Watch Head For Free

the audience applauded

Funny, strange, confrontational and subversive, this is one of the most interesting experiences you'll have at the cinema this year.

Blistering performances.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

I saw this film about a year ago. I remember liking it on first viewing but I didn't love it until the fourth viewing. So what is "Head" about. The Monkees commit career suicide by jumping off a bridge and the scenes that follow show us in abstract ways why The Monkees chose to commit suicide. Pretty simple right? not really. These sequences can be hard to decipher but that makes it more re watchable and open to multiple interpretations. Some are just entertaining as well as thought provoking such as Mickys desert scene. I think it's one of the best things The Monkees ever did and because they took the risk, we now have a underrated gem. The movie thematically and from a filmmaking perspective is so artistic and gorgeous. The movie is very hip for the time and perfectly captures the counterculture of that era.Sure, it might of not been the movie The Monkees should of made for the benefit of their careers but it was the right movie to be made for the time and for The Monkees to fire back at the media for calling them fake etc.I actually did this movie as my related text for some of my English essays in my final year of schooling this year which I'm pretty proud of.I would highly recommend this to see how bizarre but awesome this film is.

The Monkees had a few songs that could be described as protest songs, like "Last Train to Clarksville" or "Circle Sky", songs that were clearly against the Vietnam war. This movie compiles in my opinion the best Monkees songs. Classics like "The Porpoise Song", "As we Go Along", "Daddy's Song", and a lot of other great classics. However, as the Monkees' protest songs are mainly against war, this film seems to be a protest film in itself, one of the first of its time in 1968. Not just a protest against Vietnam as always, but a protest against how they thought their creativity was ruined by their increasingly silly television show where they all met (This is why they keep getting trapped in that black box throughout the movie in case you didn't know). The Monkees were involved in this project from beginning to end, but they must have been pretty angry when they found out that only Jack Nicholson and Bob Rafaelson were getting screen credits for writing this psychedelic masterpiece, even though there really isn't that much in terms of a proper script. In the end, however, you may be thinking that I'm thinking too much into this film, and that it's just a bit of fun fluff in a surreal little package, and they may be true, but I will never care to know. I do know one thing though."Hey Hey we are the Monkees You know we love to please A manufactured image With no philosophiesThe money's in, we're made of tin, we're here to give you more."

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

For once, the qualifier "____ on acid" works here. This truly is "Hard Day's Night etc. etc.", with not only psychadelica and "grooviness" all the way, but true philosophic discourse and existential wonderment that will make you think as much as it will make you laugh.Imagine tripping to an episode of the Brady Bunch while pondering the nature of reality vs. illusion. It's all here in Head, but you must be warned: it is a trip, and as such, comes with as many lows as highs. There are certainly moments of nightmarish quality, but overall, it's worth the ride. It's just surprising that a group like the Monkees would be involved in such an undertaking, and probably a large reason this movie has never been taken more seriously or acknowledged as something truly special.Best not to learn too much about it before you see it except to know that it stars the Monkees, is co-written by Jack Nicholson (back in the day), and directed by Bob "Five Easy Pieces" Rafelson. It'll make you laugh, it'll make you rethink your entire perspective of media and the 60's, and might even scare you a few times with a sense of "the Fear" that is mixed wonderfully with beatific music that will also make you rethink the music of the Monkees (and whether or not they actually play or not is moot; it's truly great stuff). If Oliver Stone (in the 90's) and Quentin Tarantino were to get together and produce their own series of Monty Python episodes, it would end up something like this... as long as it were shot like and used the musical ques of sitcoms from the mid-60's. Enjoy... But be careful... You will be surprised.