Post by james on Apr 3, 2010 6:45:58 GMT -5
Just kidding. Rumor has it that Jack Nicholson and Bob Rafelson decided on the title Head so they could use that tag line for their next film (which was Easy Rider..and, no, they didn't use it).
Tom, you summed up the appeal of this movie very well. The funny thing about Head is that it was probably perceived by hip audiences as an attempt to cash in on psychedelic movies like The Trip or Psych-Out, yet it holds up just fine on its own (just like their best music). There's a real playfulness to the movie that makes it more than a countercultural relic. Something that's interesting about Head is how post-modern it is, with the parodies of old film cliches, and the camera becoming a television with the channels being switched (and brief scenes from old films being dropped in).
It's true that the movie doesn't have a plot, exactly, but so what? The plots in most of the Marx Brothers' films were also beside the point. There is a general theme of deconstructing the Monkees' image as manufactured pop stars, though, that runs through Head.
(The one element that doesn't work for me are the images from the Vietnam conflict, which seem contrived and out-of-step with the rest of the film).
The film includes two of my favorite Monkees tunes, "As We Go Along" and "Circle Sky." By the way, I have to give Rhino full credit for their Monkees reissues - the sound on the CDs is impeccable. For a band that wasn't taken seriously when they existed, their music was given the royal treatment by Rhino in the early 90's. I've been listening to the reissues of Head, Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn and Jones and The Birds, the Bees and the Monkees in the last few days, and they sound fantastic (well, except for Davy's soppy teen ballads. Nothing can redeem them).
Tom, you summed up the appeal of this movie very well. The funny thing about Head is that it was probably perceived by hip audiences as an attempt to cash in on psychedelic movies like The Trip or Psych-Out, yet it holds up just fine on its own (just like their best music). There's a real playfulness to the movie that makes it more than a countercultural relic. Something that's interesting about Head is how post-modern it is, with the parodies of old film cliches, and the camera becoming a television with the channels being switched (and brief scenes from old films being dropped in).
It's true that the movie doesn't have a plot, exactly, but so what? The plots in most of the Marx Brothers' films were also beside the point. There is a general theme of deconstructing the Monkees' image as manufactured pop stars, though, that runs through Head.
(The one element that doesn't work for me are the images from the Vietnam conflict, which seem contrived and out-of-step with the rest of the film).
The film includes two of my favorite Monkees tunes, "As We Go Along" and "Circle Sky." By the way, I have to give Rhino full credit for their Monkees reissues - the sound on the CDs is impeccable. For a band that wasn't taken seriously when they existed, their music was given the royal treatment by Rhino in the early 90's. I've been listening to the reissues of Head, Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn and Jones and The Birds, the Bees and the Monkees in the last few days, and they sound fantastic (well, except for Davy's soppy teen ballads. Nothing can redeem them).