Head

I grew up watching the Monkees, and the first time I watched this movie as a kid, I thought it was the coolest thing I'd ever seen. Then I watched it again a few years later and dismissed it as pretentious crap. I decided to watch it again right after Peter Tork died, and to my surprise, I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would.

If you haven't seen it, you should definitely watch it. Not to say it's good - because it most certainly isn't, but it should definitely be seen, if only as a fascinating window into the time.

It has some great cameos, including Frank Zappa with a talking cow, Annette Funicello, a gigantic Victor Mature, and this time I even caught a very brief glimpse of the writer of the movie, Jack Nicholson (yes, THE Jack Nicholson).

It also has some genuinely good music.

There's a certain irony to this movie. On the one hand, it was the Monkees' attempt to break away from their teenybopper image and "legitimize" themselves, but on the other, it's hard to think of a more extreme example of Hollywood's move at the time to make a buck by bringing counter culture mainstream - albeit a badly failed attempt in this case. People who were trying to "stick it to The Man" discovered that for the right price, The Man was more than happy to stick it to Himself, or at least pretend to.

That said, the movie had more of a "wink" than I remembered, so I don't think it took itself all that seriously. For example, when Frank Zappa refers to Davie Jones' dance number as "pretty white", Jones responds "I'm a pretty white guy.". At another point, Peter Tork can be clearly heard whistling Strawberry Fields, as if to say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

One thing I'd completely forgotten was how much Vietnam footage there is in the movie, interspersed with shots of the band performing. That was a pretty standard sort of "statement" at the time, but I was surprised how graphic some of the footage was, given the film's G rating. It even included that infamous clip of the soldier getting shot in the head.

I have never been a fan of the Monkees mostly because they are from another generation than mine. However, I am one of those movie viewers that would try everything, and since it was on Youtube, I had to see it.

HEAD hasn't really a plot to talk about. It's just like an extended music video for one of the Monkees' songs with also lots of scenes of hippies from newsreels and some cameos by Victor Mature, Abraham Sofaer, Dennis Hopper and Jack Nicholson. Some vignettes (like the ones with Mature and Sofaer) were actually funny.

Overall, while I didn't loved HEAD, I found it ok. Just something that could have been made only in those years with the generation that had something to say.

"Head" is a surreal and groundbreaking film that catapults the audience into a psychedelic journey through the bizarre mindscape of The Monkees, the iconic pop-rock band of the 1960s. Released in 1968, during the peak of the counterculture movement, the film stands as a testament to the era's experimental and anti-establishment spirit.

Directed by Bob Rafelson and co-written by Rafelson and Jack Nicholson, "Head" challenges traditional narrative structures and blurs the lines between reality and fantasy. The movie unfolds as a series of disjointed and seemingly unrelated vignettes, featuring The Monkees-Davy Jones, Micky Dolenz, Peter Tork, and Michael Nesmith-in a variety of surreal scenarios. From a war zone to a giant Coca-Cola machine, the film takes the audience on a wild ride that defies conventional storytelling.

One of the film's strengths lies in its self-awareness and willingness to deconstruct The Monkees' manufactured image. "Head" serves as a meta-commentary on fame, the music industry, and the constraints imposed on artists by commercial interests. The Monkees, who were initially created for a television show to be an American analog of the Beatles, use the film as a platform to break free from their manufactured personas and express their frustration with the industry.

The soundtrack, featuring music by The Monkees and compositions by Jack Nicholson and Harry Nilsson, adds to the film's psychedelic atmosphere. The eclectic mix of songs complements the film's disjointed narrative and contributes to its overall trippy vibe.

"Head" was ahead of its time in its approach to filmmaking and storytelling. While it was not a commercial success upon its release, it has gained a cult following over the years, appreciated for its bold experimentation and artistic ambition. The film's non-linear structure and unconventional style make it a unique and memorable piece of 1960s cinema, offering a glimpse into the counterculture's influence on popular media.

I've seen "Head" 3 times: twice on video, and just recently on the big screen. I've decided I like it.

"Head" came at a time when the Monkees' popularity had waned, their TV show had been cancelled, and their breakup inevitable. They were the first band ever to be a pure creation of the media -- and took the heat for it. The Monkees were, to the showbiz world at large, the first band to be assembled via auditions and head shots, right when color TV was hitting its first stride. Only Mike Nesmith had any real musical ambitions as a songwriter and performer.

Their records in fact were not terrible, by any means, but the "manufactured" attacks kept coming. And when their short-lived media success was over, and they were staring down their own archaic nature right in the face, they did something you'd expect from an Andy Warhol creation: They willfully committed career suicide with "Head."

It helps to look at "Head" right now, when the music industry's boy bands and teen queens -- many of them manufactured exactly the same way as the Monkees were -- are starting to see the mortality of their OWN careers. The Monkees were scrubbed, goofy, shriek-inducing teen stars, and for their last act they just said "The hell with it," and deconstructed themselves in a way people have not yet gotten used to.

I've spent 20 years seeing "Head" and not really developing an opinion on it. In my last screening I was surprised at how well-shot and interesting most of the scenes were. The film LOOKS quite good. And while you can't accuse the film of having any kind of plot, knowing the background of the Monkees' story, maybe juxtaposing it with how, say, the Bay City Rollers quietly faded out, you definitely get a sense of "story" if you pay close attention.

"Head" satirizes EVERYTHING of its time -- drug culture (the Monkees never look stoned in this movie, I noticed), the star-making studio system, the iconoclasm of Hollywood, and especially hippie culture. Frank Zappa's appearance alone -- he despised hippies -- proves that point. In their own way the Monkees even playfully deflated the spiritual and philosophical pretensions of -- egad -- the Beatles. In a scene where Peter Tork, sick of being "the dumb one," relates to the band, word-for-word, what he learned from a mystic guru in a sauna, he completes by saying, "Why listen to me -- I know nothing." Davy Jones indignantly stands up and says, "What are you talking about? You made us listen to you all this time and you know NOTHING?" It's that kind of annoying neutrality that bugged the Monkees, even if they were products of a TV executive's imagination.

Jack Nicholson and Bob Rafelson "wrote" the script, but it was obviously just a set piece with contained social commentaries, linked together by thin transitions, kinda like an acid trip. In fact I'm pretty sure "Head" is making fun of LSD too, even as it gets a pretty good grasp of its narrative qualities. As ramshackle and anarchic as the images in "Head" are, they're really not pointless at all. These are not random flashes from a freakout; most of them are very clever bits of symbology.

It drags a little bit, but the constructs are quite interesting most of the time, and there were a lot of laugh-out-loud moments in the theater where I saw it. The loudest laughs came at the end of the movie, where the placard informs us that "Head" was rated "G". It's the most subversive G-rated movie in cinema history.

Not the greatest rock and roll movie ever -- nowhere close -- "Head" is nonetheless one of the bravest, up with "Gimme Shelter." Every boy band should be required to watch it. And it's a hell of a lot more fun than "Woodstock."

The series is godawful, overrated, dull, and incredibly unfunny. Only in a TV landscape dominated by Green Acres and Gilligan's Island could it be considered innovative.

Their music though, includes some real classics, and hold up nearly as well as early Beatles. This film was their attempt to destroy to the manufactured image the network built for them.

It is anarchic, subversive, caustic, mind blowing, and savage in relentlessly attacking commercialism, suburban conformity, Hollywood, and half a dozen other targets. It holds up far better than fluff from that time like Yellow Submarine.

Even the Who's Tommy can't compare for angry tone and searing narrative, desconstructing the usual film cliches. Well worth seeing, for anyone who doesn't demand films always follow the usual predictable pattern.