The Monkees - "Head"

Had it on temporary video - but I tended to fast forward to the songs only.

I don't think that has anything to do with the reasons I like the movie. I don't even know if I like it because it's good or because it's bad. I just know that it's one of the best DVDs I've bought, even though the DVD itself is pppft -- no special features, no widescreen, nothing but the movie, it may as well be a video cassette. But it doesn't matter, because it's Head!

You have to see it, but it is great!

(I almost said Southern's Candy before realizing what might follow. SImilar to spell check can one get something a perry check)

i quite like this film but the extreme claims sometimes made for it seem to me strained

Altogether, gimme a W... gimme an A... gimme an R... (etc.)

If O-Town were to release "Head 2004" next year, how seriously do you think it would be taken?

the way they put the soundtrack album together
(dialogue all jumbled up in random order, followed by a song,
followed by more dialogue etc.) had a massive influence.
without it there'd be none of your later 'angel heart',
'natural born killers', 'pulp fiction' style stuff.
st etienne took the idea of putting records
together that way i think (it's bob stanley's fave album of the 60's)
and then ...well the way *i* made cds/tapes has been that way ever since as a result. and it was all nicholson's idea !

"Gimme a greasy pork chop sandwich and a dirty ashtray."

or did i just dream that part?

Psst!

NOBODY
EVER
LENDS
MONEY
TO
A
MAN
WITH
A
SENSE
OF
HUMOR

Some of this shit is like proto-Wonder Showzen. Did Ned or Dan ever see it? I think they should!

On Davy Jones' dance with Toni Basil "Is he going to marry her?" Ah no, Alice.

I still think it's easily the best American movie of the 60s but few are willing to go that far with me.

Whenever I wanted to tell one of my clever little jokes or make a funny comparison I'd say something was as bad as "Head" and my dad would always laugh. I've still yet to see it for myself.

apparantly there is talk of them releasing a 110 minute dierctors cut of this, thats an extra 26 minutes. 26 more Headroom, that would be a thing of beauty. I showed it to a few mated last year, on a heady concoction that included liberty caps. they were astounded and had their ghast's, well and truly flabbered. i myself had not seen it for a few years and was once again completely floored by it. Even the shirts that they wear are more psychedelic than most 'psychedelic; films...amazing stuff

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y161/MarkGrout/MonkeesHeadSearch.jpg

I sat through this. I still don't know why. That Coke machine sequence in the desert went on way too long.

I started watching 200 Motels the other night. Like Head, I admire it for what it is, but I don't think I'll be able to finish it.

lol at Mike Nesmith's mugshot up there.

loooool Davy Jones

I didn't know he was in Fever Ray

Davy's boyish good looks are fading

I missed this thing when it was new, but I was def around when the Monkees arrived on television. Because I'd heard the raves, I finally watched this. It was a bit like a copy of Mad magazine brought to the silver screen. All it had going for it was a light sprinkling of juvenile wit and a slavish determination to out-Beatle the Beatles's Hard Day's Night and Help. Pretty meh by my standards.

I still haven't seen the movie (!), but "Porpoise Song" would make my list of the top 500 songs of all time.
― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Monday, September 15, 2003 3:43 PM (8 years ago)

what dan said (8 years ago).

this movie is really worth watching. some of it is so exuberant and fun. some of it is overlong and strained. the jokes aren't always funny and there's an unpleasant patina of smugness (embodied by frank zappa's cameo).

the concept--that every attempt the monkees make to escape their prefab lives is itself revealed to be part of the master plan--is both a good joke and has some legit philosophical interest (am i wrong in seeing some kind of crypto-marxist critique in there?).

i wouldn't even know how to "rate" this film. it's a fascinating period piece -- especially considering what nicholson/rafelson/schneider had been up to and what they got up to later. the conceptual coup that the monkees represent is made even more distinctly "meta" here in a way that seems to bear the influence of the art cinema. subsequent films like five easy pieces are a more orthodox attempt to initiate an american art cinema.

this quote from nesmith (taken from wikipedia page) is very insightful i think:

"by the time Head came out the Monkees were a pariah. There was no confusion about this. We were on the cosine of the line of approbation, from acceptance to rejection . . . and it was basically over. Head was a swan song. We wrote it with Jack and Bob . . .and we liked it. It was an authentic representation of a phenomenon we were a part of that was winding down. It was very far from suicide—even though it may have looked like that. There were some people in power, and not a few critics, who thought there was another decision that could have been made. But I believe the movie was an inevitability—there was no other movie to be made that would not have been ghastly under the circumstances."

Adam Curtis has definitely seen this a few times.

"We were on the cosine of the line of approbation..."

I think the bald guy from Right Said Fred once said the same thing.

The wiki page has some pretty interesting details:

Elements of the movie were based in fact, including the stampede leaving the studio canteen when the Monkees break for lunch, and the "big black box"* the band repeatedly becomes trapped in. (*During the first season, veteran performers would regularly complain about the Monkees' presence – and walk out of the cafeteria whenever they came in – while members would sometimes wander off-set when they weren't needed on camera. The studio responded by building a break area on-set for the Monkees, with a meat-locker door and the walls painted black.)

I'm too sexy for your sine, too sexy for your sine, so I'm on your cosine. (xp)

As Marcello observed on one of the Adam Curtis threads, James Burke's 'Connections' is probably a more direct influence.

premiered 50 years ago today

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4nT-5DyjX0

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/head-trip-monkees-jack-nicholson-shattered-hollywood-mold-50-years-ago-201514309.html

<3

Think I know what I'll be watching tonight.

Does anyone know if the missing 24 minutes were ever put into a DVD release?

i'm gonna just copy and paste minerwerks' post on sh.tv:

"There's a good 15-20 minutes of outtake material from "Head" on the Blu-ray set, but here's the rub...

I'm almost certain that for all the high-quality original negative that was located, there were no audio tracks located. A bunch of the material from unused or alternate scenes has been cut into a montage set to "Porpoise Song." Alternate angles from "Daddy's Song" have been cut to the stereo LP and film mono versions of that song. A montage of party footage is set to "Long Title: Do I Have to Do This All Over Again". All of this footage is bright and vibrant, and looks even better than the source used for the HD transfer of the finished film.

There is an additional reel of VERY rough material that appears to be the only remaining synced-sound outtake footage. This film appears to have literally been falling apart based on its appearance, and the consistency is more like a string of random trims than full takes or scenes. The highlights are bits from two major cuts. The first scene would have continued on from the point where Mike looks into the mirror saying "Hey, now wait just a minute" (where "Ditty Diego" kicks in in the final cut). Each Monkee had a bit of monologue here and they were going to flash alter-ego personality images of each Monkee during the dialogue. The other big section is angles and segments from a scene inside the box where the guys conjure an imaginary meal they come together to enjoy. A photo from this scene is what is featured on the back of the "Head" LP.

If I wasn't being direct enough above, I don't see a possibility that a complete workprint with fully-edited deleted scenes exists any longer. There may be some additional negatives around with no audio, so a person with some patience could reconstruct rough approximations of missing scenes, but that seems unlikely to occur. "

Fifty years, blimey.

I remember seeing "Daddy's Song" on Barry Norman's film review prog/slot/whatever, back in.. well, 1968 obviously!

Still great.

Stupidly underrated, stands up a darn sight better than a ton of other supposedly-hip 60s rubbish. Better than any of The Beatles’ films that isn’t A Hard Day’s Night too.

'head' is the best monkees album

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jtKDtT-i0s

SLAPS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWLasUfJnWs

CAROLE KANG

Monkees are ze craziest people!

i wonder what the sum total of Nicholson's remarks on this film in the last 50 years is? i know i've seen him mention it.

Hadn't seen this in 10-15 years at least... Remembered a lot, but not that Davy and Annette Funicello seem to be making a new version of Golden Boy.

No mention in this entire thread of Timothy Carey, who greatly improves this film by having the biggest non-Monkee role. Victor Mature wittily employed as well, with maybe three words of dialogue.

I own the criterion blu ray of this. It has so many elements of exactly the things I like, but I've just never been able to really enjoy it. Maybe just a bit too disjointed or something.

So, what happened to those extra bits in the end?

Just rewatched Head myself recently (finally got the BBS box for cheap-ish). Carey has always been a bizarre delight in that movie. Also started watching Columbo recently, so it's been a pleasant surprise to see him pop up as a chili merchant several times.

well i'm sure Falk knew him via Cassavetes

and that WAS Tor Johnson

you think it was like when he got ben gazzara on the show?

apparently cassavetes also did some directing on "etude in black"

I'd love to know what the moment when Tork is whistling "Strawberry Fields Forever" cost when it came time to buy the video rights.

Just bought the album last weekend. For an album that has only six songs, it's pretty killer.

Jack Nicholson's montages lard it up a little but, minus those, it's truly about 18 minutes long.

I'd love to know what the moment when Tork is whistling "Strawberry Fields Forever" cost when it came time to buy the video rights.

It might not have cost anything. The actual recording of "Good Morning Good Morning" appeared in one of last episodes of the series, and they got it for free because the Beatles were fans.

wish they'd managed to record more tunes, goffin/king wrote a fantastic tune called "dear marm" around this time that never got released...

I'm not surprised, Grisso, but given that video rights (nonexistent in '68) are negotiated separately from theatrical, it depends on how long that charity lasted.

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