Truly Dreadful Film

Purely Joyful Movie!

Memorable, crazy movie

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

Just reacquainted myself with one of the craziest movies ever made, 1968's "Head." This is the Monkees movie that was directed by Bob Rafelson and cowritten by Rafelson and Jack Nicholson. I'd seen it many years back on the big screen, I believe at the old uptown Thalia here in NYC, but had forgotten what a truly bonkers movie experience this is. The film has no plot whatsoever to speak of, and jumps around from one loopy situation to the next. It really is made for heads; for those stoned out of their mind or, preferably, tripping on acid. It is probably one of the most psychedelic films ever made. Besides The Monkees, other stars who pop up in cameos include Victor Mature, Annette Funicello, Frank Zappa, Sonny Liston, Timothy Carey, Nicholson himself, Logan Ramsey and Teri Garr. Four or five Monkees songs are spotlighted, but hardly the ones you might expect; no "Daydream Believer" or "Last Train to Clarksville," but rather a number of their more way-out and psychedelic numbers, including the truly trippy "Porpoise Song" (written by Carole King, of all people). The number entitled "Do I Have To Do This All Over Again?" is a particularly lysergic mindblower, replete with swirling lights and bizarre camera movements. The vignettes here range from war films, to boxing, to sci-fi, to Westerns and so on, with The Monkees continually getting plopped down in these bizarre backdrops, back and forth, the ending of the film looping back to the beginning. Seen without the benefit of drugs, it can all get a bit tiresome, but is never boring; the film moves much too quickly to admit of boredom, and one never knows what will pop up from one second to the next. Ultimately, it all means very little, but still, is quite the experience to sit through. Surely, a time capsule of its era....

I first heard of The Monkees when Davy Died. I decided to check out a few episodes and fell in love with it. The movie Head is a film that was a disaster critically and commercially. I watched Head and my first impressions were great. But I didn't realize how important it would be later on in the years of The Monkees. I could analyze every single scene and tell you what it meant.A film like this starts out with mystery, something we don't expect. A opening of a bridge. The Monkees suddenly run onto the bridge and Micky Jumps off. We have no clue what is going on, but you will see later on. Then we see tiny little boxes of film showing film from the movie and if you look closely is chronological. Then we get heavy pieces of symbolism as The Monkees run onto stage after a weird war piece. Circle Sky plays as footage from Vietnam is shown which shows the troubles they have been going through the past couple of months. The film then uses TV Footage which marks melancholy from the aborted TV Show. The film takes place basically in a film studio as The Monkees are tired of the same stuff over and over again. If you don't know what this is all about, The Monkees wanted to change their show but the company that they worked for wouldn't let him which led to the canceling of the show. The film has musical numbers also which lead from Broadway fluff to Psychedelic pop. Many of the musical numbers make sense so thats great.There are many cameos from Frank Zappa, Dennis Hopper and other people. They mean a lot when put into this film telling the audience many important things. You can see in later parts of the film the movie that The Monkees drift away from what they are and into something different. Mature and serious people. They were always fun guys but it was a time when they wanted their thing. Their control. Their musical creativity. At the end of the film, when you turn off the film or walk out of the theater, you realize after The Monkees jump off the bridge and into the fish tank being driven away by a man means. It is the deconstruction of a era. The film is about the end of The Monkees. A masterful work of art. This if you think about it, is one of the greatest movies ever made.100/100 A+

Having grown up seeing the TV show and listening to their music, I was naturally expecting more of the same. Instead, I got a bunch of random weirdness that I turned off after fifteen minutes. What was the point of the whole thing? The 1960's movies made by the Beatles were fun romps, and Pink Floyd's "The Wall", though I didn't much like it, at least had a story (about the musician character Pink). But this was just one random scene after another. A politician flubs his speech at a bridge dedication, we see the Monkees being mobbed by screaming fans-and then they are suddenly mannequins, the Monkees are suddenly soldiers, and then Mickey is in the desert trying to get coke out a vending machine, and then he's beside a pink Sherman tank (probably the type used by the British in North Africa), a bunch of Arabic-type people climb out of it and surrender to Mickey, then Mickey uses the tank's cannon to blow up the vending machine. I decided not to bother with the rest.The Monkees's TV show was funny, and it had social commentary, sometimes scathing, and though the band may have been prepackaged, their music was still good. This movie was just random disconnected scenes and inferior music, hardly even funny, and it was a total box office flop which would lead to the demise of the professional relationships between those involved. Stick to the TV show and to the music; those are good.

A respectable effort for the Monkees attempt at a maturation process. This is a quite wonderful, wistful, experimental conglomerate of trendy sixties pop-culture references and rapid-fire non sequitur editing that is entertaining and stimulating.It was probably too "heady" for their pre-teen fans and considering the disrespect real "heads" displayed toward their pre-fabricated ness, it got lost in the trash bin of critical dismissal and fan disapproval. Truth be told. The Monkees were never as bad as their critics claimed and never as good as their avid fans insist. They had enough talent to produce some catchy tunes and had a likable, innocent charm. Their TV show is fun and their albums are not without their place in the "bubble-gum" arena and were as a whole quite good.This movie's reputation has grown over the years and does hold up to repeated viewings and is partly funny and irreverent. It is never boring and is a solid timepiece. The group did try something different then their TV show and were successful in their only attempt to grow out of their teen-idol restraint (just like The Beatles). The irony is that they were a piece of manufactured plasticized, throw-away, planned obsolescence, pop culture that was designed to self-destruct.