DVD release is mixed to recreate the Quint-O-Phonic experience.) Alas, I've been called out to do a mystery show - so I can't quite join y'all in sympathetic movie viewing, but I'm anxious to hear what you think of the movie. I don't meet too many people who are neutral about it.

Quint-O-Phonic: A sound system for salty old shark hunters.

[mousepod]

flippyshark - It's tomorrow night - so you can still 'join' us.

[flippyshark]

I see at the event link that Ken Russell's name is no longer mentioned, just "surprise guests." I really hope y'all get to see him. He isn't in the best of health, but he's still sly and funny. (Hope he's okay.)

[flippyshark]

flippyshark - It's tomorrow night - so you can still 'join' us.

Ooh, good! Then I certainly will.

[mousepod]

I think the "purchase tickets" link always said "surprise guests". Ken Russell is still mentioned in the event page (http://www.oscars.org/events-exhibitions/events/2010/tommy.html).

[flippyshark]

I just confirmed through a close source that he's going to be there. If you see him, say hi to his lovely wife Lisi. She'll be the petite, almost fairy-like one hanging out with him. She is incredibly sweet. (Though currently dealing with a broken hip.)

[innerSpaceman]

What a surreal evening.

Tommy was better than I remembered it. When I first saw it in the mid-seventies, I was disappointed in the inferior renditions of the music, and the corny performances and visuals. But as an artifact, it has aged rather well. Gotten better with time, in fact - - and seems a more delightful depiction of a certain era than it was during that actual era.


The Q&A with Ken Russell afterwards was nothing short of surreal, but also quite disappointing. The interviewer was a senile, lame old fart who couldn't form a decent question. And Russell was having none of it, refusing to respond to the absence of questions.

So basically NOTHING was revealed about the making of Tommy. And it was most painful to watch, though at times really funny - and for one moment I thought Russell and the interviewer were going to come to blows - that's how hostile it was.

After far too long, the interviewer decided to call it quits. Whew. But one of the more "interesting" Q&A's I've witnessed. Certainly surreal to match the film, and the evening was worth every penny of the five dollar admission fee.

The print was beautiful, btw. And, ahem, despite a specific announcement before the film, an actual screen credit shows the proper spelling to be "Quintophonic."



A lovely midnight snack at Dupars with great company, and off-duty-bartender band with fog-enshrouded, bikini-clad go-go dancers for entertainment, completed a wonderful night.

:iSm:

[flippyshark]

Wow, wish I had witnessed that bizarre scene. When Russell was here last year for the Florida Film Festival, he was interviewed by a capable person, and the whole thing went just fine. I'm glad you enjoyed the film. I like it more each time I watch, including my sympathy viewing last night. Also, I am always struck by the mega-Oedipal undertones in the scenes between Daltrey and Ann Margret just after he wakes up. Good grief, they look like they're going to go all "From Here To Eternity" in the surf. I was a mere ten years old when I first saw Tommy, and it was a bracing jolt of "dreaming with eyes wide open," as my young brain went into a state of "Wow, am I really seeing this?" I treasure it for helping me to have an appetite for the unconventional.

[€uroMeinke]

Oh, I don't know that the interview was "disappointing" per se, I mean it think it revealed more about Ken Russell than some sharing of anecdotes. The interviewer was clearly out of his league though, and had me wondering if he was channeling the spirit of Chris Farley - "remember the Marilyn Scene? That was cool" nto to mention Abbot and Costello when we were on the verge of "Who was in the film." I believe Ken Russell mercifully put an end to the Q&A with a "I think we're done now," but I wonder how it would have gone if Ken Russell's cane did connect to the interviewers head, of if he might have taken a clue from the Oliver Reed tidbit and just said, "Piss off Ken."

In any event, the night felt like a Ken Russell film and I smiled broadly through the night. Loved Tommy but now I feel the need to go back, and have a personal Ken Russell film festival to fill in my Ken Russell gaps.

[innerSpaceman]

Heheh, and I feel like I need to go re-listen to the original Tommy album, which I've not heard in over 30 years. I liked it enough to be disdainful of the movie soundtrack when it first came out, but not enough to have ever purchased it post-LP. I suppose I still have the album somewhere and could dust off my turntable.

But since it's not on my iPod, I listened to a similarly-themed quasi-rock opera while lying in the sun this morning - Pink Floyd's The Wall - which covers some of the same ground and is, imo, a better piece of music. When I returned from my swim, there was a voicemail informing me that my tickets to see Roger Waters perform The Wall live in December had arrived in the mail.

:cool:


And as for film, I'm more of a mind to see Quadrophenia - a far better movie based on one of The Who's works.

But I'm eager to see Liztomania for the first time, so I hope mousepod screens that before too long.

There were times when the Russell interview made me decidedly uncomfortable. Thank god for twitter. And it all worked out in the end, as it segued from painful to oddball to hysterical.

[Not Afraid]

The last time I saw Quadrophenia was at The Balboa from the front row with a bottle of spirits and the need for a translator (I had a hard time with the accents). The last viewing of Tommy was from the same era at the same place (and probably with spirits as well - we did a lot of that back then).

But, the REAL Tommy memory was of me in my bedroom at age 10 or 11 pretending I was the Acid Queen (I really don't know why the hired Tina Turner over me). I realized last night how all of the lyrics to Tommy are forever ingrained in my brain. For someone who can't remember a lot of events, the place where I store lyrics is as sharp as a tack!

Now, the big question is....should I watch Women in Love or Lair of the White Worm today?

[Cadaverous Pallor]

Aww, Quadrophenia isn't on Netflix or Amazon Unbox. :( I've never seen it.

[flippyshark]

Quadrophenia is a terrific film, but it backgrounds The Who's music (it's in no sense a rock opera) using it as a score for a very well done period piece about mods and rockers in Brighton. The DVD is no longer in print, though Amazon has copies starting at eighty-some bucks.

I agree that Pink Floyd: The Wall is a more powerful album, and film, than any version of Tommy. But it isn't nearly as fun. Roger Waters has talked about The Walls origins in his own utter contempt for his audience and the emptiness he felt at the height of the Floyd's success, and the resulting work, though brilliant, is awfully bitter. Tommy is by turns moving, preposterous, catchy, thrilling, pretentious and uplifting. It's a mess that somehow captures the imagination and leaves plenty of room for "roll your own" interpretation. The Wall is more focused, and a bit like taking repeated hammer blows to the head. (not saying I don't like those hammer blows, mind you.) Tommy has leftover hippie vibes, The Wall has a hangover and painful withdrawal symptoms. They do make a good double feature.

iSM - the original Tommy album is well worth revisiting, but it's spare and minimal compared to later incarnations. For an overblown but sometimes exciting variation, check out the London Symphony Orchestra version with The Who and guest stars like Sandy Denny, Rod Stewart and Ringo Starr as perky Uncle Ernie. It is this version that convinced Ken Russell to take on the film, as his musical interests were with classical, not rock. And while you're at it, the Broadway version provides some interesting variations and has some nifty vocal arrangements, most memorably on "Tommy Can You Hear Me." (a song that is all but thrown away in the movie.) there are also a few different live Who performances, including the Isle of Wight festival recording, which is wonderful, and some much later revivals with various guest stars. Let Tommy become your obsession for a while, and you'll find plenty to keep you busy. Personally, none of these versions seems definitive or ideal to me, so I merrily go through them all now and then.

[flippyshark]

I meant Pervy, not perky, in the above comments about Ringo Starr in Tommy.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Timmy (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djQzwu7EHbo)

[flippyshark]

Oh, that's spectacular! Love the"robot"

[innerSpaceman]

Thanks for all those Tommy tips, flippy. I'm gonna start by revisiting the original album, and then move on to some of those others. BTW, could NOT help thinking of your hysterical Jaws-take on Quintophonic during all the highlighting of the spelling and sound-system that went on at the presentation the other night.

I am incredibly bummed Quadrophenia is no longer available on DVD. Fvck! I don't own that one, and love that movie. Bah and double bah.


Lastly, I don't see eye-to-eye with you on the bitterness of the Wall. Oh, no mistaking it's a bitter piece compared to Tommy, and the bitter-pill origins of the piece infuse it greatly. But prior to experiencing the visuals of the stage concert or the movie, I did not feel it nearly as oppressive and nasty a piece - and still don't today.

I remember really hating the music video phenomenon when it first came about, because I don't like others' (even the artist's) visual ideas contaminating my own interpretation of music.

But everything bleeds together a bit in the modern world. I picture film characters when I re-read a book that's been made into a movie. I get snippets of music vids and film adaptations when I listen to music that's had a video treatment. But I've largely recaptured my music-only sense of The Wall, and I hope to do the same with Tommy - even though the screening on Friday was by far my favorite experience of that film.

[innerSpaceman]

Timmy (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djQzwu7EHbo)

Hahaha, fresh from seeing the movie, the segment where Timmy is running away from camera with the background preposterously changing is my favorite part. :D

[€uroMeinke]

Hahaha, fresh from seeing the movie, the segment where Timmy is running away from camera with the background preposterously changing is my favorite part. :D

Forrest Gump so ripped-off Tommy on this

[flippyshark]

iSm - It's true, my downer perception of The Wall is very much rooted in the visual experience, which I'd have a hard time shaking off. (and wouldn't really want to. It's certainly a go- to for me in certain moods.) I'm awfully jealous you get to see the live show. FWIW, all Floyd kind of creeps me out, in a good way. As a young child, I found the wailing of " The Great Gig In The Sky" terrifying, to the point of running from the house when my brother put it on. It still makes me want to cry in a weird way.

All this talk makes me want to write my own bombastic rock opera!

[mousepod]

Thank you to the blogger who taped the interview, transcribed it and put it all up on his blog! (http://sergioleoneifr.blogspot.com/2010/05/i-dont-discuss-my-filmsan-interview.html)

[flippyshark]

That was amazing. It sounds like the other fellow at least caught on eventually to the fact that he was being had.

[innerSpaceman]

BwaHaha.

I don't think KR was hysterical or particularly witty. If it was a bit of performance art, I forgave the hamhandedness of it for his being a frail old coot, but that goal could have been pulled off much more successfully by a wittier fellow. Stick to films, Ken.


Actually, my favorite part about Ken's "performance" was the guy who talked with us in the lobby afterwards - and was a little worried because he'd booked Russell for several weeks worth of Q&A's at festivals in 3 cities - and was experiencing a terrific bout of buyer's remorse. :D

[flippyshark]

Oh dear. I would certainly worry if I were that guy.