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Rating: - Better than anything the Beatles did
To me, the Monkees resonate more than the Beatles because they were a contrived pop group who were ADMITTEDLY more about slapstick and girls. They were the truth. They put music second and used it as a tool, so when you heard they were actually good it was a fantastic surprise. The Beatles were the revolutionary band, but their musical package and individual personas weren't as eloquent, humorous or mind-expansive. Same goes for their films. The Monkees gave the world albums and a TV show that were clever but simple and sweet. But this is after the goofy but great show had been taken off the air. Through the whole film, the group knows things are coming to an end. Mike is constantly sarcastic and bitter. Davey is egocentric. Peter is always searching for spiritual clarity. And Mickey is still Mickey. These weren't nihilistic acid heads yakking endlessly shallow psychedelica like "Lucy in the sky with diamonds" or the entire "White Album". "Porpoise Song", "Daddy's Song" and "Circle Sky" have real dark substance hidden behind sunshine pop. Its blatant, but better.
"Head" comes off as a big slamming satire of "boy bands" and the craziness that the 60s had become. They question their old ideals and sense of humor while delving into the metaphorical question "what are we headed as a group?" The troubles of the band were mirroring society. Its a clever spin for a rock movie, but maybe some artsy Amazon critics, like Mike Sobocinski, will moan ad nauseam that this isn't a Bergman film. This is Jodorowsky for teenage girls. One of the more intellectual and genuinely trippy films of the period. The comedy feels like a more sinister Monty Python at times and it predates "Meaning of Life" with its likening war to sports and free-associating sketch "comedy".
At the end, you have to admire the audacious spirit of the cast and crew. The boys show dramatic and comic acting range exceeding their skills on the show. The direction is wonderful and the editing is fantastic. Seeing Dennis Hopper pop up makes me think he either helped cut this baby or was influenced by it. Teri Garr is great as a tragic satire of the damsels-in-distress the boys saved week after week on their series. The most amazing aspect is Timothy Carey as a flamboyant redneck Id figure antagonizing the Monkees. Like his misunderstood film "The World's Greatest Sinner", "Head" is a masterpiece(yep) lost in irony, pretention and glory, an overwhelming dynamic hoping and succeeding in finding some cleansing truth.
Rating: - Childish "Art"
I remember when the Monkees show was on Saturday morning reruns, and my siblings were surpised that I enjoyed it despite my very young age. In the age of "MASH" (actually 1-2 years before) there were indeed a great many persons who conflated mere juxtapositions and semi-random non-sequiters with the sense of anomie they felt at the time, and were desperate to see expressed in some way.
Funny, but my 4 OR 5-year old self (although purely in terms of chronological age!) seemed to be the ideal audience for this kind of writing. As a child, I could delight in pure zaniness for its own sake, quite unconcerned about the lack of moral convictions betrayed by the writers (the perfect example is when the film has a woman being punched out, purely for the supposed comedic value of doing so [in a typically childish delight in norm violations and unsupressed instincts], but then that person starts questioning what kind of role model he is in having engaged in such behavior. Like, no kidding! You can't have it both ways - you can't have scenes with "Indians" casually shot and stabbed by the protagonists and yet claim that these are persons who represent Flower Power simply because they have their mouths agape whenever they see a tank or military vehicle. This is cinema of the absurd for those who have no clue what the absurd was supposed to be about (e.g. La Fantome de Liberte), a cheap spin-off on Dadaism. The most informative thing about this film may be how it reveals that despite the pleasing sounds that this band sometimes produced, there is no way that they should ever be confused with the Beatles, or the many other worthy bands of the time (as seen at Woodstock and Monterey, both filmed and available on DVD for viewing).
Here, viewers should be prepared for 90 minutes of silly scenes, lacking any substantial connection, but loaded with pretentiousness. A slightly adjusted version of the Vietnam newsreel footage of a brutal gun execution is the perfect example... such footage is inserted more than once into this "children's film" (so-designated by the dialogue of one of the Monkees himself!) to pretend to give it gravity and broader political significance. But in actuality the film offers pure sensationalism with no binding theme except an extended expression of abstracted anomie, devoting much more time to the gyrations of belly dancers than to any actual political statement. And of course, this was the awkward historical period in which supposedly liberated women simply served as eye-candy, with role sets purely limited to stereotyped ... Read More
Rating: - husband likes
Bought for my husband for Xmas he has always wanted it for his collection of off beat movies
Rating: - The Widescreen argument.
I've just watched this film again for the first time since owning a widescreen TV. I believe, from Andrew Sandoval's comments quoted in an earlier review that not only was this film shot 1:33:1 but it was also shot with "open matte" in mind.
"I sat for a week while they did the transfer and color correction and was told that was all that was on the neg (as far as info). Nothing was cropped in any direction. In one of the early scenes you can see the black mat slide up when Micky is falling (they were going to blow this up to take away the mat, but I told them to leave it as proof this was the full screen)."
The fact that there is the black mat showing tells me that it was definitely shot with cropping the top and bottom in mind. Putting this theory to the test by watching the full screen film blown up on my widescreen TV (not stretched, but enlarged) I found that the film was framed perfectly, without cutting off anyone's head.
OK, you lose a little bit of information, BIG DEAL; the filmmakers didn't intend you to see that little part of the screen anyway. The big tell tale sign is during the "Ditty Diego - wall-of-screenshots scene". Ever notice the space difference between the top/bottom to the side of the screens? Well in cropped mode it all fits in evenly! The same goes for the brief windowboxed, b&w, silent movie scene.
Why did they shoot open matte? I don't know, maybe to cut costs or to reuse the film as a telemovie if all else failed (I'm not a Monkees expert). But with this in mind, it would be good to see an animorphic DVD with a 16:9 version and a 4:3 version for those diehards who want to see Davy Jones' belt buckle. As for not being able to do a 5.1 remix - I'm sure with all the studio outtakes that Rhino keep pumping out, the multitracks of these songs still exists: at least have the songs in 5.1.
Rating: - I saw it in a theater...
The discussion about framing ratio confuses me. I saw this film in a theater, and it wasn't wide-screen. I have a copy of the VHS release, and it reproduced what I saw in the theater, in 1.33:1 ratio.
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