150 Word Review: 'Head' (1968)
People say we monkey around...
The Monkees were a Beatles-era Frankenstein pop band created by NBC executives: three young, wholesome, funny, All-American musicians, and one British cutie-pie who played the tambourine. They became instant TV stars, and their super happy singles shot to the top of the charts.
And then came Head, their debut feature, a blatant attempt to tarnish their teen-friendly reputations.
Head is a satirical anti-war acid trip with girl-crazy Marx Brothers energy, that is full of non-sequiturs, random celebrity cameos, and pre-music video-style performances of songs, which makes sense, since beanie-wearing Monkee Mike Nesmith is often given credit for pioneering MTV's famous format in the late 70s.
Directed by counterculture director Bob Rafelson, and co-written with his longtime collaborator Jack Nicholson, Head marries brutal Vietnam-era footage with psychedelic absurdism. The plot isn't much: the Monkees are rock stars jumping from one weird sketch to another. What if Jodorowsky directed Hard Day's Night?
The Toni Basil/Davy dance sequence is just sublime and it's a rare day that goes by in our house that we don't say "Attaboy, Mike!"
The “coff a cuppie” scene is permanently lodged in my brain.