To me, this movie is perfection.

Thanks for the memories!

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

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....

What timing! I always assign an element of cosmic serendipity to odd coincidences that occur rather regularly in my life. Last night as I write this, I attended a Monkees 50th Anniversary Tour Concert fronted by Mickey Dolenz and Peter Tork, while back at home, my DVR was recording this movie which I had been thinking about because of a renewed interest in the band. I guess I'm what you might call a closet Monkees fan because let's face it, they were created on the pretext of establishing an American Beatles band, while cashing in on the merchandising spin off from stuff related to the TV show. At one point though, Mike Nesmith and Peter Tork actually did manage to take control of the Monkees' music after the release of their first few albums, determined to rise above the media stir that arose over their original formation.So if you were around for The Monkees TV series, or manage to catch them today in those ubiquitous reruns on TV Land or Antenna TV, this film is a lot like the show, only three times as long. There's really no story to speak of here, what you get are random segments featuring the boys both individually and together doing the slap-dash, manic schtick that made them big time teenybopper heroes of the late Sixties. Personally, I caught a couple of the shows as a teenager, but got bored rather quickly with the silliness of it all. Cool guest stars at times though, they show up here as well, folks like Rosemarie and my favorite Catwoman, Julie Newmar.What really caught my attention though, was how the boys allowed themselves to be parodied relative to the group's origin. In that soda shop scene, the counter girl mocks the Monkees while making this picture, "...why don't you have them write you some talent". This right after calling them out as God's gift to eight year olds. You had to know that the four of them were in on the joke so to speak, while offering their fans a reason to tune in. I know one thing, any teenage girl watching this in the theater at the time had to absolutely cuss out Lady Pleasure (Mireill Machu) for getting to kiss all four Monkees in succession. How many do you think fainted at that sight? Obviously, this film won't be appealing to everyone's taste. I didn't get much out of the picture other than now I can say I've been there and done that. And it only took half a century to see it, as I had no interest at the time to check it out during it's initial run. On the flip side, I do enjoy the body of work put out by The Monkees, and it's kind of rewarding to see that their popularity has held up over the years. As for last night's concert (Englewood, New Jersey - 11/20/2016), the band sounded great and both Dolenz and Tork were high energy all the way. You had to get a kick out of Mickey Dolenz' remark to younger fans in the audience prior to their encore, the Monkees did "I'm a Believer" way before Shrek.

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+

Jack Nicholson is lucky that actor Rip Torn quit "Easy Rider" after butting heads with director Dennis Hopper. If he hadn't been hired as Torn's replacement, where would he be now? Before finding belated stardom in the 1969 biker flick, Nicholson dabbled in screen writing, but his most notable credit, 1968's "Head," wouldn't be remembered at all today if not for the film's stars: the Monkees. The faux pop quartet consisting of two real musicians (Michael Nesmith and Peter Tork) and two actors (Davy Jones and Micky Dolenz) were created as TV's answer to the early Beatles. In an example of killing two birds with one stone, "Head" marked both their big screen debut and their last gasp as stars of any medium.There is no plot and no story, but in the waning days of the LSD-drenched 1960s, that didn't matter much. Few things geared to youth made sense back then, including some of the best music made by the Beatles ("I am the walrus, goo-goo-goo-joob"). Clarity and coherence weren't "hip," baby, so any amateur with access to a typewriter could tap out a screenplay and be taken seriously as an artist. What counted was the "Statement" you made about the "System," man, or about the "Man" himself, whoever he was. Television was always a good target, and it is the subject of some "commentary" in "Head," just as it was in Nicholson's equally lame and all but forgotten directorial debut, "Drive, He Said." The boob tube's crimes are not made clear. We see a TV as someone flips through the channels, and the clips of old movies (including 1934's "The Black Cat" with Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi) are better than anything that Nicholson and director Bob Rafelson can come up with. We also see news footage of Vietnam, Rita Hayworth in "Gilda," and an ad for Playtex Cross Your Heart bra. At some point, the Monkees are trapped in a box which is probably meant to symbolize TV. We see the boys on television, as well, until Victor Mature (yes, Victor Mature of "Samson and Delilah," "The Robe," and the original "Kiss of Death") kicks the set and sends them rolling down a hill of sand and over a bridge, and . . . well, who really cares? The 1970 film version of "Myra Breckinridge" also used a lot of vintage film clips. Like "Head," it proved that the filmmaker who cannibalizes other, better movies for his own film has no worthwhile ideas of his own. "Head" has some decent music, notably a dreamy Gerry Goffin-Carole King effort called "Porpoise Song," which the Monkees only managed to take to # 62 on the Billboard chart in October 1968. Less than a year earlier, they were outselling the Beatles and spent four weeks at # 1 with "Daydream Believer" and two weeks at # 3 with "Valleri." If their appeal hadn't already waned, "Head" surely would have killed it.Brian W. Fairbanks